Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I respectfully disagree with Mr Donaldson's assessment of this. He's obviously entitled to his view, but this government does believe that the regime that we're putting in place is necessary to protect the Australian public, just as we supported the implementation of a high-risk terrorist offender preventive detention regime. Community safety orders are designed to ensure the protection of the community from a small category of noncitizens—that's what it's being used for in this legislation—and that is a category of people who have been convicted of a serious violent or sexual offence. Similar regimes exist in the states and territories. The scheme is targeted at individuals who pose an unacceptable risk of harming the community by committing a serious violent or sexual offence and who are noncitizens in respect of whom there is no real prospect of their removal from Australia becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future.