Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

while the government ran alternate case. Indeed, the government apparently telling the court that it could not repatriate the individual who was the subject of the case while potentially receiving advice that perhaps it could repatriate them—undermining the case that it could have run.

Then of course, on the day of judgement handed down by the court, we had the government release the one individual and say they would wait to receive the statement of reasons before doing anything else. But what did they do? They failed again. They failed to stick to what they said they would do.

An opposition senator: That's right.

They said they'd wait, but they started the release—and release and release and release—until more than 100 individuals had been released across Australia. And let's remember: these individuals—murderers, rapists, child sex offenders, paedophiles—these are individuals—