Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to immigration detention.

There is no higher duty of government than to protect the citizens of Australia. Sadly, we see yet again—and we've seen it since the High Court's decision last year—a government asleep at the wheel when it comes to these important issues of national security that go directly to protecting the citizens of Australia in the circumstances where criminal detainees have been released. Yes, there was a High Court decision. We on this side all understand that. But we also saw, when that decision was handed down, a government that was like a deer in the headlights—a government which did not know what to do and which did nothing for day after day after day following that High Court decision. It didn't seem capable of making a decision.

Ministers got up in the other place and said, 'There's nothing we can do.' Then, following interventions from the opposition—in particular the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Peter Dutton—the government realised there was something they could do and introduced legislation. They then said that the legislation was the absolute best it could be. After having a look at it, key opposition shadow ministers and the Leader of the Opposition once more suggested changes to that bill to strengthen it. The government's bill—the bill that couldn't be improved—suddenly, six amendments later, was improved. Yet we still have a government asleep at the wheel, not fulfilling its principal obligation to protect the people of Australia.

Let me read you the police bulletin that came out: 'Police have arrested a man on 28 February following two incidents in Richmond on 27 February 2024, where a woman was allegedly assaulted and another woman allegedly stalked.' It goes on to say, 'Victorian police can confirm the man is one of the detainees recently released following the High Court ruling.' We learnt during estimates and we have learnt in this place that the government has not put in any applications—not one—for re-detention of those detainees. Documents tabled in the Senate earlier reveal that 37 of the 149 criminals released into the community were sex offenders. Six of those who have been released have been arrested and charged with breaching visa conditions. Another 18 have been charged by state and territory police. So, sadly, what we have seen in the last 24 hours is not an isolated case. It is a repeated pattern of behaviour, and we have a government that seems incapable of taking decisive action in this space. It is incapable of taking decisive action to protect the people of Australia, to fulfil its first and principal obligation as a government.

Instead, we have a government that has spent the last 18 months focused on things that don't help or protect the people of Australia. We have a government that has been incapable of dealing with a range of issues that are confronting the people of Australia. Here we have them clearly failing to address even very simple questions asked by shadow ministers in this place. They were incapable of answering the simplest of questions that any minister worth their salt should be able to answer. That is either because they don't know the answer, which is shameful, or they don't want to say the number. They don't want to say the number of former detainees who have been arrested in this country. That is a great shame.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think we will hear a different set of questions after the Dunkley by-election on Saturday. There's nothing the Liberals like better than creating a scare campaign. That's what they do. When everything else fails, they resort to the tried and true 'Let's just scare people out in the community.'

There is no doubt that it is irresponsible of those on that side of the chamber to suggest that the highest priority of the Albanese Labor government, or any government, is not the safety of our people. It is irresponsible of those opposite to make that claim. We all know that it was the High Court's decision that was made and that no matter what colour the government of the day, whether the Liberals and Nationals were still in power or whether we were, the decision of the High Court would have been the same. The action that needs to be taken has been taken. We're doing everything we can to support law enforcement in this country to ensure there is close supervision of these detainees that are back in our community. We have done that. We've put in place four layers of protection: preventive detention, community safety supervision orders, electronic monitoring devices and curfews, and stringent visa conditions. We've done all of this.

Those opposite have tried to make some mileage out of this whole issue, so I just want to remind those opposite—and they know this; that's the interesting thing when they come into this chamber—that the government's preventive detention and community safety regime is modelled on no less than the Liberal-National coalition's own high-risk terrorist offenders scheme. That's what it's based on. It took more than three years for the first continuing detention order application to be lodged after the high-risk terrorist offenders regime was established. That is why we are paying full attention to the detail and making sure those applications are of the highest calibre, to ensure that they're not going to be rejected. That's why we're putting this in place.

But I want to take up the unfair criticism of the Australian Federal Police and our police services at a state level. To say that we have no sympathy, no concern, for the victims of any crime that has been committed, allegedly, by any of these former detainees is totally unfair and ungracious; it really is. But I want to place on record here today that not only is our government very supportive of them but I personally appreciate the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Border Force and our state and territory police forces for what they do to keep our citizens safe and secure every single day. And they work continuously to do that. We have invested a quarter of a billion dollars to arm our agencies of law enforcement, so we're actually putting the money where our mouth is. If that's not a clear demonstration of the commitment that we have, I don't know what will be. We've given our agencies the tools they need to enforce the strict laws we passed in this parliament last year. Our law enforcement agencies—the AFP and the Australian Border Force, along with their counterparts in the states and territories—work around the clock, as I said, to keep us safe.

Again, I want to reiterate that it is wrong to come into this place and try to assert that a Labor government, this Albanese Labor government, does not give No. 1 priority to keeping our community safe, because we do. The Australian people know that this decision was one taken by the High Court of Australia that could not be denied. (Time expired)

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to say, what we saw today in question time was an alarming and pathetic performance by this government in relation to what is a very serious community safety issue. For the Labor Party, for this government, to try to fob this off by saying that the same laws are in place as when we were in government, that it was a decision of the High Court that's overruled the existing process, and to try to convince the Australian people that there's nothing to see here—which is effectively what they're doing—and then to try to divert the blame for their complete inaction on this matter to the coalition is offensive; it's disgraceful. They stand and say, 'We're working; we're using all our efforts to work with the authorities; we're doing everything we can to keep Australians safe.' We asked them a simple question, one simple question—how many people have reoffended?—and they can't answer the question. So how do we believe anything they've said with respect to their efforts in relation to dealing with this matter, with respect to their attention to this matter, when they can't answer the simple questions of how many people have reoffended and how many people have been arrested?

The throwaway line from the minister at the table is, 'Just google it.' I mean, what utter disrespect for this chamber, for this parliament and for the Australian people when the minister says, 'Just google it'—that's her response. This government is responsible for coordinating this process. This government is responsible for managing the oversight. The minister says, 'We are doing everything we can, working with the authorities, to make sure that these people are being monitored.' Yet what does the community see as a result of this? Offence after offence after offence. And the minister cannot even tell this chamber how many offenders there have been. I mean, what a disgrace, what an utter disgrace.

The simplest of questions that we ask for an answer to, and all we get is deflection: 'It's all the opposition's fault. It's all someone else's fault. You're trying to create something that's not here.' Yet all we're doing is asking simple questions, and the minister tells us, 'Just google it.' How outrageous that that's the answer—no attempt, no 'I'll take it on notice,' which would have been the best answer if the minister didn't have the number, and she should have had the number. As I said, this government is responsible for coordinating this whole process. It's not a matter that the states have to look after. Yes, the state police forces are doing some work. But then the minister comes in here and says, 'We're doing everything we can do to monitor; we're doing everything we can to work with the authorities,' but doesn't know the simplest of details: how many people have reoffended and how many people have been rearrested.

And when it comes to issuing orders to deal with the people who are reoffending, how many orders have been issued? Zero. Zip. Nada. Not one. So how does the Australian community have any confidence in what this government is doing? We ask a simple question, and what do we get? The Sergeant Schultz response: 'I know nothing.' It's an absolute disgrace, and it's shameful. The government makes all these claims about how hard they're working, how they're beavering away working closely with authorities, but we come into the chamber and ask some very simple questions and they treat the chamber with complete disrespect: 'Just google it.' The government needs to do better in responding to the questions of this chamber.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition clearly don't live in the real world and never have. If you trace the issues that arose in today's question time, of which the opposition has taken note, back to the decisions made under the last government, the Federal Court made a number of findings that said that the former government was illegally holding people in detention. This included a man who should have been sent back to his home country but instead was locked up at Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre for many, many years. He was eventually released and has been given some $350,000 in compensation since that time.

A case like that highlights that the last government did nothing within the law to resolve the nature of arbitrary detention in our immigration system. Now, if you are a criminal offender and you've done your time and you don't have citizenship status here then you would expect that, yes, you will be on your way to deportation. But what was missing in the context of the last government but is clearly on the table now—in terms of Operation Aegis and our law enforcement agencies working together—is, in addition to the federal powers we now have, a reinvoking of the state powers. Frankly, I can imagine that there's been a history of states saying, 'Right, this person's served their minimum time; let's make them a federal government problem and set them up for deportation and we'll put them in immigration detention.' But you should really have parole boards deciding whether people are suitable for release, and you should have the kind of oversight and monitoring, when offences are serious, that is actually properly integrated with the state police.

Instead we have an opposition absolutely intent on politicising these issues. We have been working through putting in place the right layers of protection, which include preventative detention, community safety supervision orders, electronic-monitoring devices, curfews and stringent visa conditions. But, of course, we also have to work with the states, who have remaining powers in their existing criminal law and, in some cases, remaining powers under parole et cetera. Perhaps those issues have expired because someone was merely seen as having served their term and flicked into the federal system. And perhaps states should have kept hold of some of those powers to put potential conditions on someone's release. Instead, that was probably seen as not necessary, and people were pushed straight into the Commonwealth system. These issues have been around for a very long time. For example, the Syrian case that I spoke about had been afoot, with the Syrian man serving some five years in detention. After six years, the Federal Court finally made a decision.

Let's try and look logically and sensibly at these issues. We are working through these issues with urgency and with preparation, recognising the risks that can be presented by having persons with a criminal history who have a likelihood of reoffending. This cohort of people are by no means the only people in Australia who present this kind of risk. We have many thousands of them in our state systems. We need to make sure that we are working together. (Time expired)

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only people who have paid a price for the government's shocking oversight of our justice regime last year have been the victims of the criminals who were unnecessarily released onto our streets. There were 149 foreign criminals released last year as a result of a court case which caught the government completely unprepared. This case had been going on for many months, and we now know that the government had been briefed for many months ahead of it that there was a risk of losing this case—there always is in court cases—and the consequence of the case being lost would potentially be the release of over 100 criminals onto our streets.

Despite that risk, the ministers involved in this portfolio area, Minister O'Neil and Minister Giles, did absolutely nothing to prepare themselves for the worst outcome. In defence of their unpreparedness in the weeks following the court decision, Minister O'Neil claimed that the advice she had was that they would win, so therefore they didn't bother coming up with a plan B. That admission alone should have been enough to have Minister O'Neil sacked. You should never, as someone responsible for such a serious issue as our nation's justice system and keeping criminals off streets, be planning for the best and hoping that it all works out. You should be planning for the worst and then hoping for the best. Minister O'Neil failed to do basic diligence on behalf of the Australian people. She failed her duty that she swore to do: to protect the Commonwealth. She should have either resigned or been sacked from her position.

Of the 149 who have been released, 24 either have been charged or have breached visa conditions. Why is it that, after so long, we still have had no accountability from this government? What does it take for someone to pay a price for the clear errors that have been made? Effectively the government have admitted these errors, because not long after saying that they couldn't do anything about it, that they couldn't have been prepared, they rushed through legislation last year to try, in a belated way, to fix up their mess. There were clearly errors made here, and there were significant errors—enough for people to lose their jobs.

Other Australians have been harassed, have been subject to criminal action because of the government's errors. As I said, those Australians have paid a deep price that, for them, will last for the rest of their lives while the ministers here seemingly get off scot-free and pay no penalty whatsoever. It is not the right example to set in this place. It is not the right approach to restore the trust and confidence of the Australian people in our parliament, where they see their elected representatives making mistake after mistake and paying no price for it.

As I mentioned, 24 of the 149 foreign criminals either have been charged or have breached their visa conditions. That's one in six of those released—so far! We're only a few months down the track. One in six have failed to obey the law since their release. That alone shows the grave risk that faces the Australian people by having these criminals released onto our streets.

The other thing here is: why, after rushing legislation through last year? And we on this side of politics cooperated with that. We helped to facilitate the passage of those bills late last year. Those bills were sold to us as a solution that would allow the rearrest of some of these 149 foreign criminals; we would be able to put some of the worst risks to the Australian people back behind bars to protect Australians. Months later, we still haven't had any of them subjected to these orders that we approved. What is going on?

The criminals who have been released continue to commit crime, yet there has not been a single action from this government to put these people back behind bars given the strong risk they pose to the Australian people. We don't even get basic knowledge of where they are around the country. We only find out in dribs and drabs, like we did just before question time today. According to the Herald Sun this afternoon, yet another one of these 149 foreign criminals has been arrested and charged with fresh sex offences. He is a 43-year-old man from Richmond who has been accused of sexual assault and stalking offences that occurred, apparently, in Richmond on Tuesday. The Australian people deserve better. There should be ministerial accountability. Those ministers should have been gone last year and definitely, given what we've seen today, should be gone today.

Question agreed to.