Let’s go back to Canberra, where today tensions reached boiling point in Question Time regarding the release of 83 criminals – it’s now 83 – from the immigration detention centres across the country into the community.
Joining me to discuss this, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
Peter Dutton, thank you for your time. I know it’s hectic for you at the moment.
PETER DUTTON:
PETA CREDLIN:
You urged the Prime Minister to put emergency legislation into the Parliament to fix this issue exposed by last week’s High Court decision. Has the Prime Minister or the Minister met with you to discuss this?
PETER DUTTON:
No is the answer, Peta.
They haven’t. They haven’t reached out. We’re very keen to be part of supporting any legislation which is going to address the issue.
Just to rewind a second, the Government had a decision handed down by the High Court, as you’ve discussed on the show, and the submission by the Government’s solicitor talks about 92 people.
Now interestingly, the Minister is confirming today that 83 have been released into the community and the others remain behind bars. Now, the Government had a very basic question to answer today: why does the High Court ruling compel you to release the 83 but not the balance? Now, the Government can’t answer that question, the Prime Minister refused to even say today that they were considering legislation.
Now, the important point here is that the legislation should have been in draft form anticipating the High Court outcome so that these people wouldn’t have been released into the community and they wouldn’t pose a threat that is quite obvious. Now, they do pose a very significant threat.
PETA CREDLIN:
Let’s just help people at home follow that point you’re making, because I think it’s very important that it is understood. I mean, when you go forward and you try and defend a case like this, as the Government did, it tried to defend the fact that these people should remain in detention. They would always have a contingency plan in and around the ministry that says ‘okay, if the judgement doesn’t go our way, if we lose this case, what’s our plan B?’.
Now, the Government has tried to imply this was all sprung on them, but it was eminently foreseeable, wasn’t it?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, you’re exactly right.
Any good minister – bearing in mind that the Minister for Immigration is the most litigated minister in the Commonwealth, just given the number of cases that they’re dealing with, the approvals, the cancellations of visas, the change in conditions, etc., a lot of that is contested in the courts and the Minister would have been briefed on the prospects in this case, and if the prospects weren’t great, then the Minister should have instructed his Department to start drafting legislation to address the anomaly that the High Court had identified. If you don’t do that, then you end up with the outcome that we’ve got now, and that is that people are released.
These are hardened criminals, they’re paedophiles, they’re rapists, they’re murderers. The Government promised us a briefing on Monday, there’s still no briefing that’s been provided.
Initially, the Government said that there was no prospect of legislation that could address the High Court concerns, the Deputy Prime Minister was out on TV this morning saying that they were considering legislation now. So their story keeps changing.
The Prime Minister made no mention of legislation today, as I said, but Penny Wong in the Senate said that the Government was going to introduce legislation, and it turns out that Minister Giles has released these people to go and live in motels at taxpayers expense, with money being given to them each day for their expenses, and as it turns out, he’s released people, without putting them on a visa at all, which is nothing short of negligent.
PETA CREDLIN:
If they’re going to try and fix this before Parliament rises at the end of next week, I mean, they’ve obviously got to talk to you. You haven’t had a briefing, you haven’t seen legislation, they haven’t reached out to you, do we even know where these 83 foreign criminals are living?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we know where some of them are living, there was a front page story in the West Australian today about people who have been housed in hotel accommodation. They’d been out partying, drinking, and taxpayers are picking up the bill for their accommodation. It is just quite unbelievable.
Honestly, I was the Minister for Immigration, we dealt with some tough cases and lots of cases that went to the High Court. As Home Affairs Minister, same story. I’ve never seen anything like this in my 22 years in the Parliament and Minister Giles has some sort of ideological position about not keeping these people in jail. These are non-citizens, these aren’t Australian citizens. They are non-citizens who have committed crimes, heinous crimes against Australian citizens, and they will commit further crimes.
The Government initially comes out with this story: ‘oh well you can’t pass legislation’, now it turns out you can pass legislation. Well, it should have been passed as soon as the decision was handed down by the High Court so that these people could have been kept in custody because they are going to offend against other Australians.
PETA CREDLIN:
Well, and let’s just talk honestly. I mean, you’ve been in that portfolio for some time in the former Government. I mean, you’ve got a Minister who has just lost her cyber security expert. They had an update coming out next week. Who knows what will happen there. She’s got the former or current – he’s actually just being stood down – Secretary of the Department on protracted leave, under an investigation because of text messages.
We know that Giles, the Immigration Minister, who reports through to the Home Affairs Minister, Clare O’Neil, too, was caught out doing a lot of fundraisers for ethnic communities in the recent Labor State election here in Victoria.
I mean, you’ve got to wonder, this is not a Department that’s in turmoil, is it?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, the Home Affairs Department was once, under the Coalition Government, as you well know, a department that kept our borders secure. Now it turns out that the Government’s got people arriving on boats that they haven’t spoken about publicly. They’ve got women and children on Nauru at the moment, but the public hasn’t been given the detail.
The fact is that the people smugglers see Clare O’Neil as a complete joke, as many people in her department do. She carries on like she’s still playing student politics at university. What happens when you get distracted by all that nonsense is you take your eye off the ball and you allow criminals to be released into the community. And that’s exactly what’s happened here.
The Department of Home Affairs has some amazing people in it, but at the moment I think they’re completely bewildered with the direction of the Albanese government. There are decisions that the Government’s making which make it harder for those criminals to lose their visas in other cases. We know that they’ve already watered down the laws which prevent people being sent back to New Zealand, for example, even if they’ve committed very serious crimes in our country.
PETA CREDLIN:
Even though I know though, the fish rots from the head. I mean, you’ve got a Prime Minister who’s barely in the country. He’s gone to APEC, he’s meeting with the Chinese President and the US President – he only met with them two weeks ago and could have sent the Deputy Prime Minister. You have said he needed to stay in Australia, have a National Cabinet – that doesn’t get you a seat at the table, you’re asking for a National Cabinet because you want all the state Premiers around the table to deal with the growing concern about anti-Semitism and I think a real risk of civil unrest.
Why do you want to say a National Cabinet and what do you think about Labor’s, I guess, really mixed messages on the question of anti-Semitism?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Peta, there’s no doubt the Prime Minister has a role to play internationally and we accept that, however, the situation is that the Prime Minister has to act in the best interests of Australians first and the Australian public – the ones who voted for him, believing frankly, that he was someone different than he’s turned out to be – they voted for him knowing that or believing that the Prime Minister would have them as his priority. We said today the Prime Minister shouldn’t travel overseas again until he fixes this problem.
He needs to fix the problem with legislation in the Parliament this week, to make sure that those people go back into immigration detention and that they don’t pose a threat to the broader community.
Secondly, and the very significant issue that the Prime Minister needs to deal with at the moment is the rise, the very significant rise, of anti-Semitism. There is a very strong concern, bordering on fear within the Jewish community at the moment.
We’re seeing all sorts of reported cases about anti-Semitic behaviour, the school activity that we’ve seen where kids just want to go and play, they’re being violated against because of their religion and their grotesque acts that we’ve seen from some protesters going into Jewish communities trying to goad people into confrontation. That’s completely unacceptable.
The Prime Minister has the responsibility to deal with it. The best way that he can deal with it is to convene a National Cabinet, which hasn’t been convened on this issue. That brings all the Premiers and Chief Ministers together, it gets an understanding from the state and territory Police Commissioners on what is happening, what they’re saying, and there is overall leadership provided by the Prime Minister at that meeting so that the Premiers can go away knowing what it is that is expected of them by the Prime Minister.
Chris Minns at the moment seems to be playing a very strong role, Victoria’s Premier is a disgrace, in Queensland, Premier Palaszczuk’s essentially checked out and you’re having a situation where there’s not a consistency of approach and the Prime Minister should be stepping up and demonstrating a leadership based on strength, not weakness, and I think Australians at the moment are saying, ‘well hang on, you’ve got domestic issues to deal with before you go on yet another overseas trip, please stay, prioritise us and deal with these issues’, and he’s not doing that.
PETA CREDLIN:
You’re not wrong, Peter Dutton, thank you for your time.