Albanese Government must bring urgent legislation to Parliament after botching detainee case

The Albanese Government must act to
introduce urgent legislation to the Parliament after the High Court today
endorsed preventative detention to protect Australians from the dangerous
detainees that have been released into our community.

Leader of the
Opposition Peter Dutton and Coalition Shadow Ministers Michaelia Cash, James
Paterson and Dan Tehan called on the Government to act immediately to keep the
Australian community safe.

The High Court has
endorsed exactly the type of response that Peter Dutton has been calling for
over the last three weeks, as the Government released more than 140 detainees
including pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and a contract killer onto our
streets.

The High Court’s
reasons for its judgement in the case of the detainee known as NZYQ clearly
greenlights a pathway to legislate for preventative detention to protect the
community. It falls to the Government now to follow through.

The Government has
been saying for two weeks that preventative detention isn’t an option and
they’ve been proved wrong today. They should have been ready with preventative
detention legislation already.

Questions also arise
as to why the Government panicked and urgently released in excess of 140
detainees when the decision clearly applies to the single detainee NZYQ.

The hopeless
Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles and hapless Minister for Home Affairs
Clare O’Neil should explain to the Australia people why they released each of
the other 140 detainees. Both Ministers Giles and O’Neil have shown Australians
what amateur hour looks like.

What is also very
clear is that the Government botched the handling of this case.

Why did they make
concessions in May that NZYQ couldn’t be resettled, but then proceed to make
further inquiries in August in an attempt to resettle him?

The Court
specifically looked at the last-ditch inquiries made very late in the piece.
But because it was left so late in the process it was not reasonable to say
whether those inquiries were likely to be successful.

Mr Giles and Ms
O’Neil should come clean on why they gave that concession which appears to have
set the High Court on a path of no return.

This Government has
proved incompetent during every step of this process. We will await their
further incompetence to be on display in coming days.