News about Australia

[Alexender NoahParticipant]

‘Didn’t want the public to see’: James Paterson says govt was forced to ‘cough up’ documents on freed immigration detainees

Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson says the government has been forced to “cough up” documentation it “didn’t want the public to see” following controversy surrounding the release of 149 detainees into the community.

The immigration detainees were freed last year as a result of the landmark NZYQ High Court ruling which found indefinite detention was unlawful, overturning a 20-year precedent.

Documents tabled to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee on Monday provided for the first time a breakdown of the serious crimes committed by those individuals.

The documents further revealed that 24 of the freed detainees have reoffended since they were released into the community.

“This is the document that the government didn’t want the public to see, but they’ve finally been forced through senate estimates to cough it up,” Mr Paterson told Sky News Australia on Monday.

Out of the 149 individuals, there are seven murderers, 37 sex offenders and 72 convicted of violent offences such as assault, kidnapping or armed robbery, according to the documents.

There are also 16 domestic violence offenders, 13 drug offenders, and less than five convicted of people smuggling or crimes of serious international concern.

Five of the released individuals were described as being convicted of low-level crimes or having no criminality.

Mr Paterson said among the cohort of 149 former detainees, 18 have already been charged with state and territory offences since their release into the community.

A further six have been arrested and charged as a result of breaching requirements of their visas.

“So 24 of them have reoffended in the community and not one of them has been locked up under the preventative detention scheme that the parliament,” he said.

Following the ruling, the federal government passed new detainee laws through parliament to crack down on released detainees should they seriously reoffend.

The preventative detention legislation allows the government to make an application to a court for re-detention on the basis that two conditions are met.

For an application to be successful, the individual must be convicted of a crime that carries a prison sentence of at least seven years and the court must agree that person poses an “unacceptable risk of committing serious violent or sexual offences”.

However, the documents tabled on Monday revealed the government has made no applications to re-detain any of the 149 individuals into an immigration facility.

“As of 31 January 2024, nil individuals have been re-detained in an immigration detention facility on the basis that there is a real prospect of their removals from Australia being practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future,” the home affairs documents read.

Mr Paterson accused the government of rushing the preventative detention legislation through parliament only for it not to be used.

“So it’s now nearly two months since the parliament passed the preventative detention scheme under pressure from the Opposition and the government has not used it,” he said.

“They have not applied for one of these violent offenders to be taken off the streets and those violent offenders have reoffended, they’ve reoffended against Australians, they’ve been charged with it at least 18 times and a further six who have beached the conditions of their visas.”

Mr Paterson said the Department of Home Affairs has not yet disclosed whether any of the cohort of offenders have been put behind bars.

“I’d be deeply concerned if any of those people are on the streets. I hope they’re at least being held under bail conditions in custody pending these charges,” he said.

“But there is a chance, given that government is not using the preventative detention scheme, that these people are out on the streets yet again.”

Out of the 149 detainees, there are currently 60 in New South Wales, 20 in Queensland, 40 in Victoria, less than 10 in South Australia and 20 in Western Australia.

There are less than five residing in the Australian Capital Territory and none in Tasmania.

Mr Paterson called on the Home Affairs Minister and Immigration Minister to direct their department to make applications to the court to get the “highest risk offenders off the street”.

“Now they haven’t used it (the new preventative detention laws) and the community has suffered as a result,” he said.

“We know that there are crimes committed against Australians as a result of their failure to use these laws.”

0

0

[Author]

Posts