January 10, 2024
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected claims his government is covering up details about convicted criminals released from detention as Border Force moves from weekly updates to monthly reports.
Since the landmark High Court ruling on November 8 that indefinite immigration detention was illegal, Border Force provided weekly updates on the number of released detainees. The government confirmed the updates, which were last provided on December 7, would instead be condensed into monthly reports that could take up to two months to be released.
The latest report was released on December 21, which provided October statistics on immigration and detention.
It will also be at the discretion of state and territory governments to decide to report if any of the released detainees breached local laws, while the Australian Federal Police will continue to report any breaches under Commonwealth law.
Since January 2, seven of the approximately 149 released detainees, including some sex offenders and other violent criminals, have been arrested since their release.
Most recently, the AFP arrested and charged a 45-year-old Afghan man on New Year’s Eve, Mohammed Ali Nadari, in Merrylands, NSW for allegedly breaching curfew obligations between December 15 and December 28.
Others have been charged with committing new crimes under state laws, including a refugee in South Australia convicted of indecent assault and another who served time for running a child sex ring, who had breached state orders after release from detention by contacting a child over social media.
Both of these charges were alerted within 24 hours, as Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles faced questions about public safety in parliament.
Albanese was unable to confirm if more than 149 detainees had been released since the ABF’s last update on December 4 or if more than seven had re-offended in the community.
“The information is released in an appropriate way. What [the Coalition are] trying to do, of course, is to get a story continuing along. But there’s been no change whatsoever from the arrangements that were in place under the former government,” he told Seven’s Sunrise.
“If someone commits a breach of a Commonwealth law, then it will be released in a transparent way, in the normal way. If someone breaches a state law, then the states are responsible for that in the normal way. There’s been no change whatsoever here.”
Opposition spokesman for Home Affairs James Paterson disagreed, accusing Albanese of being “addicted to secrecy and cover-ups”.
“It’s clear the government has changed the way they report on detainees released into the community because they want to keep the public in the dark about their incompetent handling of the High Court’s decision,” he said.
“It’s absurd to claim that there has been no change when only a few weeks ago they were willing to provide this information when asked, but now they will try to bury it in monthly reporting on unrelated offshore arrival numbers.”
A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Andrew Giles refused to confirm if the government has referred criminals freed from immigration detention to judges under the new preventative detention laws that could send serious offenders back behind bars if they’re considered a high risk of committing more crimes.
“The government will not do anything that may put community danger at risk, including speculating on applications before the court, which may prejudice the outcome,” the spokesperson said.
Paterson slammed the government for refusing to confirm, arguing the highest-risk offenders should already be off the streets.
“The government finally agreed to rush through an opposition proposal for a preventative detention scheme before Christmas, but are now refusing to say if they have used it. I fear that’s because they haven’t,” he said.
