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Detainee debacle has Labor scrambling again

November 8, 2024

Friday 08 November 2024
Lachlan Leeming and Clare Armstrong
The Daily Telegraph


 Detainees released from immigration centres will remain in the community  without ankle monitors or curfews until each is individually assessed under  Labor's new plan to counter a High Court ruling against its original  measures.
 
 The new regulation, signed into effect by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke  yesterday morning, empowers him to reinstate monitoring measures on former  detainees deemed likely to commit a serious offence carrying a minimum  sentence of five years.
 
 Mr Burke is also pursuing laws that would allow the federal government to pay  third party countries to accept the non-citizens and pave the way for those  individuals to be re-detained in immigration detention if they refuse the option  to be deported to the o willing third-party nation.
 
 Curfews and ankle bracelets were imposed on the detainees released following  a High Court decision last year, which ruled against their indefinite  detention.
 
 Among the cohort of 215 released by the High Court since the original NZYQ  ruling, 65 have reoffended, of whom 45 are not in custody.
 
 Those given curfews and orders to wear ankle bracelets were informed they  were no longer required to comply with the measures on Wednesday morning  after another High Court case ruled the monitoring was unconstitutional.
 
 It's understood the individual known as YBFZ, a 36-year-old stateless refugee  who brought the case to court, had his monitor removed on Wednesday following  the ruling.
 
 Further appointments were being made yesterday for other former detainees to  have their ankle bracelets removed.
 
 Mr Burke's regulation enables him to work around the High Court ruling, while  legislation he introduced to parliament yesterday will give him further  abilities to either send unlawful non-citizens overseas, or back into  detention.
 
 "This government's first priority is community safety ... The first  priority is not ankle bracelets or detention for these people, our first  priority is we don't want them in Australia at all, and that is why we  introduce powers today in the legislation to improve the government's  capacity to remove people from this country in that situation," Mr Burke  said in Question Time.
 
 In a joint statement, Coalition MPs James Paterson, Dan Tehan and Michaelia Cash slammed the government, saying the High Court loss meant ex-detainees  who had previously committed crimes would be in the community without  monitoring.
 
 "All 215 of the dangerous non-citizen offenders released on the Albanese  Labor government's watch are now free in the Australian community," they  said. "This cohort includes 12 murderers, 66 sex offenders, 97 people  convicted of assault, 15 domestic violence perpetrators and others who will  be free in the community without any monitoring or curfews." "

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