November 28, 2023
A released immigration detainee has refused a mandatory electronic tracker and is believed to be uncontactable by police and at-large in the community.
The government has confirmed 141 people have been released from indefinite detention since the High Court handed down its landmark NZYQ decision earlier this month, which overturned 20 years of precedent.
All of those people are now subject to laws that swiftly passed the parliament, including wearing electronic monitoring devices and abiding by curfews.
But five of those people have refused to wear the monitoring devices, and one of those is said to be still uncontactable.
Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram on Monday confirmed the uncontactable detainee had been referred to the Australian Federal Police.
The ABF has been contacted for an update, while an AFP spokesperson said they had “no comment”.
Labor is also reluctant to make any comments on the matter.
The government ministers who fronted up for morning media duties on Tuesday were pressed on the whereabouts of the missing detainee.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said he had “no doubt” police would “find the fellow”.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said her colleagues, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, were “on this case at the moment and will have more to say in the near future”.
“Law enforcement are doing their job right now to bring that to a conclusion” she said.
The government has maintained it was caught “off guard” by the High Court’s decision, and had made a concerted effort to get the man at the centre of the High Court case – a stateless man with a history of child sex abuse – settled in another country in a bid to avoid an unfavourable outcome.
The Coalition’s home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the latest revelation confirmed it had been a “total debacle from the Albanese government from start to finish”.
“What really needs to happen now is pass new laws which can re-detain at least the highest risk criminal offenders among the cohort, which includes rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and at least one contract killer,” he said on Tuesday.
He said those higher-risk detainees could be made subject to similar laws that exist for terrorists.
“You can’t put them back into immigration detention indefinitely, but you can pass new laws to apply to a court to put them in jail because of the risks that they pose to the community. We do that with terrorist offenders, there is no reason why we couldn’t do it with these offenders based on the risk that they pose to our community.”
The government had previously indicated it would look to further strengthen legislation once the High Court published its full reasons – initially not expected until next year.
On Monday, the court confirmed it would make its reasons public on Tuesday, leaving the door open for the government to consider introducing more legislation during this parliamentary sitting week.
The anticipated release was behind the Coalition’s decision to join forces with the Greens late on Monday to vote against criminalising the emergency controls imposed on the released detainees, despite having previously lobbied for such measures.
Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said the opposition wanted to see the High Court’s reasons before voting on more legislation.
Labor had said similar before it rushed through legislation within a day last sitting week.
“We think it needs to go further. We think it needs to be properly considered. We think it needs to take into account the High Court findings or reasons which would be listed today,” Mr Tehan told ABC Radio.
“We wanted to be able to have entered a preventive detention regime, which would enable the worst of these hardened criminals to be put back into detention.
“And we think that the best thing we can do is wait to see what the High Court’s findings are today, and then we can look at those or the reasons for their decision. We can look at those and then we can design a Bill which would put these hardened criminals back into detention. That’s what we want to see happen.”
Mr Tehan said the Coalition was prepared to extend the sitting days of parliament “if necessary” to ensure a strong regime that would keep Australians safe over summer.
