|
November 30, 2023
30 November
Clare Armstrong
The Courier Mail
Criminal on run now being monitored as new laws 'coming'
A man who evaded police and refused to wear an electronic monitor after being released from immigration detention has been found.
The former detainee has now complied with stringent visa conditions, including wearing an ankle bracelet and following a curfew but Labor and law agencies have refused to reveal where the man was located or any details of his criminal history.
Australian Border Force deputy commissioner of regional operations Vanessa Holben said she understood people had been concerned while officers worked to "urgently resolve" the situation.
"I can assure everyone in the community that our officers have worked around the clock to make contact with the one affected individual in question, and we're delighted to confirm this person has now been fitted with a monitoring device," she said.
Ms Holben said ABF officers, with the support of the Australian Federal Police, will "continue to ensure members of the affected cohort comply with their conditions to maintain the ongoing safety of the community".
ABF confirmed of the 138 individuals required to wear an ankle monitor, only two people had not been fitted with a device.
One had a complex medical issue to resolve and the other was continuing to refuse the monitor. Their location remains known to authorities.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was a "relief" the missing detainee had been located but Australians had a "right to know" how the "dangerous stuff up occurred".
The absconded detainee saga only added to Labor's political woes since the November 8 High Court ruling that prompted the release of 141 non-citizens, including convicted murderers and rapist.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said Labor was "moving quickly" to introduce a preventive detention law that would allow them to lock up detainees deemed a risk to the community.
But Ms O'Neil was not able to confirm how many or on what grounds any of the 141 might be re-detained.
"The High Court decision actually specifically refers to child sexual abuse as one of the grounds on which preventive detention might also be lawful," she said. "These are the decisions that the Government will make over the coming days and we want to get this law passed before the parliament rises next week." Yesterday the Coalition accused the Government of setting itself up for failure by agreeing in May the detainee at the centre of the court case, a man convicted of child sex offences known as NZYQ, could not be resettled or deported. Anthony Albanese went on the attack in Question Time, arguing Opposition leader Peter Dutton had failed to deport NZYQ when he was in government.
