May 28, 2024
Nearly a fifth of former immigration detainees freed following the High Court’s landmark decision in November have since been charged with state offences, compounding pressure on the Albanese government to use new laws to lock up those at high risk of committing new crimes.
According to March figures recently shown to the Senate by Home Affairs, at least 28 of the 153 people released into the community on strict visa conditions after the court declared indefinite detention unlawful have been charged with offences under state laws.
The revelation raises even more questions about Labor’s handling of the crisis after the government conceded last month it was powerless to intervene in state justice systems following a former detainee’s alleged involvement in a violent home invasion in Perth.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the government had still not applied to a judge for an order to re-detain anyone who posed an unacceptable community risk more than six months after passing the tough new legislation with the help of the opposition.
“At least 28 members of the NZYQ cohort have reoffended after being released into the community,” Paterson said. “How bad does the detainee crime spree need to get before they act?”
This masthead revealed former detainee Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43, wasn’t wearing an ankle monitor at the time he was allegedly involved in the violent Perth home robbery on April 16.
It is not known how many of the 28 have been subject to electronic surveillance, but government figures released on May 10 said only 76 of the 153 former detainees were wearing the devices as part of their visa conditions.
The March 24 figure was supplied by the department in answer to a question on notice from Senate estimates on March 27, and is a marked increase from the 18 former detainees who had been charged by state and territory police as of February 1.
During the committee hearing, Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram, who is leading authorities’ supervision of former detainees alongside the Australian Federal Police, said the agency did not keep a “running tally” of people who had been charged with state offences.
“What we need to know is whether there is somebody in the community who requires the visa
conditions to be applied or not,” he said.
“What they’re charged with, when they’re charged, when the state prosecutors change charges, which they do frequently, or drop cases or amend cases – we do not need to keep a running tally on all of that, and we don’t.”
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre principal solicitor Hannah Dickinson said people released following the High Court decision were subject to minimal support “subjected to invasive and distressing conditions and to alarming vilification by politicians and the media, a maelstrom which prevented many from accessing employment, housing and other vital supports”.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the community protection board makes visa condition recommendations based on individual circumstances but “beyond this, the management of state crimes is a matter for state jurisdictions”.
Giles is currently reeling from yet another detainee scandal after it emerged last week that a tribunal, acting partly in accordance with a ministerial direction he issued last year, had released a former detainee, Emmanuel Saki, who went on to allegedly commit murder.
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal reinstated Saki’s visa on March 27, partly due to new rules introduced by Giles last year requiring the tribunal to consider the length of time spent in Australia when deciding if they would cancel a visa.
Known as ministerial direction 99, it was issued on January 23, 2023, to assuage long-held concerns from the New Zealand government that its citizens were being deported in high numbers even when they had stronger ties to Australia than NZ.
Home Affairs’ latest visa cancellation statistics show that, as of December 31, there was a significant reduction of visa cancellations on character grounds – particularly for New Zealanders – in the first six months of the 2023-24 financial year.
Home Affairs is yet to clarify the role of direction 99 in those statistics. Former top immigration official Abul Rizvi said the direction would have influenced the drop in numbers, adding he viewed it as a correction to the policy under the Coalition, which cancelled 1015 visas on character grounds in 2019-20, of which 50 per cent were New Zealanders. That number dropped to 244 in the six months to December.
“I think what had happened under the Morrison government was a pretty extreme position,” he said. “If a person has grown up in Australia as a young child, it’s much harder to argue someone else should take them.”
Official figures also show the number of people in immigration detention on character grounds has fallen steadily since early 2022.
Following reporting by The Australian that the direction was used in determining a New Zealand child rapist should stay in Australia, opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan told reporters in Canberra on Monday the Coalition would scrap direction 99 if returned to government.
“I don’t think that you could get a worse example that ministerial direction is clearly failing and that is why it needs to be rescinded,” he said.
