August 27, 2024
BEN FORDHAM: We want to check in with Senator James Paterson, the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs. It's been revealed that 28 immigration detainees have been charged by the AFP with breaching their bail conditions since March, and of most concern some of the charges relate to offenders failing to stay away from schools. James Paterson, good morning.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning Ben.
FORDHAM: What are they doing hanging around schools?
PATERSON: Well exactly right. A condition of the visas of the released detainees is that they're not allowed to go close to schools, and that's for a very good reason. In many cases, we're talking about sex offenders, including child sex offenders. And so the visas conditions are very clear. They're not allowed to go these schools or childcare centres or other educational institutions involving children and that has been breached on 13 occasions that we're aware of, and charges have been laid. So it's a very serious breach. And frankly, this government is doing nothing about it. The parliament gave them emergency laws before Christmas to preventatively detain these people, to get them off the streets if they pose a risk to the community and those powers have not been used a single time.
FORDHAM: Yeah, 19 of the charges relate to breaching monitoring conditions, 57 are for failing to remain at a particular address, and 13 involving being near schools. I would have thought that's a pretty clear direction. Stay away from schools.
PATERSON: Exactly right, it couldn't be more simple than that Ben. But some of these detainees are not just breaching but repeatedly breaching it. In total these 28 detainees have been charged with 90 breaches of their visa conditions. And that doesn't even include those who've been charged with state offences. So some of those horrific crimes that we've all heard about, the Perth grandmother who was so severely bashed, that's not even included in this total because they were state offences. So this grand total is far higher than that. And it shows from a cohort of now about 178 people who have been released into the community, it is a seriously recidivist cohort, they are repeatedly breaking the law. And yet Tony Burke, he's been on the desk for a couple of weeks now, and he hasn't even used these powers that the parliament gave him.
FORDHAM: Well, you'll get in trouble from Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, because he's leading to Peter Dutton today describing the opposition leader as dangerous. And he says he's divisiveness should be disqualifying.
PATERSON: Well, I don't think these character led attacks from the Labor Party work. I don't think Jim Chalmers is a credible assassin on those issues. I don't think it persuades Australians. I think people know that Peter is a person of substance and seriousness who cares about community safety. And even this morning Ben, in a Essential Research Poll, which is a union affiliated, leftwing pollster for The Guardian, has found that more Australians back Peter Dutton's call to pause visas from Gaza, than Anthony Albanese's view that we should just hand out 3000 tourist visas and bring these people in. So on a question where Peter Dutton is demonized as a racist and other things. The Australian people stand with him.
FORDHAM: Yeah, I get the feeling that Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese are sensing the pressure is mounting on them. Thanks for jumping on the line. We appreciate it.
PATERSON: Thanks, Ben.
ENDS
