February 12, 2024
CHRIS O'KEEFE: Senator James Paterson is on the line. Senator thank you.
JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you, Chris.
O'KEEFE: What did you make of the Prime Minister there? Effectively saying, look this takes a long time. Senator Paterson knows that because the legal threshold is so high when it comes to this legislation.
PATERSON: Well, it's yet more excuses from a Prime Minister who has been completely weak and incompetent on the handling of this issue from the very beginning. I mean, the Prime Minister didn't even want this information that we've released today through Senate estimates to be public. He directed his ministers and departments to stop publishing this information over the Christmas break. We had to draw it out of them on pain of the Senate's powers. And that's the only reason that we know that there were seven murderers, that there were 37 sex offenders, that were 72 other violent criminals among this cohort. And the reason that we know that the government has failed to apply under the preventive detention regime, that was rushed through parliament quickly before Christmas for a single person to be re-detained and taken off the streets. And in the meantime, 24 of them have breached their visa conditions, or committed other offences in the community. So Australians are victims of people who shouldn't be on the streets at all, because this Prime Minister won't get his act together and won't get his government moving.
O'KEEFE: Now they base this on the terrorism laws of preventative detainment that, the Liberal Party and the Coalition, when you guys were in government, fashioned and put through the parliament and the Prime Minister said, look, it takes a very long time to ensure you meet the legal threshold to ensure that these people are detained successfully. You don't buy it.
PATERSON: No, I don't buy it at all. And you're right, they did base it on our legislation, but only after a month of us telling them to do so and a month of them saying it couldn't happen. So they finally did pass legislation. But we're more than two months on now Chris. I think that's time enough. I think that's plenty of time to build a case for at least one application. I'm not saying every one of the 149 should be re-detained by now, but at least one, at least one application, because the court processes are going to take time as well. And if you don't even make an application, the court can't consider it. So it could be months before anyone is re-detained and what was the point of rushing this scheme through before Christmas, as we did, if they didn't intend to actually use it in a timely way to protect the community?
O'KEEFE: Do you think they intend to use it?
PATERSON: I hope so, but based on their performance so far, you've really got to wonder if they ever will. We've just been asking officials from the department questions about it right now, and they are full of excuses as to why they haven't done anything. But really, it seems like a question of political leadership. The Prime Minister, the Minister for Home Affairs, Ministry for Migration, should be directing the department to move quickly should be providing the resources that they need to get this done and should set clear expectations that if this isn't done, there will be consequences.
O'KEEFE: Do you think Australians have been let down? I certainly feel that way because 37 sex offenders include undisclosed number of child sex offenders. You're talking about 13 drug traffickers, 16 domestic violence offenders, five people who have committed crimes of international significance.
PATERSON: Exactly right Chris. We have all been let down by this government. They weren't ready for the High Court's ruling. They were panicked when it happened. They didn't have legislation ready to go. They failed to protect the community. And the consequences are 26 of those people have re-offend in some way, those are crimes that have been committed against the Australian community. That should never have happened because these people should not have been let free on the streets. They should have been re-detained when we asked them to.
O'KEEFE: Senator, I'll let you go. Thanks for your time.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS
