November 28, 2023
GARY ADSHEAD: Senator James Paterson is the Federal Opposition's Home Affairs spokesperson and he joins me now. Thanks for your time, Senator.
JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you.
ADSHEAD: Okay. First up. You're saying that the federal government do need to identify this one detainee who's not cooperating. It appears to be on the run without an ankle bracelet.
PATERSON: It's just not good enough that the government is not being upfront with the public about who this missing detainee is, what state they're in, what crime they've committed, what other reason their visa was cancelled on character grounds and what danger they pose to the community. We do know, though, that they've decided that this person needs to have electronic monitoring applied to them, so they must pose some risk. And frankly, it's not good enough they're keeping us in the dark.
ADSHEAD: So, you've had some briefings. Are they not prepared to tell you in those even behind closed doors, what the nature of this person's crime was? Because I know that the Border Force boss is talking about it being low level.
PATERSON: They've refused to give us any information whatsoever about any of the detainees or their crimes they've committed. The only ones we know we know about are the ones that have found their way to the media. And that's not good enough either. I mean, in a parliamentary democracy, the Opposition should be entitled to scrutinise these things, but we're not being told any of this information.
ADSHEAD: Do you know anything about where this put this one particular detainee who's been released might be?
PATERSON: No. We don't know if he's in Western Australia. We don't know if he's in New South Wales. We don't know if he's in Victoria. We don't know if he's in Queensland. We have absolutely no idea where he is. Frankly, I'm not even sure the government knows where he is, although I really hope that they're close to picking him up.
ADSHEAD: But again, in your briefings from yesterday, you weren't? Nothing was explained to you about look, we know that we've got one that's not cooperating and appears to be sort of on the run, if you like, but there's nothing to worry about.
PATERSON: Well, we started to ask questions to the government on these matters and were told that this was not an operational briefing, and we would not be told operational details. We could only ask questions about the legislation that was before the Parliament.
ADSHEAD: Can I just play you? So this is from 3AW radio this morning. So, this is the relative of a woman who was murdered by a middle Eastern man who's one of the people who's been released. Have a listen.
ADSHEAD: Yeah, that's a relative of Svetlana Podgoyetsky I should say. What do you know about that case?
PATERSON: I've had some contact with that family. They are understandably terrified about the consequences of Tony Kellisar being released into the community. For your listeners who don't know, he murdered his wife in 1997 and butchered her and then dipped her body in a vat of acid and then lied about it when he was confronted by police and charged. He was jailed for 22 years for his crimes. And as soon as he was released from jail, he was put into immigration detention because he didn't have a valid visa to be here because he came from Iran on a falsified passport from Canada and sought refugee protection here. So this is a classic case of someone who should not be in the community, but right now, today is in the community wearing only an ankle bracelet because the government is refusing to pass a preventative or continuing detention order regime that could put the highest risk of this cohort back behind bars.
ADSHEAD: And so that takes us to the fact that, you know, yesterday the government introduced new legislation. You're saying it doesn't go far enough? What do you want?
PATERSON: Well, for two weeks now, we've been telling the government you must use the laws available in the high risk terrorist offenders framework, reform them, modify them so they can apply to this cohort so that we can preventatively detain these people or continue to detain these people after their sentences expire so they're not released into the community and they've refused to do so. They've said they could not do so until the High Court hands down it's reasons and they were assuming that the High Court would do so in the new year. So they would go away over the break and consider this and then maybe come back with some legislation next year. Well, we don't think that's good enough, particularly now that we know the High Court is handing down its reasons this afternoon. All the excuses of the government are now gone. They must legislate a preventative detention regime.
ADSHEAD: Isn't there a risk, though, that that could be challenged as well in the High Court?
PATERSON: Oh, I'm almost certain it would be challenged, but it's based on a well understood area of law when it relates to high risk terrorist offenders. That's about the risk they pose to the community, as some of these people do as well. And the government must be prepared to legislate this to protect the community and then argue strongly for it in the High Court if it is challenged. And if the High Court subsequently finds it to be invalid, then they have to come back and try again until they find a way to protect the community because these people have violated the oath they undertook when they came to this country. They said they would uphold our laws. They said they would be of good character and normally they would be deported. The only reason they haven't been deported is that no country in the world will take them because of the nature of the crimes they committed.
ADSHEAD: Well, that's right and so there'll be people saying, would Tony Kellisar fit that regime you're talking about in terms of preventative detention orders or would he escape that as well?
PATERSON: Well, I think he is a prime candidate for an application to a court to do that. Ultimately, it'll be a court that decided whether he met the criteria. But I can't think of a much stronger candidate than someone who murdered his wife, butchered her and dipped her in acid and left her two daughters to grow up without their mother.
ADSHEAD: Can I just ask you, this seems to be some contradiction now around what the government is saying as to the likelihood of them winning the case and therefore they didn't have anything in place once they lost the case to sort of try and limit the damage from all of these people being released. It sounds like sort of Clare O'Neil is saying that she was told, you know, it was likely, but also that there was a possibility of losing weight if they thought there was a likely chance of losing at all, surely the things we're seeing now being brought in needed to have been done earlier.
PATERSON: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, Claire O'Neill has contradicted herself. On the one hand, she clearly referred to legal advice and then a few days later pretended that she didn't. She said that the advice was that they would win the case. But we know that that behind the scenes the government was trying to get NZYQ, the applicant in the case, out of the country. They were frantically trying to do that, obviously, because they thought they were going to lose the case. And yet, despite all of that, they weren't prepared when they lost the case with legislation to come into the parliament to protect the community. I mean, it has been an utterly shambolic performance from the government and the Home Affairs Minister and the Immigration Minister as well. And the Prime Minister has been completely checked out. He's been completely uninterested. He has not led on this issue at all.
ADSHEAD: So, just to clarify where things are, that legislation will continue to be raised in Parliament today. But you're saying it needs to be stronger.
PATERSON: From 2:15 pm onwards this afternoon we have the ability to understand the High Court's reasons and therefore to legislate a new preventative detention order regime to protect the community. We're prepared to sit for as long as it takes. In order for that to happen, we'll sit all week or sit all weekend. We'll sit next week. Whatever is required to protect the community because we don't want to go home before Christmas and leave the community exposed to this risk over summer.
ADSHEAD: All right, Senator James Paterson, thanks very much for your time today.
PATERSON: Thank you for having me.
ENDS
