May 29, 2024
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EMMA REBELLATO: Well, the Immigration Minister has ordered an urgent review into visas recently reinstated by a Commonwealth tribunal, which have allowed a number of convicted criminals to stay in the country. The Home Affairs Department has also admitted it failed to warn the Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles, about several urgent legal challenges involving visa holders. Liberal Senator and Opposition spokesman on Home Affairs James Paterson joins us now. James Paterson, good morning.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning.
REBELLATO: Thanks for joining us on News Breakfast. Well, first of all, let's get your take on this review that Andrew Giles has ordered. What do you make of it?
PATERSON: Well it's the logical thing to do. But frankly is too little, too late. It was over a year ago now, in January 2023, that the Minister issued a new ministerial direction, which had the effect of requiring decision makers, including the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, to put greater weight on someone's ties to Australia. And the result of that, as the department warned him at the time, is that fewer people who committed serious crimes who are non-citizens would be deported. And we've seen that in the most horrific detail over the last few days, including a new case uncovered this morning by The Australian newspaper of a man who offended in terms of rapes and sexual assaults against 26 women and girls who came from Scotland, who's not an Australian citizen, who has been allowed to stay in our country, as a result of this direction.
REBELLATO: So who should cop the blame from this? Because the direction was brought in. But it's up to the tribunal to interpret that direction, isn't it?
PATERSON: If it was just one rogue tribunal member or one decision, maybe you could blame the AAT. But now we have dozens. In fact, more than 30 cases that the media has uncovered of serious violent criminals who've been allowed to stay in our country. And what those decisions have in common is they all point to this ministerial direction, and the new primary consideration that Andrew Giles inserted into that direction, that considerable weight should be given to a person's ties to Australia, regardless of their level of offending, if they've been here for a long time. And so really, the only person who can take responsibility for this is ultimately Andrew Giles. And if he refuses to do so, then the Prime Minister should do so. We think Andrew Giles should be sacked, and we think direction 99 should be immediately repealed and replaced with the previous direction to the Department and the AAT, which required other factors to be weighted much more highly than someone's ties to Australia.
REBELLATO: So if you scrapped direction 99, what would you do about the issue of New Zealand? Because this was brought in in part because New Zealand was worried and concerned about getting lumped with criminals who have lived in Australia virtually all their lives and they were being deported to New Zealand. What would you do instead?
PATERSON: Well not just in part - entirely. Jacinda Ardern lobbied Anthony Albanese and he gave in instead of standing up for Australia. Instead of protecting Australia, he gave in to Jacinda Ardern. My view is if you are a guest in our country, if you're a non-citizen, regardless of how long you've been here, if you commit a serious, horrific crime, you have broken all the principles of your stay in this country and you should be deported. No ifs, no buts. I don't care if you came here when you were five, but in some cases, these are people who came to Australia in their late teens, in their 20s and even their 30s. So the idea that these people should not be deported from our country, I think is completely wrong. And a future Liberal government, if we are elected at the next election, will begin deporting these dangerous criminals again.
REBELLATO: Senator, we also heard in Senate Estimates committee yesterday from the Home Affairs Department that it failed to warn the minister about a number of, criminals who could have their visas cancellations reinstated. What's your reaction to that?
PATERSON: It's very hard to understand how this happened. And the department had no good answers about how this occurred. I'll be prosecuting that issue with them today because, frankly, the minister and the minister's office should have noticed that they were no longer being notified about these cases. It's utterly routine for a minister for immigration to be notified by cases like these. If all of a sudden you stopped hearing from your department about these, wouldn't you ask some questions? What happened to all those referrals? What happened to all those notifications where they are required to make decisions cancelling visas? Something that a Minister for Immigration does on an almost daily basis, if not weekly basis. And yet, when that didn't happen it appears Andrew Giles asked no questions at all.
REBELLATO: Senator Paterson, we also heard in a different Senate estimates committee, in a Senate estimates last night that a fifth of almost 10,000 Palestinians who've sought a temporary Australian visa since October 7th have had their applications rejected. So that's just over 2300 approved. And at the same time, more than 3300 visas have been approved for Israelis. Is there an imbalance here?
PATERSON: I am concerned that, 2,300 visas have been granted to Palestinian document holders in a very quick period of time, after the 7th of October. Let's remember that this is a war zone controlled by a terrorist organisation. And on average, these visas were granted in 24 hours. In some instances they were granted in as little as a few hours. And I've got no idea how you can do an adequate identity check, let alone a proper background check and security check on people like that. The reality is, we have a serious enough problem with anti-Semitism in this country, serious challenges with social cohesion, before we go and increase that by bringing in people who have attitudes that are problematic. So I'm very concerned that the department and the government has rushed this process unnecessarily.
REBELLATO: But are you not concerned that the Palestinians are living in a war zone at the moment, that many of them are fleeing for their lives.
PATERSON: Absolutely. There are no doubt genuine, innocent people in Gaza who want to flee, and Australia has a role to play, but we have to do it carefully by protecting our own national interests and our own national security. The safety of the Australian people must come first, and we must do adequate checks. We know adequate checks weren't done because after many of these visas were granted, they were subsequently cancelled. So why would you cancel a visa that you initially granted if all the adequate checks were done in the first place? It's very clear this was a rushed process and as a result, things were missed, and visas had to be subsequently cancelled.
REBELLATO: Minister, I want to ask you about China as well. There have been reports from a former Chinese spy who has said that there are 1200 spies from China in Australia. How concerned are you and what should be done about this?
PATERSON: Well, look, these are very shocking revelations. And even if the number is not quite as high, it is no doubt that China's the number one source of espionage and foreign interference risk in this country. They're also the number one source of state backed cyberattacks and state backed intellectual property theft. We need to take this challenge even more seriously than we have been over the last few years, because this is a very serious, dominant and rising power in our region, and they intend to reshape our region in a fundamental way that is against our national interests. We must be very robust in standing up for ourselves. We must provide our agencies with the resources and the powers that they need to defend our democracy, because nothing less than that is at stake.
REBELLATO: Senator James Paterson, thanks for joining us.
PATERSON: Thank you.
REBELLATO: Well News Breakfast did invite Immigration Minster Andrew Giles to speak with the program, but he refused to do so.
ENDS
