May 28, 2024
JAMES PATERSON: Morning. Well, just when you think it couldn't get worse, we learned today that at least three former child sex offenders who ordinarily would have been deported from this country because they're not citizens, have been allowed to stay because Andrew Giles issued a direction to his department that we shouldn't be deporting people like that anymore. And it comes at a time when we learned that 28 of the 153 former detainees released under the NZYQ decision have now reoffended under state and territory criminal offences. We have a detainee crime spree. And yet the Albanese government, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Immigration have done nothing to use the powers that Parliament gave them to protect the community. Not one preventive detention order has been used. We really have to ask, how much worse does it need to get before the Prime Minister acts? Andrew Giles should be sacked and direction 99, which he issued, should be immediately repealed.
JOURNALIST: What role does the AAT play here, considering that many of the people on the AAT were appointed by the Coalition?
PATERSON: Well, we now know that two of the AAT members who made these decisions are former Labor politicians, so to try and hang it on the former Coalition government is shameless by the Prime Minister. The truth is, the AAT follows the direction of the Minister. And in direction 99 signed in January last year, Andrew Giles said you have to consider as a primary consideration, even if the offending is severe, a person's ties to this country. Now, that means that we've had a crash in the number of people who are normally deported from our country as a result of the offences they commit in our community. Let's remember, these are non-citizens who commit violent crimes. They should be deported. And it's because of the Albanese government that they are not.
JOURNALIST: Do you have a breakdown of the alleged crimes, and will you be seeking that it estimates and also is the bar too high for the preventative detention regime, and that's why applications haven't been made?
PATERSON: I have written to the department secretary, Stephanie Foster, ahead of Senate estimates with 21 questions that I expect her and the department to be able to provide in a tabled document at the start of the hearing today. She said to me in a spill over hearing for Senate estimates only a few months ago, that she would handle this issue the same way she did last time she appeared before Senate estimates. That is to table a document with this information. Do unless she's been instructed by the Albanese government to cover this up, then I expect her to be transparent and provide this information. On preventive detention orders; if the bar is too high, we are open to working with the government to reform it, to lower it. The government has to explain why in more than six months of being given this power, they haven't used it just even once.
JOURNALIST: Some of the explanation around that from others seems to be that they run the risk of that if the bar is lowered to issue one of these orders, then it all of a sudden becomes punitive and you run afoul of the NZYQ ruling. Do you accept that there is a lot at stake here if these powers are found to be punitive in the eyes of the High Court and therefore can't be used at all?
PATERSON: Sure, but how much time do they need and how bad does it have to get to use it just once? Let's remember, among these 153 people are seven murderers, 37 sex offenders and 72 people convicted of other violent crimes. Many of them have gone on to commit other offences in the community against Australians, we have been reading about it almost every day in the media. Is this government's argument seriously, that not a single one of them is appropriate for a detention order? That the preparations are so extensive that in more than six months they can't even make one application? I just don't accept it.
JOURNALIST: I want to ask you as well, about the Coalition's plan to tear up the visas of any students caught on issuing anti-Semitic slurs can you walk us through those changes proposed?
PATERSON: Well, the Immigration Minister and the Home Affairs Minister have very significant powers to cancel peoples visas on character grounds. And on some of those character grounds include inciting discord in our community, engaging in racial and religious intolerance, political extremism and support for terrorism. All of those are grounds for some of these student protesters to have their visas cancelled. We have seen horrific anti-Semitism from those protesters. Even the Education Minister, Jason Clare, admits today that what we've seen at Melbourne University is repugnant anti-Semitism. And yet, where is the Minister of Home Affairs and where is the Minister for immigration? These visas should be cancelled and these students should be sent packing. We don't need to import any more antisemitism than we already have in our country.
JOURNALIST: Would the chant 'from the river to the sea' classify as anti-Semitism and be grounds for a visa to be torn up under these proposed changes.
PATERSON: Well, the Prime Minister set the standard on that, the Prime Minister has said from the river of the sea is a very violent statement that has no place in Australia. It's up to him to enforce that standard. But frankly, I don't have high expectations given he hasn't been able to enforce that standard within his own caucus. He has a Senator in his own caucus who has repeated that statement, endorsed that statement, and there have been no consequences for her.
JOURNALIST: Just on direction 99. Do you want the whole of the direction to be removed, or is it just that specific reference to the strength of ties to Australia, or the whole lot?
PATERSON: Well direction 99 could be just replaced by the instrument issued by the last Coalition Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration, and it would work fine as it did under the previous government. Violent criminals who were not citizens would be deported. The main problem with direction 99, is that this new primary consideration of the strength of ties to Australia has been introduced. That wasn't a primary consideration before, and it says if that person's ties to the community are so strong that it doesn't even matter how serious their crimes were, they shouldn't be deported. That is an extraordinary thing. I think the whole direction should be repealed and replaced with the previous one.
Thanks everyone.
ENDS
