November 9, 2023
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning. The High Court made a decision yesterday in relation to immigration detention. A man, a non-citizen who has been in detention for committing a very serious child sex offence has been declared by the High Court to have been unlawfully detained and called to be released. The implications of this for Australia and the Australian community is very disturbing. There are 92 other people, according to the Solicitor General, who are in the same circumstances. These are also non-citizens who committed serious offences or violated the character provisions of the Migration Act and who now need to be released. And the Solicitor General has also told the High Court that up to 340 people could also be impacted by this decision. Now that's hundreds of potential criminal offenders who are non-citizens to be released onto the streets and Australians will be frightened this morning waking up, realising the implications of this. We urgently need action from the Albanese government to make sure that the Australian community is safe. This was a case that was on the books for some time. This was an outcome that was always foreseeable and possible. They should have had a plan B ready to go to introduce to the Senate today to make sure that those unlawful non-citizens could be detained or otherwise protected the Australian community from them. So far we've heard absolutely nothing from the Albanese government about its plans and it's just not good enough. We're learning with this government when it comes to national security, they're often far too slow. They were one of the last governments in the Western world to ban Tik Tok from government devices. They took days before they said anything about the Optus cyber attack. The Prime Minister took almost a week before he convened the National Security Committee of Cabinet to discuss the Hamas attacks on Israel. And most recently we've seen following the Benbrika case in the High Court, which was forecast for many months in advance, still no decision from the government to protect Australians from terrorist offenders who are non-citizens. It's just not good enough. We need the government to step up and protect the Australian community.
Thank you.
