November 28, 2023
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning. Well, at 2:15 pm this afternoon, the Albanese government's final excuses for not acting to protect the community will evaporate when the High Court hands down the reasons for its decision for releasing 141 people into our community who were unlawful non-citizens, who committed serious crimes or otherwise violated the character provisions of the Migration Act. The Albanese government needs to be ready to go tomorrow with legislation to introduce a preventative or continuing detention order regime for at least the highest risk offenders in this cohort so the government can apply to a court to have them detained and protect the community over summer. If the Parliament rises before Christmas without having dealt with this issue, we run the very real risk that one of these very serious offenders re-offend against the Australian community over summer and that would be totally unacceptable. There can be no more excuses. They said they couldn't act because they didn't have the High Court's reasons until next year. Well, now we know they're going to have the High Court's reasons this afternoon and they must act.
JOURNALIST: As a first step. Why didn't you support the Government's legislation they put into Parliament yesterday?
PATERSON: For two reasons. One, we don't believe it goes far enough. It doesn't introduce a preventative or continuing detention order. And secondly, since yesterday, we knew that the High Court was about to hand down its reasons and the government themselves has said we will need to re-evaluate all the legislation in light of the High Court's reasons. So, there is no reason for it to be rushed through the Parliament. In fact, the government themselves has acknowledged that by not even listing the legislation which passed through the House yesterday on the Senate program today. So, the urgency that apparently required it to be pushed through in one hour of debate has evaporated today.
JOURNALIST: But it's the first step. It's better than nothing. Why not support that and then deal with preventative detention orders? Because that legislation is also like, if someone now doesn't follow the new rules, you can't even put them back in jail.
PATERSON: Two weeks ago, the government asked us to rush through legislation, through the Parliament, to protect the community. We agreed with them, and we facilitated it in one day. Now they're asking us again to rush through legislation in one day that in part fixes up errors that they made in the legislation that they drafted two weeks ago. And so, we're frankly not willing to take it on trust from them again, that this legislation doesn't have errors, that it doesn't need to be examined, that it couldn't be improved. We think it could be improved. We think a preventative detention order regime could be introduced and we will be moving for them to do that this week in the parliament if they don't do it themselves.
JOURNALIST: What happens if the reasons come out and once you go through them, it appears that preventative detention will also be covered up by this?
PATERSON: Well, I think that would be a very expansive ruling from the High Court, if that is what they hand down, if they anticipate future legislation from the parliament. I think the government should investigate all lawful options to protect the community and we know that both preventative and continuing detention orders are a well-accepted area of law when it comes to high risk terrorist offenders based on the risk that they pose to the community. And the same philosophy could and should be applied here. Some of these people pose a very serious risk to the community. They could re-offend, and they should be locked away from the community on the same basis.
JOURNALIST: Apologies if this one has already been asked, but one of the detainee’s whereabouts is unknown this morning. Do you have any idea where he might be?
PATERSON: It is an absolute disgrace that we have one potentially violent, non-citizen offender out in the community, and the police and border force have absolutely no idea where they are. I mean, this is a total shambles from the government. 141 people have been released. 138 of them are supposed to be electronically monitored, but four of them are not. Three of them because they refuse and one of them because we have no idea where they are. And that's totally unacceptable.
Thank you.
ENDS
