May 29, 2024
MATTHEW PANTELIS: Senator James Patterson is federal Shadow Home Affairs Minister and joins me now. Shadow Minister, good morning. Thank you for your time.
JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you.
PANTELIS: This situation is just goes from bad to ridiculous, doesn't it?
PATERSON: Every day it gets worse, and you think it can't get any worse after that, and it does. I mean, the latest case we heard about today is a man from Scotland, a non-citizen in Australia, who has committed sexual offences against 26 women and girls. And the AAT has allowed him to stay in Australia. And they cited Andrew Giles' direction 99 and the requirement that they consider this person’s ties to Australia as the decisive factor which led them to make this decision. I mean, Andrew Giles and the Labor party must take full responsibility for this.
PANTELIS: As I said, just ridiculous. Now, the direction for the tribunal, to give leniency to people who have ties in Australia. What difference should that make when obviously their crimes you would think would certainly weigh in favour of the visa being cancelled.
PATERSON: Well, this is all about appeasing Jacinda Ardern. When she was Prime Minister of New Zealand, she was not happy that the previous government was deporting violent criminals from New Zealand back to their home country after they committed their crimes. And she asked the previous government to change the policy to stop doing so. We refused to do so. But Anthony Albanese, as a weak Prime Minister, rolled over very quickly to her request. And the problem with that is not only that New Zealand's violent criminals are not being deported back to their home country, but citizens of every other country committing serious crimes in our country are also not being deported. And that's a direct result of Anthony Albanese rolling over instead of standing up for Australia.
PANTELIS: Now, I understand the Minister was advised by the department the changes were meant to target people, without serious offending or family violence. Well, that clearly isn't the case?
PATERSON: No. And the department also advised him that there would be at least a 25% reduction in the number of people who had their visas cancelled and lo and behold, that's exactly what's happening. Many fewer people are having their visas cancelled even after committing heinous crimes, including shocking family violence crimes. We learnt a couple of days ago about the man who raped his stepdaughter while his partner was in hospital, giving birth to his child. I mean, how depraved do you have to get to be deported from this country? I would have thought that would have been a straightforward case.
PANTELIS: So the Opposition, I'm sure, you would give consideration, you would certainly move to with the government in a bipartisan manner, would you not, to amend this, to have this changed?
PATERSON: Absolutely. We've been calling for days now for direction 99 to be repealed and to restore the previous direction under the former Coalition government, which put much greater weight on community safety and allowed these people to be deported. But so far the government has dragged their feet and refused to do so. I don't know why they're doing so. Is it because the Prime Minister gave a commitment to Jacinda Ardern? Is it because he can't stand up to Andrew Giles, who is a very important factional player in the Labor party? It's really not clear why, but he's failing to act and Australians are being harmed as a result.
PANTELIS: All right. James Paterson, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS
