November 10, 2023
JAMES PATERSON: Well, good morning, The Albanese government's handling of the High Court's decision on indefinite detention has gone from bad to worse today. It was already bad enough that they seemed to be caught completely unaware when the High Court handed down its decision this week and that they seem to have absolutely no Plan B in place to protect the community when the High Court ordered that these people be released into the community. But it's got even worse today when we now learn that all of the 92 people identified by the Solicitor-General in his evidence to the High Court as being detained for being high risk offenders are now going to be released into the community after the government assured the Parliament and the people of Australia in the Senate yesterday that that would not happen. The Agriculture Minister Murray Watt told the Parliament that only the plaintiff in the case, that is only one person, would be released immediately into the community. And the Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has been forced to clean up today by admitting in fact all of those 92 people likely have to be released immediately and will be released in the community. Unfortunately, Australians can have no confidence that the Albanese government is doing what is necessary to protect them. Let's remember that these people have either committed serious crimes or otherwise violated the character provisions of the Migration Act. They are not Australian citizens. They do not have valid visas to be here and they are now going to be released into the community. And at least in the case of the plaintiff, we know he's a serious child sex offender. We don't know what other crimes the other offenders might have committed that will now be released to the community. Happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST: Senator, are you asking the government to defy the high court?
PATERSON: No, I would never ask the government to do that. Of course, they have to abide by the High Court's interpretation of the Constitution. What they should have done is already be prepared with all lawful options to protect the Australian community from these offenders. That could include, for example, as we do when it relates to terrorism, measures to manage these people in the community, like an extended supervision order or control order, or in a particularly high risk case, it could even include what we have in the terrorism field of a continuing detention order. But the government doesn't appear to have even thought about these lawful options to deal with these issues that are now being raised.
JOURNALIST: Does this High Court ruling exposed potentially other detention orders for a similar legal challenge?
PATERSON: That's a matter for ultimately the High Court to consider in any subsequent cases. That would be very concerning if that was the case.
JOURNALIST: The Government's obviously on a losing streak in the High Court? They lost in Benbrika and they lost here, but do you take any responsibility for the fact that it was Coalition era laws struck down in the case of Benbrika and that you didn't do enough to protect the regime of indefinite detention legislation before you were voted out?
PATERSON: As we've been discussing in another context for many months, the Parliament cannot out legislate the High Court and we have to accept the rulings of the High Court in relation to the Constitution. That doesn't mean the Parliament shouldn't do everything it within its power to try and protect the Australian community and I'm glad you raised the Benbrika breaking because this is another instance where it was predicted that it would be constitutionally vulnerable, where the government had advance warning that the High Court would likely rule it out of order constitutionally and look what happens, nothing. One week from the Benbrika ruling, we still do not have any response from the government about how they're going to protect Australia from a high risk offender who could be released into the community in a number of weeks.
JOURNALIST: If we flip this and look at it from the people who are, you know, indefinitely detained, they can spend years there with no hope of ever getting out. That's been described as inhumane. What do you think of that?
PATERSON: The first responsibility of the Australian government is to protect the Australian people. And while an Australian citizen has an absolute right to be here, someone who is a guest or a visitor in our country does not have that absolute right. And it is perfectly legitimate for a country, as many countries do, to attach conditions to the granting of a visa. I think a reasonable condition for granting a visa is if someone is a good character. And I think if someone has committed a serious violent crime, they are not of good character and they should not be granted the visa. Now, I appreciate it is difficult where it is not possible to resettle those people and solutions that are lawful need to be found to deal with that problem. But the solution to that problem cannot be that those people who are serious violent offenders are just released into the community with no restrictions.
JOURNALIST: Does this ruling mean that the government has now lost the ability to deny refugees in the country a visa on character grounds?
PATERSON: No, that's not clear to me from the ruling as it stands. The ruling, as I understand it, only relates to the question of indefinite detention for people who cannot be resettled in third countries. If these people could have been resettled in third countries, it's not clear that the High Court would have made the same decision as it has. So, I don't think it has wider implications, although certainly refugee advocates and human rights activists certainly have that hope. That's not clear to me on the ruling so far. We'll have to wait for the reasons for the High Court's decision for that to be clearer.
JOURNALIST: Senator, on another topic, does it suffice for Optus to be offering customers free data?
PATERSON: I suspect that Optus customers won't be satisfied with what Optus has offered them in terms of free data, particularly if you're a small business and you lost thousands of dollars of business because you couldn't trade, because the services that you relied on Optus to provide to you, weren't there, weren't available to you. And I suspect Optus is going to be apologising for a long time and probably upping their offer of compensation.
JOURNALIST: So do you think financial compensation is around the corner?
PATERSON: Well, I think customers are probably legal entitled to financial compensation but shouldn't have to go through a class action or legal measures to get that thought, Optus should just offer it to them.
JOURNALIST: Should the CEO stepdown?
PATERSON: That's a matter for the Optus board. I'm skeptical about her performance in this and in the cyber attack but that’s a matter for the board.
JOURNALIST: On the issue of nuclear submarines in the Pacific, as we know a lot of Pacific nations are anxious about it. We're pushing ahead with AUKUS and there's been some calls that perhaps we should update the Treaty of Rarotonga to better reflect today's circumstances. What do you make of all that?
PATERSON: I saw the Prime Minister's comments about that yesterday in the Cook Islands and I support what he said. We support the treaty. We're not seeking to change it or update it. We will abide by the conditions of the treaty as we should.
JOURNALIST: The Government says that it is putting conditions on the release of people as a result of that High Court decision. On what basis do you say that they're not doing enough to protect the Australian community when they are doing that?
PATERSON: You're right, the government has said that, but they also said that we're only releasing one person and not 92 people and on that basis I don't have any confidence in any assurances they've provided, particularly because they haven't specified what those conditions are. They haven't said what crimes these people have committed are, they've provided no detail and no transparency to the Australian people. Let's remember, the Solicitor-General didn't just say there were 92 people who were directly affected who may have to be immediately released. He said there was a further up to 340 people who may also be affected. What's happening to them? Are they also being released? We've had no clarity from the government about this at all today. And really the Agriculture Minister, Murray Watt should have already come into the Senate chamber and corrected the record and admitted that he misled the Senate yesterday when he said we do not have to release anyone other than the plaintiff until the High Court hands down its full reasoning. Well, we now know that's not true. He should've fronted up to the Senate already and corrected the record.
JOURNALIST: You've asked for more details about the offenses, and we know there has been some horrific offenses but we have horrific offenses in Australia, people serve their time all the time and get released back into the community. Why is these cases different? Just because they've been in immigration detention if we're not calling for the same scrutiny of people in Australian community that have committed similar or worse crimes?
PATERSON: Because Australian citizens have an absolute right to be in their own country. Visitors, guests in our country do not have an absolute right to be here and it is perfectly reasonable for Australia, like almost every other country in the world, to attach conditions on that basis. One of those relevant conditions is if you are of good character and if you've committed a serious violent crime or a serious sexual crime I don’t think you're of good character, and I don't think you should be welcome in this country and it has been bipartisan consensus in this country for 20 years that your visa should be cancelled and if resettlement options can't be found for you, then you shouldn't be released into the community and the High Court has overturned that. There’s nothing you can do about the High Court's decision, but the government should have had a Plan B to protect the community from what a serious offenders.
JOURNALIST: Senator, given the High Courts rule, is there any justification for these people to be held in detention?
PATERSON: Well, the government certainly has to comply with the High Court orders. They should not defy the orders of the High Court and it may be already that they are liable for some compensation to those people that have been detained, that is something for subsequent court action to determine, that is possible. But I certainly wouldn't encourage the government to defy the orders of the High Court. What I would encourage them to do is to have that plan B in place, and I'm astonished that they have not come on this instance or in the instance of Abdul Benbrika.
JOURNALIST: On the issue of climate change, a UN report I believe it was, released this week is. Shows that despite the 20 largest fossil fuel producing countries, which Australia is one, committing to net zero by 2050, there, all of them are actually a majority and are actually expanding coal and gas projects. What do you make of that? And specifically with the Prime Minister being in Pacific Islands where they're, you know, this is a threat to their very existence?
PATERSON: It certainly wouldn't be the first time that other countries in the world have talked a big game on climate change but not actually delivered on that. Australia has been attacked in the past, promising to do enough, but we at least always do what we are promised to do and under our government we did that too. Maybe there was an argument for making stronger cuts, but we should never promise to do things that we're not willing to actually follow through on, as many countries have been exposed to doing in recent years.
JOURNALIST: So, are we doing enough to satisfy the Pacific? Clearly, they want more fossil fuel phase out.
PATERSON: Well, Australia's got to determine its own emissions targets consistent with our own national interests, and we should, of course take into account the views of our friends and family in the Pacific. And we do have their best interests at heart too. But ultimately it's a sovereign decision for the Australian government to make about what is the best pathway for us.
JOURNALIST: Shouldn't all of that accountability go towards the coalition government and the fact that they wouldn't have had a plan in place for the rules that they put in, which have directly lead to people being let out, as opposed to the Labor Government who inherited the court cases.
PATERSON: There's a couple of overlapping issues there, which I think you've partially confused, between a continuing detention order and the cancelation of his citizenship. But either way, this is a person who is a serious convicted terrorist offender who's a dual citizen, whose citizenship was able to be cancelled as a result of that and who has been challenging the lawfulness of that decision for some time. This government, which was elected 18 months ago and said it would protect the Australian community, it cannot say it's surprised by the court ruling. It was always a possibility the court would rule as it has. It's a 50-50 proposition at best on most occasions, and they should have had a Plan B in place. It's not good enough to blame someone who is not in government anymore of their failure to have a plan B and protect the community. And he will be out here in the community within a matter of weeks, unless this government does something. Now we will offer bipartisan support to correct those laws in any way that’s necessary to ensure that the community is protected. The Senate has met this week. We could have dealt with it this week. The House is meeting next week, it could deal with it next week. But the government have no plan to deal with it, and they have to take responsibility for that.
JOURNALIST: Sorry, on the point of accountability, you say the government has a week you had an entire term in office had the entire term in office and we couldn't get the legislation right on the citizenship, because the High Court overturned it. When it comes to the CDO. These are two separate cases, one for the citizenship, and one being about people being let back into the community both legislation and both the underpinning came under your government, so the former government. No plan B was put in place in case of a high court challenge, and which was acknowledged at the time, could be a possibility. So why is this falling to the lack of the Labor government? If you guys had laws in place that could have been challenged and you knew that could be challenged, that Labor inherited.
PATERSON: You can't change the law in advance of a High Court ruling on its constitutionality to protect the law, you can only introduce the law to fix the problem after the High Court has ruled. And had we been in government and had the High Court ruled out the law on its unconstitutionality, I'm confident saying that we would have had a Plan B ready to go the day after that court decision to make sure that the community was protected. You can't anticipate a future High Court ruling, but you can be ready with legislation in case it rules in a way that you think it won't. That's what the government should have done.
JOURNALIST: But how can you be ready with legislation if the High Court ruling hasn't been handed down, like you said, and then give the government a week to come up with laws that you guys couldn't make watertight in all the time in office and given them a week and they shouldn't they have that leeway to wait for the ruling so they know exactly why the laws were unconstitutional?
PATERSON: They should have draft laws ready to go, which if necessary, could be modified based on the ruling of the High Court hands down and could be introduced to the parliament straight away. It is not an option just to wait weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and in the meantime, expose the community to danger. There was no Plan B, there is clearly no plan B. The Attorney General's Department and the Department of Home Affairs should have been working on a plan B well, knowing that this case was coming.
JOURNALIST: Senator, just on the practicality of the people that will be released into the community, will they have to create a new visa subclass that these people will fit into? Can they fit into an existing visa class? You know, the practicalities of how that's managed. How do you see that playing out?
PATERSON: Look, that's not yet clear and I really hope that the government is carefully considering all those options because there must be a lawful option to protect the community from these people, including restrictions on their movement and on their activities or requirements to report police stations as we do under terrorism offenders. It may be that a new class of visas is necessary, but unfortunately it doesn't appear that work has been happening.
JOURNALIST: On cost of living, heading into Christmas, everyone's calling for a cut to fuel excise, should there be one?
PATERSON: Look, that's a matter for the government, that’s something we did in government because we thought it was an appropriate measure at the time to relieve cost of living pressures. Unfortunately, fuel prices are back where they were when we made that decision to cut it by $0.22 a litre. This government, despite criticising us at the time for the impost that that represented on household budgets, has done nothing to address that cost of living issue for families. Thank you.
ENDS
