February 12, 2024
PETA CREDLIN: Now the man who has helped us uncover this all Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, James Paterson. Well, thank you for your time, I tell you. If you had not pursue this James Paterson, would we even know this sort of detail?
JAMES PATERSON: Unfortunately, no, Peta we wouldn't know it at all because the Prime Minister and his government made a decision over the summer break to stop reporting this information, to stop revealing it to the public. And it was only through the process of Senate Estimates that were able to force the Department of Home Affairs to finally cough up this information, to finally admit how many murderers there are in that cohort, 7. How many sex offenders there are in that cohort, 37. How many other violent criminals are in that cohort, 72. How many domestic violence perpetrators are in that cohort, a dozen. And the fact that the government has not made one single application to the courts under the preventive detention regime, that the parliament rushed through the parliament before Christmas two months ago. So I don't know what ministers and their departments have been up to over summer, but it's not been protecting the community.
CREDLIN: Yeah. And just on that point, I mean, the Prime Minister goes out to Sydney Radio this afternoon, trying to mop up from that debacle we saw from his Minister. And he makes the point that the threshold, the bar for legal action is high. He's doing all this work behind the scenes, blah, blah, blah. But if he's not happy with the fix they put into the parliament last year, he's the bloke responsible. I mean, this was his legislation. If he thinks it is deficient, he could have remedied it in the Parliament this year.
PATERSON: Exactly right, Peta. There were multiple opportunities to do that if he chose to, but they hadn't brought through any legislation at all. I mean, why did the parliament rush through this legislation before Christmas? If they planned to take a leisurely, long summer slowly going through the processes, not devoting sufficient resources to it, not prioritizing the highest risk among them, and not getting those applications before the court. Because of course, once you make the application to the court, the court will take its own time to consider it, which we can't directly control. The only thing we can control is when those applications are made. And so for them not to have made one application, maybe we should just start with the murderers. Or we could start with the child sex offenders. I don't expect all of the 149 to be behind bars now, but just one would be nice and they haven't even managed to do that.
CREDLIN: He couldn't even tell us though James, who has an ankle bracelet which itself is not great, but at least it means they're monitored in some way. He couldn't even put that information into the Parliament. And he had this, this so, so weak line, that he's got a panel to outsource and make those decisions. Now we elect ministers to make decisions. I mean, surely he's got to go.
PATERSON: There's a total absence of political leadership from the top to the bottom here, from the Prime Minister, from the Minister for Home Affairs and from the Minister for immigration. And can I tell you in fresh news, hot off the press, straight out of Senate estimates just a few moments ago, the Department and Border Force are not able to tell us whether how many of the 18 people have been released into the community, if committed new offenses and been charged for new offenses, are in custody. All the Border Force officials are able to say is, they think some of them are in custody and some of them are out in the community, but they've got no idea. I mean, these are people who've not just offended once, which is what landed them in prison or immigration detention originally, since they've been released. They've offended again, and they've got no idea where these people are or whether or not they're in the community and that is just a travesty.
CREDLIN: And they don't meet that refugee test under international law. They're of bad character. Even their own countries don't want them back. But we're not locking them up. We're not monitoring them with got them out in the community. We've got them on welfare. Taxpayers are paying for them to live somewhere. They've got access to medical care. The whole box and dice. I just have never seen anything like it, I think this is absolutely staggering. I want to ask you a question as a Victorian Senator, because it was a real talking point with everyone I spoke to over the weekend. We have this woman, a mum, that goes missing in Ballarat. We go looking for her, the police and the SES were out there for a couple of days. She's been missing for a week. There's no real leads. Why on earth have we disbanded the search? I mean, how can someone go missing in Australia? And after a week, we just give up.
PATERSON: Peta, like you as a fellow Victorian, I'm very distressed by this news. It makes no sense to me at all why this woman has disappeared and why, after just a week of searching, that search has been disbanded. I hope it's because there's a very good reason why and they have some information, but that hasn't been shared with the public, if it's known to police. Surely we should be continuing all efforts until there is reasonable prospect of finding her or understanding where she's gone. I mean, I know a lot of Victorians are very distressed by this right now.
CREDLIN: Are you going to keep pursuing this detention issue?
PATERSON: Absolutely. We'll be back after the dinner break in Senate Estimates from 7:30 tonight, where there's a whole range of unanswered questions. Among that cohort, 36 people that were not given ankle bracelets, Border Force wasn't able to tell us how many of them have re-offended now that they're in the community and whether or not they pose a risk to the community, it's just worse and worse and worse.
CREDLIN: Thank God we've got you on our side. Senator James Paterson, thank you for your time.
ENDS
