May 30, 2024
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PETER STEFANOVIC: Let's go back to Canberra now. Joining us is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson. James, good to see you as always. So we had Murray Watt on the program last hour. Taking no blame for direction 99, putting it on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Your response to that?
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning Pete. Well this is a very serious and shocking admission of guilt from the Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister. After spending days saying there was nothing at all wrong with direction 99, there was nothing at all wrong with the instructions that Andrew Giles issued to his department and the AAT about how to interpret immigration law, after days of blaming the AAT, blaming Home Affairs, saying it was someone else's fault, now they've admitted actually the core of the problem was direction 99. Otherwise, why would you be changing direction 99? We know this is a direction that never needed to be issued. The old system that worked under the former government had nothing wrong with it. But they, in arrogance and hubris, decided that they could do it better. And look at what the result has been. Some of the most horrific criminals you will ever hear about, you will ever read about, were released back into the community, allowed to stay here, despite being non-citizens by the AAT. And in every one of those decisions, they cited the new provisions of direction 99 as the reason that they did so. The only thing that's missing now from the accountability here is that no one personally has paid a price. No one has lost their job. And my view is that has to be Andrew Giles and that should happen today.
STEFANOVIC: Well, if Andrew Giles has failed, hasn't the PM got questions to answer here too? Because presumably Giles was just working on the Prime Minister's orders to placate Jacinda Ardern at the time?
PATERSON: This is the heart of the dilemma facing the Prime Minister right now. If he sacks Andrew Giles for something he told Andrew Giles to do, what does that say about him as Prime Minister, including his judgement of appointing Andrew Giles to this portfolio in the first place? And that's probably why it won't happen today, despite the fact it should happen today. The last thing the Prime Minister wants to admit in the middle of a sitting fortnight is that not only his minister got it wrong, but he got it wrong. So what I wouldn't be surprised to happen is that if quietly in the upcoming winter recess of the Parliament, when the attention of the media is elsewhere and people are away from this place, that there's a quiet reshuffle done, and Andrew Giles is moved aside maybe the Home Affairs Minister as well. I think Murray Watt was doing an audition for the Home Affairs Ministry role on your programme this morning and in Senate estimates this week. There's no doubt that Labor colleagues here in Canberra know this is terminal and something has to change.
STEFANOVIC: So yeah, he pointed to Senate estimates this morning as well, where it was revealed when Peter Dutton was Home Affairs minister. Over 100 convicted sex offenders were released from immigration detention, but none of them had electronic bracelets or curfews. So the question being asked this morning if ministers who released convicted criminals into the community should resign, should that same standard then be set for the opposition?
PATERSON: Well Peter, a drowning man does dumb things, and this is a particularly dumb thing that the government has tried to do here. They have tried to implicate independent, taxpayer funded public servants in a grubby political hit and they have asked them to go and do dirt digging on their predecessors. Now the worst thing about that is not just the misuse of public resources, but the fact that they asked the department to do this in the middle of a detainee crisis, in the middle of a community safety crisis. This is a department that's got a few other higher priorities right now I would have thought, than pursuing the government's political opponents and trying to smear them. We don't know the full details of those cases. It's probably the case that most of those people were released from detention so that they could be deported. Peter Dutton's record on immigration detention and protection of the community couldn't be stronger. He personally cancelled 6,300 visas in the portfolio, more than any other minister since federation. And if the Labor party wants to have a debate about who is tougher on foreign criminals in our community, Peter Dutton or Andrew Giles or Anthony Albanese, that's a debate we're happy to have every single day of the week.
STEFANOVIC: Have you got faith in Stephanie Foster moving forward, James?
PATERSON: Well look, that's really a matter for the Minister for Home Affairs and for the Prime Minister. The Home Affairs Department has left a lot to be desired over last few months, particularly under these ministers’ leadership. I cannot understand how they were not able to keep the ministers up to date in a timely way about these cases. It's not actually still clear whether or not they did so, there's contradictory explanations here. The minister says he was never informed. The department says he wasn't informed in a timely way. Those are two different and competing interpretations here. We've got a whole lot of questions on notice that need to be answered, including the brief which set out the new process for the Minister and how many times the department failed to inform the minister in a timely way.
STEFANOVIC: James Paterson, the Shadow Home Affairs Minister. Appreciate your time as always, James.
ENDS
