Topics: Coalition cleaning up Labor’s mess on immigration detainees
07:45AM AEDT
Wednesday, 6 December 2023
Hamish Macdonald: Simon Birmingham is the Shadow Foreign Minister. He’s standing by in our Parliament House studios this morning. Good morning to you.
Simon Birmingham: Hello, Hamish. Good to be with you.
Hamish Macdonald: Given the situation that Australia is now in, in relation to these released immigration detainees, does the Coalition hold some responsibility, given that it voted with the Greens against the Government previously to resolve this situation?
Simon Birmingham: No, Hamish. Let’s be very clear about what happened there. The Coalition said that the legislation before the Parliament was inadequate and that it needed to have a preventative detention regime added. And of course, what passed the Senate yesterday was revised legislation with a preventative detention regime added, just as the Coalition had called for. This is hardly the first time through this sorry saga in the way the Albanese Government has handled this matter, where Peter Dutton and the Coalition have had to lead the Government to solutions that ultimately, the first tranche of legislation that passed through the Parliament, was announced early one morning and the Government said at that stage’ ‘this is as tough as it gets.’ But as you would recall, by lunchtime that day, the Government had accepted all six additional amendments proposed by the Coalition. The same has really happened here that last week the Government presented some legislation, the Coalition said it was inadequate, it needed a preventative detention regime. The Government has agreed to that, thankfully, but again, it has been led by Peter Dutton and the Coalition, not by the Albanese Government.
Hamish Macdonald: If the Coalition and Peter Dutton are leading this, have you done that by drumming up fear unnecessarily in the community?
Simon Birmingham: Well, I don’t think there’s unnecessary fear when we have now a situation of three of these released detainees having already been arrested, one of them arrested over a sexual assault allegation in my home state of South Australia and so you go and ask the woman of that alleged sexual assault, and I think she’d be pretty clear that the fear and the concern is genuine, and that, as we have said all along, the Government has failed because it failed to do the contingency planning or the preparatory work in case the High Court decision went against it. It should have been prepared with this legislation in advance.
Hamish Macdonald: We can get to all of that, I just want to stay if we can, for a moment on the role that the Coalition is playing in this, though, because obviously refugee matters have been a long-fought over political matter in Australia. And I’m just wondering whether you are overstating or overdramatising what the broader risk is here, notwithstanding three incidents that we’ve covered widely. Are you deliberately trying to create fear in order to batter the Government over this?
Simon Birmingham: No, Hamish. I think we have sadly been proven right that when we said there was risk to the Australian community about the release of these individuals and these detainees, we’ve been very quickly proven right in the sense that there have been these three incidents, these three arrests, this incident of an alleged indecent assault in South Australia. And ultimately that has demonstrated that the rapists, the murderers, the contract killers, the paedophiles who were being detained do present a clear and genuine threat to the Australian community; that in a relatively short period of time we have had these terrible incidents take place and it is why the Government has been negligent at every step it seems of its handling of this.
Hamish Macdonald: Simon Birmingham, people with criminal records who serve prison sentences get released all the time into the community. What’s the difference here?
Simon Birmingham: Well, in this case, these people have been identified as a potential continued risk to Australia. That is why they were in detention. That is why, ideally, had circumstances allowed, they would have been deported and that is why it was important to maintain the type of protections in place for the Australian community. That’s why…
Hamish Macdonald: …but re-offending occurs. I suppose that’s the point I’m getting at. I’m just wondering why this particular cohort is viewed so differently. Obviously, the crimes that we’re talking about are serious and terrible. The incidents, the alleged incidents in recent weeks also are significant. But crimes occur, people commit crimes then return to the community.
Simon Birmingham: In some of these cases, individuals have not done the time. In some of these cases, the crimes they’re alleged to have committed are in fact in other countries, but due to the penalties or circumstances in those other countries, we’re unable to deport the individuals back to those countries. So, in fact, you’re not talking about people who have all faced up, done the time, been in those circumstances. You’ve got a range of different complex scenarios here. But I think ultimately, the ….
Hamish Macdonald: …are you though undermining…
Simon Birmingham: …evidence of this is very clear that these individuals have presented a risk to the Australian community because in a short period of time, already three of them have allegedly offended and been arrested. So that’s a pretty in a, you know, in the number of individuals we’re talking about, that’s a pretty quick incidence of problems and risk to the Australian community that has been identified.
Hamish Macdonald: Understood. But isn’t it fundamental in a democracy that you have a justice system that is separate from the parliamentary process, from the executive, that decisions are made based on laws and that they’re applied, and that by trying to circumvent those processes, you’re undermining something fundamental about our society. Is that another way of looking at this?
Simon Birmingham: The separation of powers is important and is absolutely respected. It is for the Parliament to pass laws; it is for the Government to propose those laws and the Albanese Government has been caught flat-footed in terms of being able to propose those laws…
Hamish Macdonald: ….but isn’t it? But hang on…
Simon Birmingham: …no, Hamish…
Hamish Macdonald: …the High Court, in its judgement, was saying something else about what successive Australian Governments have done in terms of creating a system in which ultimately the courts didn’t have much to do with it, it was Ministerial discretion that was determining the indefinite detention of these individuals.
Simon Birmingham: Yes, the High Court made a judgement that overturned a 20-year precedent that had been in place. But there had been speculation the Court could do that, and the Albanese Government should have been prepared with the laws that have passed the Parliament over recent times and had them ready as contingencies. That is what a good government does in terms of being prepared. And ultimately, we’ve got a circumstance where Andrew Giles and Claire O’Neil as the relevant Ministers have been caught wanting in that regard. They hadn’t done the preparatory work, they hadn’t done the contingency work and then each piece of legislation they’ve brought to the Parliament, at the urging of the Coalition, has had to be improved on with the suggestions of Peter Dutton and the Coalition.
Hamish Macdonald: Had your government sought third party countries to send any of these individuals to, or the particular individual that was at the centre of this challenge?
Simon Birmingham: Well, I wasn’t a responsible Minister in those portfolios, so I can’t speak to what type of negotiations might have been taken…
Hamish Macdonald: …Well the Leader of, the Leader of your party was. I mean, are you aware of any efforts made by your government to have them resettled?
Simon Birmingham: Hamish, I cannot speak to specific cases that occurred in previous years and discussions between different governments about attempting to resettle. Of course, many, many individuals were successfully deported by the previous government. We did take a strong line that people who were not Australian citizens, who had committed crimes in Australia, who presented a potential risk to Australians should be deported. And I think that is a position overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people that we should have that strong approach and Peter Dutton was very clear and firm in that approach. Now, not every individual was able to be resettled back into a home country or elsewhere. But ultimately…
Hamish Macdonald: …but, should Peter Dutton explain what the history of these individual cases is, though? Because you seem to be trying to sheet this entirely home to this Government. Yet the Coalition was in office for a decade, up until not all that long ago. I’m just interested in whether or not Peter Dutton as Home Affairs Minister, or any other Ministers in that Government had been attempting to find resettlement options for these individuals.
Simon Birmingham: Hamish, if you listen to my criticisms, I have not attempted to criticise this Government for the 18 months it’s been in power and its inability to resettle these individuals during that time, because we appreciate there are complexities there…
Hamish Macdonald: …well, yesterday on this program, Dan Tehan, your colleague, the Shadow Immigration Minister, was very much criticising them over that…
Simon Birmingham: …what I have criticised them for very clearly is being flat-footed in their legislative response, being indeed all over the place in their legislative response, where they have had to be dragged to tougher and clearer positions at every single step of the way and its been very clear this Government, on day one of the High Court decision, said it would wait for the statement of reasons from the High Court before releasing anybody aside from the one individual who the case was about. Yet then they changed their mind on that and released the individuals before putting in place preventative detention regimes…
Hamish Macdonald: …but just, sorry just on that…
Simon Birmingham: … when the statement of reasons was handed down.. this is very important…
Hamish Macdonald: …no, no, but it is very important, which is why I want to clarify it…
Simon Birmingham: ….when the statement of reasons was handed down, it did back the inclusion of a statement of a preventative detention regime.
Hamish Macdonald: Just to be specific on this, are you saying that this Government did not need to release the additional detainees beyond the individual referenced in the High Court decision?
Simon Birmingham: That’s what the Government themselves initially said after the High Court decision. And then they changed their mind. And yet when the statement of reasons was finally released…
Hamish Macdonald: …but presumably based on legal advice right…
Simon Birmingham: …it was clear that a preventative detention regime could be put in place, should be put in place, and, of course, should have been put in place by the Government much earlier.
Hamish Macdonald: Senator Simon Birmingham, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much.
Simon Birmingham: Thank you, Hamish.
[END]