Opinion
The fallout from the High Court and Labor’s mind-boggling decision to turn nearly one hundred and fifty dangerous foreign criminals loose in Australia just keeps coming. Now a fourth bad wog has been re-arrested — and all Anthony Albanese’s top law officer can do is shout spittle-flecked abuse at reporters.
45-year-old Sudanese-born man, Abdelmoez Mohamed Elawad, became the fourth former detainee to be arrested since the High Court ruling, with the Australian Federal Police charging him with a failure to comply with his curfew and one count of theft for attempting to steal luggage from a sleeping traveller at Melbourne Airport.
At least this time, the foreign crim wasn’t raping old ladies or trying to molest kiddies. Small mercies, I suppose.
The arrest followed that of pedophile, 33-year-old Emran Dad, for allegedly making contact with a juvenile in southeast Melbourne and known sex offender, 65-year-old Aliyawar Yawari, for allegedly indecently assaulting a woman in a motel in Adelaide.
The Australian
If the victims of these criminals are expecting an apology from the Albanese government, they’ve got another thing coming. “Another thing” being a torrent of abuse for even daring to ask. When Sky News’ Olivia Caisley asked whether the government would apologise to Australians who were the victims of the freed criminals, Attorny-General Mark Dreyfus went ballistic, shouting and wagging his finger.
Caisley tried to interrupt with a follow-up question – a common practice for reporters – and Dreyfus snapped. “Do not interrupt! I will not be apologising … for acting in accordance with a High Court decision. Your question is an absurd one,” he said.
The Age
Except that it wasn’t. Dreyfus’ argument — that the government had no choice but to turn hundreds of dangerous criminals loose, no questions asked — is what is truly absurd.
No actually, the question, asking for an apology, is not about whether or not ministers should or should not uphold the law. That is a red herring response. Part of the cover-up of failure. The question went to the utter failure of all three ministers to be prepared in the most basic of ways for the possibility the High Court decision went against the government. Which it did, with disastrous consequences. About how they could have done better responding to the court’s decision. Because they should have done so much better in response.
Rapists, child sex offenders and murderers went free. All with convictions not mere allegations. And there are now allegations of these lowest of the low cretins re-offending after being released. That is on the ministers who didn’t properly plan for the judgement.
They knew full well the judgement was coming and what it was likely to be. The government was briefed beforehand. Justice Gleeson even openly flagged the decision well in advance. Yet, the Albanese government and its responsible ministers did nothing. Zip. Nada.
For example, have legislation immediately ready to avoid the decision regarding one detainee cascading to impact more than 100 others, as it did. Public policy 101. How could an Attorney-General not have systems in place in their office to be at the ready for court decisions that impact governance, with strategies at the ready to swiftly respond? […]
Dreyfus wasn’t being asked to apologise for abiding by the decisions of the court. That’s his false narrative and spin. He was being asked to apologise for being so incompetent as to not know the law well enough to plan for the worst. Him, his office, the triumvirate of hopeless ministers and their offices let this country down. He’s only a KC, after all.
The Australian
It’s not exactly an excuse for Dreyfus that better-qualified lawyers even than him have royally screwed up in this disastrous affair. The incompetence goes all the way to the full bench of the High Court.
The High Court of Australia and our government both made fundamental errors in handling the immigration detention issue […]
The High Court did not provide a detailed judgement detailing the reasons for its decision until November 28, almost three weeks after the initial ruling.
As ex-PM John Howard says, if the High Court isn’t ready to justify its rulings, it shouldn’t make them. It must also think of the consequences of its Ivory Tower judgements.
“The High Court cocooned itself and did not think of the practical situation it created for the government. But the government was completely out of its depth in devising a way to handle such a situation.
My legal advisers tell me it should have immediately applied to the High Court for a stay of execution until the reasons were given. Almost certainly, that stay would have been given […]
Instead, in sheer panic, the government simply released a whole series of extraordinarily dangerous people into the community.
The Australian
Those who indignantly refuse to learn from their mistakes will make them again. That goes as much for government ministers as dopey African crims who go right back to committing stupid crimes, on release.
The PM has a responsibility to sack each of the ministers responsible for this debacle.
But that would require him to learn from his mistakes. Sadly, when it comes to boneheaded cluelessness, Anthony Albanese leads his government in the worst possible sense.