Opinion
You’ve got to hand it to the Albanese government: they’re on the ball.
It’s been nearly six months since the High Court’s “NZYQ” ruling, and Labor’s panicked rush to set loose hundreds of violent, depraved foreign-born criminals. Labor are still dithering about what to do.
A halfway competent government would have had emergency legislation prepared well ahead of the court ruling, and kept the rapists and murderers under lock and key while a challenge was mounted.
This is not even a halfway competent government.
Consequently, the whole thing is about to get even worse.
Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan says new legal challenges concerning immigration detainees could see a further 150 “hardened criminals” released into the community, bringing the total as high as 300 as the saga continues.
Mr Tehan accused Immigration Minister Andrew Giles of being “asleep at the wheel”, following media reports that he planned to mount a new defence against a fresh legal challenge concerning immigration detainees.
And our training wheels Immigration Minister is still spinning his little bike uselessly.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles says the federal government will fight the release of more detainees by mounting a new defence in the High Court against asylum seekers who refuse to cooperate with authorities.
Mr Giles, who will come under increasing pressure on the first day of the parliamentary sitting fortnight over immigration detention, said the government would “vigorously defend” the case in the High Court.
If it’s as “vigorously” as they’ve defended the Australian community so far, then we’re really in trouble.
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume says the government needs to stop “pointing at the fire” and “put it out” when it comes to immigration detention.
Labor has said the bar is “too high” as it continues to apply for preventative detention orders against some of the 149 immigration detainees released following the NZYQ High Court ruling last year […]
Ms Hume said the onus was on the government to present legislative amendments which would make it easier to lock up detainees who had been released but were still deemed a public safety threat.
“It is entirely up to the government to move those amendments,” she said. “They are the ones that are dealing with the High Court’s decision and the inability to create preventative detention orders that would be legally binding … They’ve hired a whole bunch of lawyers but they don’t seem to be doing anything.”
The Australian
Oh, come now: they’re specially flying in a thousand or so more Hamas supporters.
What could go wrong?