Opinion
If the Albanese government was a car, you’d write it off to the scrapheap, instead of pushing it from one disaster to the next.
Well, Albo is running a car, of sorts: a clown car. Only when it breaks down, it tends to spew out foreign-born rapists, murderers, and paedophiles rather than harmless clowns.
Last week, the government stood accused of dereliction in its haste to try to ram through its deportation bill before the Easter break.
Now an obscure Senate committee for the scrutiny of bills has found major problems with the deportation bill itself and the powers it confers to the minister.
Most notably, this committee is dominated by Labor members. None issued a dissenting version of the committee’s report, which was tabled last Wednesday. Nor has any since sought to distance themselves from the findings.
These are blunt in an assessment of flaws in the legislation.
The question, of course, is whether the loopholes are bugs or design features. It must never be forgotten that our now-immigration Minister was once a lawyer-activist for the country-shopping Tamil illegals on the MV Tampa. He’s still behaving every inch the open-borders activist.
For Anthony Albanese, the concern will be whether this reflects the start of a pushback on the bill within the Labor ranks, considering it violates several principles fiercely defended by the Labor left.
But it is Labor who dominates the committee which has heaped scorn on the bill.
One could be reasonably satisfied that if three Labor MPs were happy to sign off on the report, which is highly critical of legislation proposed by the government that they represent, then it may be a view shared more broadly within the Labor caucus.
Having been denied passage of the bill by the Coalition, is this the start of a pushback within Albanese’s own ranks?
Immigration, and especially the issue of turning loose the worst of foreign-born criminals, whom we somehow simply can’t rid ourselves of, is a poison pill for Labor, and Albanese knows it. Hence, trying to ram through a bill that Labor would have had fits over, had the Coalition written it.
Worse for Albanese, though, the whole process has been a complete shambles, and everyone knows it. No matter how desperately the government tries to pretend otherwise.
And the government has still failed to explain its claims to “urgency” for seeking to rush the bill through last week.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong maintained at the weekend that it had nothing to do with the new High Court case ASF17.
This is due to be heard on April 17.
ASF17 concerns an Iranian illegal boat arrival who simply refuses to leave the country. His claims to “persecution” — on the grounds of being “stateless”, alleged conversion to Christianity, and homosexuality — are risible. An Iranian driver’s licence was found in his belongings, and his family own property in Iran — something only available to citizens. So much for “stateless”. He also previously told authorities that he was an Iranian citizen and left the country for economic reasons.
Bogus claims of Christian conversion, a form of taqiyya, are notably common among Muslim asylum illegals.
This case goes to the heart of the issue that the deportation bill seeks to resolve – the non-co-operation of people designated by the government for deportation after exhausting all legal avenues in their attempts to stay in the country.
[Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil] says otherwise, having admitted last week that it was only partially linked to the new High Court case […]
If one accepts the obvious – that the proposed laws have everything to do with ASF17 – then Albanese has another problem.
If the High Court is as swift in delivering its verdict as it was in NZYQ – around 20 days – then there is every chance that the decision will be handed down before the bill comes back before parliament in May.
The Australian
In which case, we can once again look forward to a panicked government turning loose hundreds more unwanted foreigners, without supervision.
Is there anything this government can’t screw up?