Albanese Government must bring urgent legislation to Parliament after botching detainee case

The Albanese Government must act to introduce urgent legislation to the Parliament after the High Court today endorsed preventative detention to protect Australians from the dangerous detainees that have been released into our community.

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton and Coalition Shadow Ministers Michaelia Cash, James Paterson and Dan Tehan called on the Government to act immediately to keep the Australian community safe.

The High Court has endorsed exactly the type of response that Peter Dutton has been calling for over the last three weeks, as the Government released more than 140 detainees including pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and a contract killer onto our streets.

The High Court’s reasons for its judgement in the case of the detainee known as NZYQ clearly greenlights a pathway to legislate for preventative detention to protect the community. It falls to the Government now to follow through.

The Government has been saying for two weeks that preventative detention isn’t an option and they’ve been proved wrong today. They should have been ready with preventative detention legislation already.

Questions also arise as to why the Government panicked and urgently released in excess of 140 detainees when the decision clearly applies to the single detainee NZYQ.

The hopeless Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles and hapless Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil should explain to the Australia people why they released each of the other 140 detainees. Both Ministers Giles and O’Neil have shown Australians what amateur hour looks like.

What is also very clear is that the Government botched the handling of this case.

Why did they make concessions in May that NZYQ couldn't be resettled, but then proceed to make further inquiries in August in an attempt to resettle him?

The Court specifically looked at the last-ditch inquiries made very late in the piece. But because it was left so late in the process it was not reasonable to say whether those inquiries were likely to be successful.

Mr Giles and Ms O’Neil should come clean on why they gave that concession which appears to have set the High Court on a path of no return.

This Government has proved incompetent during every step of this process. We will await their further incompetence to be on display in coming days.