High Court decision can't hide Government's detainee debacle

The Coalition welcomes the High Court’s decision in the ASF17 case however it cannot hide the Albanese Government’s appalling handling of the detainees’ issue which remains a rolling debacle the like of which we’ve never seen.

The High Court’s decision is what most were expecting. The High Court has taken the uncontroversial position that detainees can’t engineer their own release into the Australian community by being uncooperative. That is common sense.

The decision also shows there was no need for the Albanese Government to rush through in just one day new legislation as it wanted to do in the previous sitting week of Parliament.

The sensible position arrived at by the Coalition to send the legislation to a committee inquiry was always the right thing to do.

But it’s not a good day for the Albanese Government when the best thing you can say is: “thank goodness the Government’s handling of this issue hasn’t gotten worse.’’

The only thing the Government has excelled at in this space is to release hard core criminals onto the streets quickly and to not oppose bail when they allegedly commit further crimes.

When it comes to actually protecting the community, Australians have seen complete and utter failure.

Shocking pictures of Perth grandmother Ninette Simons, allegedly violently assaulted by one of the released detainees, show what the Albanese Government’s failure looks like.

So far all we’ve seen from this Government is blame shifting, evasiveness, factual inaccuracy and a complete refusal to take responsibility.

In regard to the new legislation now listed to come before the Senate next week the Coalition’s position is made clear in the Coalition’s dissenting report.

There are serious problems with what the Government tried to do.

There have been 118 submissions published by the inquiry. 117 oppose the Bill. The only one which supported it is from the Department of Home Affairs.

The Government’s legislation, as introduced, was not in a form suitable to become the law of Australia. We support a strong border protection and immigration detention system. But what is clear is that the Government’s first attempt was not fit for purpose.

This legislation clearly needs to be improved before it can be passed by the Parliament.

The judgment today clearly demonstrates that the Government's arrogant rush to push legislation through the Parliament in one day was misguided, unnecessary and would have resulted in a poor outcome for Australia.