Sunrise’s Natalie Barr has confronted Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil with a shocking list of sex crimes allegedly conducted by detainees who were allowed to stay in Australia as a result of ministerial discretion.
The stunning confrontation has unfolded in the wake of evidence from Home Affairs officials to Senate estimates that a rule change – dubbed ministerial direction 99 – had allowed criminals with significant ties to Australia to avoid deportation.
Immigration minister Andrew Giles is now seeking urgent advice about re-cancelling the visa of a man accused of murder, and other decisions that have resulted in dozens of visas being restored to non-citizens with serious criminal convictions.
As the stunned Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil watched on wordlessly, she was forced to nod as the Sunrise host listed a growing list of alleged crimes on national television.
It follows revelations that a serial rapist who attacked 25 women and a child kept his visa as a result of Mr Giles’s powers to grant leniency to foreign-born criminals.
Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume said the government could not pass the buck and blame to public servants under their leadership.
“Why is it that when something goes wrong in his portfolio you blame the AAT, you blame the courts, you blame the department. When will Mr Giles take responsibility for the decisions that your Government is making that is putting Australians at risk, every single day,’’ Ms Hume said.
Host Natalie Barr then took up that “direct question” and listed a long list of alleged crimes committed by the cohort.
“Surely the buck stops with him. He’s the minister. He made the direction. He had to consider these people’s ties with Australia,’’ Barr said.
“So all these rapists, you want to know what they did?,’’ she asked.
“One raped a 14-year-old stepdaughter while his wave gave birth,’’ Barr said.
“One raped the sister of the mother of his infant child. One raped a disabled 14-year-old and a 16-year-old. One raped a child between the age of 10 and 14 and one raped eight times, 48 counts of sexual assault on 25 women and a teen.
“The judge said he had no remorse. That’s what we’re dealing with and you’re still arguing support for the minister.”
In response, the Home Affairs Minister said she “completely understands the concern that you have about these and the crimes that you’ve listed there are absolutely horrendous.”
“No member of Parliament and no member of the Government will disagree with that,’’ Ms O’Neil added.
“What happened to subsequent to that conduct that the department of home fairs has cancelled those visas. They’ve cancelled them. They’ve taken that action. Then an independent tribunal has overturned those decisions.”
Earlier in the interview, Ms O’Neil brushed off suggestions that Mr Giles should lose his job over the mess.
“The decisions that you’ve referred to in your opening there, overturned cancellation decisions that were made within the Home Affairs department,’’ she said.
“And we’re really deeply concerned about some of these decisions. It does appear that the decisions made by this independent tribunal are not meeting community expectations.
“So actually minister Giles has stepped in here. He’s taking action as a good minister would do. He demanded answers from the department about why these visas were not brought to his attention. He’s actively reviewing about 30 cases that we’re concerned about; indeed he’s already cancelled some of those visas. So he’s doing the right thing. He stepped in at the right moment. It’s important.”
But Barr looked stunned at the suggestion that Mr Giles had stepped in at the “right moment.”
“He stepped in at the right moment ? OK. A lot of people would dispute that. He put in this direction, this ministerial direction last January. Then people raped children.”
Ms O’Neil said that the minister was now stepping in and seeking to consider again whether those visas can be cancelled.
“So I say to you again Andrew Giles is a good minister. He’s diligent in his work,’’ she said.
“This is the right process dealing with this situation.
“What minister Giles did was create a new ministerial direction how cancellation decisions should be considered.”
“Then the rapist used it to stay here,’’ Barr interjected.
Senator Hume said it was a decision of the Government that had gone “horribly, terribly wrong.”
“This is his problem. This is his fault,’’ Senator Hume said.
“He is now scrambling to fix a problem of his own making.”
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth also defended Andrew Giles.
“Direction 99 is only one of numerous factors that the AAT – an independent court – looks at,” Ms Rishworth told the ABC.
She said the Immigration Minister had been “fixing up the mess that was left by Peter Dutton”.
“How did we get here? Well, we’ve got a mess of a migration system that was created under Peter Dutton.”
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2024-05-29 00:09:38Z
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