Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
The Hon Dan Tehan MP
Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
Federal Member for Wannon
TRANSCRIPT
Press Conference
Topics: Ruling on ASF17, Ninette Simons, failure of Albanese Labor Government released detainee bashing, rental crisis
10 May 2024
E&OE
Senator Cash
The Coalition welcomes the decision of the High Court in the ASF17 case. What the decision though does not distract from is the disaster that has become the Albanese Government when it comes to the management of detainees in this country. Legal commentators were expecting the decision of the High Court. The High Court has taken the uncontroversial position that a person cannot engineer their release into the community by not cooperating. As I said, the decision was expected by legal experts and it is an uncontroversial decision. However, what it does show is this, the Albanese government did not have to rush through legislation in the last sitting of parliament with absolutely no scrutiny, which has become a hallmark of the Albanese government. The position that the Coalition arrived at which was to send the legislation to a committee to properly scrutinize it was the right one. In relation to, Mr. Albanese and his latest foray into Western Australia. Western Australian’s have a very clear message for Mr. Albanese. Ninette Simons has become the face of Mr. Albanese’s failure to keep Australian’s and indeed Western Australian’s safe. Mr. Albanese offered no responsibility in relation to what occurred but worse than that he refused to apologize to Ms. Simons, Mr. Tehan will have more to say about that. But what Dan and I have also been presented with today is the latest community protection summary for April 2024. What it confirms is this, despite what Mr. Albanese and his Minister said in relation to the Community Protection Board, it only provides recommendations to the government. Those recommendations do not need to be accepted. But what it also confirms is that Mr. Giles as the relevant Minister has delegated important decision making functions to his department. The statistics that have been set out in this document as Dan will shortly go through also raise more questions than answers in relation to why less than half of the released cohort – murderers, rapists, pedophiles, a contract killer, actually had electronic monitoring. But as I said, Ms. Simon’s, Ninette Simon’s, her face – the pictures that will stay with Western Australians for weeks and months to come. Her face is now the failure of Prime Minister Albanese and his failure, as I said, to keep Western Australians safe. Dan.
Dan Tehan MP
Thanks Michaelia. And you’re absolutely right, the High Court has made a decision today, it was a decision that all legal experts were expecting. But what has happened under the cover of that decision is that the Albanese Labor Party have released their latest community safety data. And that community safety data is alarming. We now know that there are 153 hardened criminals out in the community. There are 7 murderers, there are 37 sex offenders, and there are hardened criminals. Now what we know is that less than half of those are being monitored and there is no answer to the question as to why. And what we’ve seen from the Immigration Minister today is further, further dereliction of duty because he will not front up and own these decisions. As a matter of fact, the Community Safety Board is being used to protect the Immigration Minister. It’s not being used to protect the Australian people. He has to answer the question, why has he delegated this responsibility to this Community Safety Board? Why hasn’t he put parameters around what decisions they would make? Why hasn’t he said at a minimum – the 116… 116 murderers, sex offenders and violent criminals had to wear ankle bracelets, had to have curfews imposed on them. Why hasn’t he done that as the responsible minister? Let’s forget about the High Court decision, it was important. But what they have done under the cover of this decision has tried to hide to the Australian people what is actually going on, a dereliction of duty when it comes to protecting them. Happy to take questions?
Journalist
Is it flying in the face of the Minister saying they are taking the community’s protection as a priority and doing everything they can to protect Australian’s?
Dan Tehan MP
Four months ago, Minister Giles said – we are doing everything we can to keep the Australian community safe. We are doing everything we can to monitor these individuals. We know and want to know where they are. That’s what he said four months ago. What this now shows is that is not the case. And sadly, sadly – there will be people today, who will now be even more fearful of what the consequences of this will be.
Journalist
So can I just clarify, so the High Court decision came down, you wanted something, you wanted the legislation sent to committee first. Then this incident in Perth has happened and now another High Court decisions come down. I’m just confused about what it is your wanting?
Dan Tehan MP
It’s very clear, we were very pleased for the government that they made – the High Court made the decision it did today, it was what was being expected. But what we are deeply, deeply concerned about still is their response to the previous High Court decision, which led to – now we know 153 hardened criminals being released into the community – includes 7 murderers, 37 sex offenders, it includes hardened criminals. And yet what we found out of those 153, what we’ve found out today, under the cover of the new High Court decision is the government is monitoring less than half of them, even though the Minister made it quite clear months ago, that he wanted to know where all of them were. And we know the board makes recommendations to the Minister. And we know that the Minister has delegated these decisions. So the Minister is doing everything he can to hide behind bodies and decision makers rather than fronting up and owning these decisions and owning his statement, that he wants to keep the Australian community safe.
Journalist
You mentioned the management of the first High Court decision, isn’t that to the moot point now?
Dan Tehan MP
It’s not a moot point now because if you go and meet with Ninette Simons as I did yesterday, she still wants to know the answers to a lot of questions. Why for instance, was parole given to one of the alleged attackers? Why wasn’t he wearing an ankle bracelet? Why was the decision taken to remove his ankle bracelet? She wants answers to those questions. And we’ve got further answers that we need now because the government has released this data which shows that less than half of these violent criminals, which includes 7 murders and 37 sex offenders aren’t wearing ankle bracelets and are not being monitored by the imposition of a curfew.
Journalist
We spoke to the Premier about this over the last few weeks on and off, the West Australian Premier and he also didn’t know much about the board? What does this tell us about this understanding of the role of this board in relationship to the states and between the Feds?
Dan Tehan MP
A complete lack of transparency. We were told by the Albanese Labor government that they would be working closely with State and Territory authorities, that they would be working seamlessly with them to keep the Australian community safe. Yet they have done nothing of the sort. And the only reason we’re getting some transparency from the government is because it has been forced out of them – but we’re not getting anyone to take individual responsibility. We’ve seen once again, the Immigration Minister hide behind a board, hide behind a delegate. What we’re seeing from the Immigration Minister is that he’s more worried about protecting himself than he is about protecting the Australian people. And that is damning.
Journalist
Can I just ask what’s your understanding of what happens now, both in terms of the detainees and this legislation. Do you have any insight into that from an Opposition’s perspective?
Senator Cash
Could I just make one comment as well in relation to Premier Cook. Premier Cook is right to demand answers from Mr. Albanese. But I would have thought Premier Cook would be out there screaming from the highest rooftop. It is one of his people, a Western Australian that has been allegedly violently bashed by a detainee. Mr. Cook should join Mr. Tehan, should join myself, should join Peter Dutton, should join James Paterson, and be demanding answers from Mr. Albanese as Dan has said. Why in the first instance, did the Commonwealth not oppose bail. Mr. Albanese has no answers for that, Mr. Dreyfus is nowhere to be found. The judge in this matter, she almost pleaded with the Commonwealth, she would have held this person in custody if the Commonwealth had said something and yet they did not oppose bail. Ms. Simon’s is right to demand answers to why that occurred. Why was this detainee not wearing an ankle bracelet? Why was he not being monitored? Again this is Western Australia. I am a Western Australian Senator. Premier Cook is the Premier of Western Australia. We should be all standing together, asking and demanding answers from Mr. Albanese in relation to what happened to Ninette Simons. As I said Mr Albanese, Ninette Simon’s is now the face of your failure to keep Western Australian safe. And I tell you, we will not stop on behalf of Ms. Simons until we have answers to those questions.
Dan Tehan MP
So you’ve gotta understand there were two separate High Court decisions. So the High Court decision today is one that everyone welcomes, because it means an individual who was not cooperating with attempts to remove him from the country will not be set free because he didn’t cooperate. Basically, this decision says you have to cooperate. But what the government has also done today is that they have released this information which goes to the heart of the 153 hardened criminals they released into the community after the previous High Court decision. And what we see from this information is that the Albanese Labor Government is failing to keep Australians safe because less than half those people are wearing ankle bracelets or have curfews imposed on them. And that is an utter disgrace. It is a decision that has been made that the Immigration Minister is running from, that he is hiding from, rather than fronting up and owning it. And we need to know the answer to why, why all those 153 hardened criminals have not had curfews imposed on them and are not wearing ankle bracelets.
Journalist
So then what happens with the legislation if it continues to be you know progress through the parliament. Does that mean you will be supporting it or are you still hoping it will be referred to committee?
Dan Tehan MP
Well as you will remember, this legislation was rushed in a panic when Parliament last sat five weeks ago. We’ve had a Senate inquiry, we’ve methodically looked at it, we’ve methodically examined it, we’ve made recommendations that we think will improve it. As I understand it, the legislation will come back into the Senate on Wednesday, we will go through our normal party processes. We will look at the recommendations that have been made by the Coalition Senators who sat on the inquiry, and then we will make decisions in the lead up to that legislation being introduced on Wednesday.
Journalist
Will you stand in the way of the Government’s Migration Bill if they don’t adopt your amendments?
Dan Tehan MP
We will do what we can to make sure that the government doesn’t make an unholy mess of this legislation like it has in everything else in this area. It rushed this legislation into the parliament. It didn’t want proper scrutiny of this legislation. We have made seventeen… well Coalition Senators have made seventeen recommendations that they think they will improve it. Now we will have discussions with the government if they’re open to them. They haven’t come to us to see whether they want to work cooperatively to get this through. But we will have discussions with the government and say we think it can be improved in this way. And we will also make sure we go through proper processes through our party room, through our Shadow Cabinet before we make those final decisions?
Journalist
Just a random question from Seven Canberra, has the government done enough to encourage Australians to have kids?
Senator Cash
Hahaha, Dan has five, I have none. So, I’ll let him answer that.
Dan Tehan MP
So obviously, we want everyone to be thinking about having a family and we want everyone to be thinking about what it means to have a family. But what we also need to address and this is something where the government has failed once again, is that we want all young Australian’s to own their first home because if you own your first time, you’re more likely to have a family. And the fact that the net overseas migration numbers continue to balloon, the fact that we’re on target to have over 400,000 people come into this country this financial year, on top of the over 500,000 we’ve had the previous financial year while we’ve got a housing and while we’ve got a rental crises. I’m sad to say won’t do much to help young Australians think about having a family at this time.
Senator CashÂ
Thank you all.
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