Andrew Giles has backed down on the claim that drones are used to “keep track” of people released from immigration detention, clarifying his claim was a mistaken reference to aerial imagery.
Under pressure again in question time, the immigration minister told the parliament he had relied on “information” from his department for the claim, made on Thursday in an interview with Sky News.
Guardian Australia understands that the Australian federal police, the Australian Border Force and state and territory police forces do not use drones for Operation Aegis, which tracks people released as a result of the high court ruling on indefinite detention.
Controversy over non-citizens having their visas restored by an independent tribunal renewed scrutiny last week on the separate issue of the government’s handling of the high court ruling that resulted in 153 people being released from immigration detention.
On Thursday Giles told Sky News: “Well they are being monitored … There is a quarter of a billion dollars that we’ve invested in supporting our law enforcement agencies.
“That’s enabled things like using drones to keep track of these people. We know where they are.”
On Sunday the Department of Home Affairs clarified that the operation “may use aerial imagery from a variety of sources for operational planning purposes”.
In a statement, Giles said: “Last week, in an interview on Sky News, I stated that Operation Aegis was using drones.
“I relied on information provided by my department at the time, which has since been clarified.
“As part of the work monitoring and supporting community safety, Operation Aegis draws on information from a range of sources using different technologies including aerial open-source and other imagery through their work with state and territory law enforcement bodies.”
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said the government had “no clue” on community safety. In question time, the Coalition queried what the basis for Giles’ original claim was and whether the minister would table the advice.
Giles said that the shadow immigration minister, Dan Tehan, was “loving” his time at the dispatch box, claiming “his real target is the record of the leader of the opposition”, Peter Dutton.
“Because he knows, as we know, that if the leader of the opposition was held to the standard that he seeks to hold others, he would not have lasted a day in the job.”
Giles said that under Dutton as minister, the home affairs department had released people from detention with “no monitoring, no reporting [and] no conditions”.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, took aim at Dutton, claiming his department had released “almost 1,300 hardcore criminals … from immigration detention centres – not because of a high court decision, not because he had to do it”.
“It included 102 sex offenders, 40 domestic violence offenders and four murderers, alleged murderers or accessories to murder.”
Giles also announced that he has now recancelled 30 visas of non-citizens “with serious criminal histories”, after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal had overturned visa cancellations by departmental delegates.
He said the Albanese government is on track to replace a ministerial direction on visa cancellation before the end of the week, with a new order to specify that community safety is paramount and outweighs a non-citizen’s ties to Australia.
The controversial ministerial direction 99 had elevated the strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia to a “primary consideration”, following concerns from New Zealand about the deportation of people with no significant ties to that country.
In November Labor legislated criminal penalties of a minimum one year in prison for breaches of strict new visa conditions, including curfews and electronic monitoring of those released from detention as a result of the high court decision.
That law is under challenge in the high court. Lawyers for the plaintiff have cited Coalition amendments that curfews and ankle bracelets as the default option as a key reason to strike the laws down.
