The Coalition has targeted immigration minister, Andrew Giles, over a report a fifth person released from detention has been arrested in connection with an outstanding warrant.
On Thursday the Courier Mail reported that a man was arrested in Queensland after it was realised there was a warrant to return to jail for allegedly breaching his parole conditions before being placed in immigration detention in 2012.
In question time the shadow immigration minister, Dan Tehan, asked about the reported fifth arrest “in connection with an outstanding return to prison warrant”.
Tehan suggested the man had been released from immigration detention “without any checks being carried out” and queried whether he should have been released.
Giles said he “cannot comment on individual cases” and cited earlier comments from opposition leader, Peter Dutton, that it was inappropriate to do so where he had been the decision-maker.
Giles said the government had set up operation Aegis, a joint taskforce between the federal police, border force and state police forces to “share information and enforce visa conditions, steps that have been enhanced by the legislation that passed the parliament late last night. This work of course continues.”
The man is the fifth person released from immigration detention as a result of the high court’s NZYQ ruling to be arrested since release.
At least 148 people have been released as a result of the ruling that indefinite detention is unlawful where it is not possible to deport the non-citizen.
On Wednesday evening the parliament passed laws that will allow the immigration minister to apply to state supreme courts for orders seeking the “worst offenders” in the cohort to be re-detained.
Under the preventive detention regime, courts will be able to order non-citizens convicted of serious violent or sexual offences who cannot be deported to successive terms of three years in detention if satisfied to a “high degree of probability” that there is an “unacceptable risk” the person will reoffend.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, began question time by asking the prime minister to apologise for “failing to prepare for the high court decision it knew was coming for at least six months”, citing four people allegedly reoffending since release.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, replied that “community safety is our priority and I am very pleased that the parliament has passed stronger laws to keep people safe”.
Albanese said the government had created “four layers of protection” including preventive detention, community safety orders, electronic monitoring devices and curfews and “stringent visa conditions”.
“Certainly, I am sorry anytime anyone is a victim of a crime, committed at any time against any victim.”
Albanese revealed that the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has apologised for a fiery exchange with a journalist on Wednesday, describing this as an “appropriate” course of action “when our standards aren’t met”.
