Labor drops Coalition bid to overturn high court ruling that Indigenous Australians can’t be aliens

The high court ruled in early 2020 that Aboriginal people cannot be aliens but the Coalition had been seeking to overturn that precedent. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

The Albanese government has abandoned a controversial high court case that sought to restore the commonwealth’s power to deport Aboriginal non-citizens.

The decision by the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, guarantees that a dozen Aboriginal non-citizens at risk of deportation will be able to stay in Australia, and ends the former Coalition government’s attempt to overturn the landmark precedent of Love and Thoms.