Labor’s failures on community safety are unacceptable.
Last year, they released 153 criminals into the community, including child sex offenders and murderers.
This was after being caught flat footed by a High Court decision, without legislation ready to fix the problem. At least 30 of these criminals have since been charged for new offences.
Recently, it has emerged dozens more non-citizen criminals have had their visa cancellations overturned by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
This includes child rapists, repeat domestic violence perpetrators and drug traffickers.
This is because of a government decision (known as “Direction 99”) which means an offender’s ties to Australia must now be a primary consideration for the Tribunal.
Yesterday, the Department of Home Affairs admitted it warned the Minister that his change could lead to more visa cancellations being overturned. He ignored this warning.
On the same day, the media reported a man had the cancellation of his visa reversed (due to Direction 99) despite having been convicted of eight counts of rape, 48 counts of sexual assault, and three counts of indecent treatment of children under 16.
Keeping Australians safe is the first responsibility of the Government.
That’s why when he was Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton cancelled more than 6,300 visas of dangerous non-citizen criminals.
We will fix Labor’s mess.
Labor has shown it is incapable of taking the decisions needed to protect our community.
We will.
