Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) | Hansard source

I second the motion. The hopeless and hapless minister needs to go. The Australian people want answers to very serious questions, and the minister cannot give them. The first question we asked in question time today was: can the minister confirm, as he'd said in the parliament last year, that all those victims had been contacted by the department? Could he answer that question? No, he couldn't. The second question we asked was: are the 149 hardened criminals being continuously monitored? Could he answer that question? No, he couldn't. We know that 36 of those hardened criminals don't have ankle bracelets, so how could they be continuously monitored? Yet he said in this parliament that they were being continuously monitored. He misled the parliament in doing that.

We asked him: are those 149 hardened criminals being continuously monitored? He couldn't answer it. We then asked him: how have 18 of those people committed crimes in the states and territories? They've reoffended. How could they have been continuously monitored? He couldn't answer that. It's damning, and it's continuously damning. We asked the minister why he didn't attend crucial meetings in the lead-up to the decision to let the 149 hardened criminals go. On 14 September, his office met with the legal counsel of his department. On 12 October, his office met with the legal counsel of his department. On 31 October his office met with the legal counsel of his department. Where was the minister? He was completely absent.

As a matter of fact, we found out from Senate estimates last night that in June the government was warned that they were likely to lose the case, yet the minister did not meet once—not once—with the legal counsel from his department until after the High Court had handed down its decision. He stood in here and said his No. 1 priority was to keep the Australian community safe. Is that keeping the community safe—not turning up to one meeting with the legal counsel? That is a dereliction of duty. That means nothing else than that the Prime Minister should sack his minister. We cannot get a straight answer out of this minister.

The last question today was a very simple one: are all the people that have been released from the NZYQ cohort on bridging visas R? The home affairs minister laughs about this. Are they on bridging visa R?

Well, he couldn't answer that question, and that question is important because that's the visa that has the conditions on it. The hapless and hopeless minister cannot answer all of these questions, yet he is responsible for keeping the Australian community safe. The No. 1 responsibility of any government is to keep the Australian community safe. If you cannot do that, you do not deserve to govern this country.

I say this: the home affairs minister wants everyone to look here, look there, look in the past and look over here because she doesn't want to own up to her incompetence or the incompetence of the minister for immigration. She doesn't want to deal with the fact that under her watch—

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