Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are again—a new parliament but the same shambolic handling of Australia's migration system from the Albanese Labor government. Another bill introduced at the eleventh hour, subverting proper parliamentary scrutiny, as Labor tries to patch over its own failings. Again, it has fallen to the coalition to help clean up Labor's mess.

This will be the fifth bill Labor has introduced in an attempt to fix the chaos it created when it released hundreds of dangerous criminals onto our streets after it lost the NZYQ case almost two years ago. Make no mistake, it is the Labor government's successive policy failures that have brought us to this position in the first place. It's not the High Court, it's not the coalition or the Greens. This mess sits at Labor's feet alone. When the High Court handed down its ruling in the NZYQ case in November 2023, this government was caught flat-footed when it should have had the laws drafted and ready to go. Instead, this panicked government released hundreds of criminal noncitizens into the community with no plan to manage the very serious risks to public safety.

On 14 November 2023 the hopeless former minister for home affairs and the hopeless former minister for immigration said that the released detainees were 'subject to a range of strict mandatory visa conditions'. But as it turns out, no visas were in place at all. According to documents obtained by the coalition under FOI, this government released at least 83 detainees from immigration detention into the community without any visa conditions, meaning they were roaming about freely and completely unchecked.

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