My office is still inundated with calls from Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians from all over the country, demanding answers. The answers are simple: the industry is a racket, a scam preying of the despair of Indigenous Australians in remote communities dominated by poverty and violence, a scam preying on the Australian taxpayer. It's a racket invested in keeping a part of Indigenous Australia in poverty to justify its very existence and to keep the gravy train chugging along.
I have worked with ethical Indigenous leaders to demonstrate some of the corruption of this industry. I've tried to table evidence of this corruption in the Senate but the politicians who are part of this racket won't allow it. I've written to the responsible ministers demanding accountability for this corruption, with no response coming back. I was finally met by the Department of Social Services—tasked with investigating this corruption. They asked me not to talk about it anymore and assured me they were pursuing the matter with all due diligence. They then handed it over to the toothless Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, known as ORIC. ORIC had previously handed the investigation to the DSS on the basis that it didn't have the capacity or expertise to do so.
These delays have been going on for years. The individuals who are subjects of the investigation are still allowed to run an Aboriginal organisation receiving taxpayer money. They're still allowed to remain in positions advising this Labor government. The gap will never be closed as long as this industry is allowed to exist. The only way to get to the bottom of why the gap is not being closed is to conduct a comprehensive audit of this industry's failures. I'm not the only one calling for this audit, but I'm calling for it on behalf of many Australians, Indigenous or not, who are demanding it. Recently other senators like Senators Price and Liddle have been calling for it too, but I've been a lone voice for it since 1996. Labor and Greens senators denied it, and Senators Jacqui Lambie, Tammy Tyrrell and David Pocock refused to support it. They don't want anyone looking at the books. They don't want any accountability for hundreds of billions of dollars wasted over decades. How can they account for approximately $35 billion to $40 billion a year spent on three per cent of the population with little or no real outcomes? Eventually the racket will be exposed for the scam that it is, and those people responsible for it will pay.
Closing the gap requires a return to the principle central to Australian democracy—equality. I have always called for equality among all Australians, and I was condemned as a racist by the same people who have been part of this racket. Assistance should be based on individual need, and all individuals should take responsibility for their own actions. Stop blaming white Australians and colonialism. A person's cultural background or skin colour should never entitle them to more assistance than any other Australian. Equal rights for all and special rights for none, equal laws for all and special laws for none—it is the only way it is fair. It's the only way to close the gap and empower all Indigenous Australians equally. Again, I put forward that I want an audit done on where the money has gone, and I hope that this parliament—if it is really fair dinkum about Indigenous Australians—will support this audit and call for accountability. (Time expired)
]]>That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
Due to its litany of broken promises, inability to secure our borders against people smugglers, control skyrocketing immigration rates, or effectively tackle the cost-of- living crisis, the Albanese Labor Government has not upheld its responsibilities to the Australian people. Consequently, the Senate must issue a vote of no confidence in the Albanese Labor Government.
This is a matter of urgency about the Albanese Labor government. The Prime Minister's shortcomings and his government's litany of failure and broken promises demand action by this chamber. The people smugglers are back, the boats are back and Labor's immigration remains at high records, driving inflation and our housing crisis. Labor has been completely ineffective in tackling our cost-of-living crisis. Labor's own suicidal renewables obsession is driving this crisis, with record energy bills. Labor is attacking our small businesses and farmers at the command of the corrupt union bosses. And, as we discovered today, Labor supported COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Queensland that have been ruled unlawful.
The polls are clear: Australians have lost confidence in the Albanese Labor government. That's because the government is not meeting its responsibilities to the Australian people. It's incumbent on the Senate to express this too and to support a vote of no confidence in the Albanese Labor government. It's the only decent thing to do. When your constituents come to you and demand why you didn't act sooner against the worst government since Whitlam's, at least you'll be able to tell them you tried. The list of failures is endless. The list of broken promises gets longer every day.
Labor's referendum was soundly defeated but succeeded in dividing Australia while costing $450 million. The blame for this has been placed firmly at the Prime Minister's feet by no less than Mick Gooda and Greg Craven. The Prime Minister and his Indigenous Australians ministers blame everyone but themselves. Despite the overwhelming rejection of their politics of racial division, they continue to pursue it. We were promised $275 off our energy bills. They've only gone up, not down. We were promised a transparent and accountable government. We have anything but accountability. Labor has virtually suspended parliamentary democracy in its obscene rush to put union bosses in charge of our country and our economy. They've guillotined a huge number of legislative debates and shut down Senate enquiries.
We were promised the full stage 3 tax cuts. We didn't get them. I was promised regular meetings with the Prime Minister. I've had only one. Australia was promised a royal commission into the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a toothless inquiry in its place that will do nothing but praise dictator premiers in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.
Labor's incompetence on national security has left our borders wide open to people smugglers. They've released dangerous criminal immigration detainees into the community, including murderers and sex offenders. This incompetence has left our military almost completely unprepared to defend the nation. Education outcomes are in alarming decline. Labor lets teachers indoctrinate children and take them on protests rather than teaching them what they must know. Medicare is under huge strain. We face a shortage of GPs, approaching more than 10,000 in just a few years, because Medicare doesn't pay them fairly. It desperately needs a major overhaul to boost our GP numbers, but Labor does nothing to reform it. Labor just pats itself on the back for creating Medicare—how many decades ago was that?—and ignores how flawed it's become. Labor continues to destroy our environment with the enormous geographic footprint of materials-intensive renewable energy. This effort has failed to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. They're going up, not down. And Labor has failed to reform Australia's unbalanced and unjust family law system instead of making it more fair.
I will go back to the point. You push these renewable energies, and you talk about the environment, but you're seeing hundreds of thousands of hectares in North Queensland being destroyed to put up your wind turbines, which is destroying the flora and fauna. You have no idea of the damage that you are doing. You are actually paying billions of dollars to sustain this renewable energy scam that's going on. If it's good enough, let it stand on its own two feet. People are paying double for it through their higher electricity costs and through the taxes for your subsidies. A lot of these are just multinational companies that don't pay tax in this country.
]]>The Queensland Police Service and Queensland Health were wrong to force mandates on their organisations. I said, from the start, these mandates were wrong. I said, from the start, they contravened section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution, which prohibits civil conscription through the provision of medical services. One Nation was the only party saying it. I said, from the start, the mandates should be unlawful. I introduced legislation in this parliament that would have made certain they were unlawful. With a couple of notable exceptions, the government, the opposition, the Greens, Jacqui Lambie, and others, Independents, refused to support my bill. You all got it wrong.
I feel vindicated, once again, that I have got things right and I'm in tune with the Australian people. You didn't care that people were being coerced into vaccination, at risk of their jobs. You didn't care that the individual freedoms and rights you were supposed to defend and protect were under attack. You relished the power that state governments were taking from their citizens. You cheered them on. You were wrong. One Nation was right, because we were standing up for the individual freedoms and constitutional authority that underpin Australian democracy. You didn't, and you attacked us for it. You were wrong.
This decision by Queensland's Supreme Court makes it paramount that we have a royal commission into the COVID-19 pandemic. The Prime Minister's toothless inquiry must be abandoned. Only a royal commission can compel the secret advice that led to these unlawful vaccine mandates in Queensland. And I feel for the firefighters that have gone through it as well in New South Wales and Victoria.
]]>One Nation can be trusted. If we're in a position to do so after the next election, we'll ensure the full tax cuts promised to the Australian people are delivered. That's because One Nation does not support punishing success and aspiration. We don't subscribe to Anthony Albanese's politics of envy, his class warfare or his tall poppy syndrome. We don't trust Labor with Australians' money. We trust Australians with their own money, and we'd rather more of it were in their hands than in those of this reckless Labor government.
This is especially the case right now, with Labor's other policies directly driving inflation and the national housing crisis. Labor pretend to deliver cost-of-living tax cuts with these bills, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living—Medicare Levy) Bill 2024, but their other policies will negate any relief. Labor's record immigration is driving Australians into homelessness, and Labor's pathetic housing policy will do nothing to prevent it. Labor's reckless rush to renewables is driving up the energy bills of Australian households and businesses. Labor's many attacks on our farmers are driving up the cost of our groceries. Labor's attacks on small business and casual employment will drive up costs for consumers and kill jobs. Labor giveth and Labor taketh away.
Labor cannot be trusted, but One Nation can be trusted. No-one is ever in doubt about what I'm doing, because I tell it like it is. Every Australian I talk to is worried about putting food on the table for their family. Every Australian I talk to is increasingly insecure about having a place to live. Every Australian I talk to thinks immigration levels are much too high. And every Australian I talk to says Labor cannot be trusted.
The major parties must stop paying lip service to genuine tax reform. They must pull their finger out and actually do something. They could start with getting back to fundamentals. Taxes are required to ensure government can fund the things it must do. Taxes are not meant to be used to redistribute wealth or punish success and aspiration. It's time we looked at an overhaul of income tax, and we can start with a flat tax rate. One Nation considers that, above a tax-free threshold, there should be a flat income tax rates of 25c in place of progressive taxation and inevitable bracket creep. A person earning $30,000 a year will still pay 10 times less tax than a person earning $300,000 a year.
This would mean we would not be punishing those who, through hard work and skill, earn more than others. It would still generate revenue, with increased discretionary spending contributing to the GST. They could invest their hard-earned money in Australian property to increase rental supply and relieve Australia's—Labor's—housing crisis. They could invest their hard-earned money in Australian companies and Australian small businesses, creating Australian jobs.
For many years One Nation has also been advocating for taxation reform regarding foreign-owned multinational resource companies. Many of them make billions of dollars in healthy profits from exploiting our natural resources. They pay virtually no tax in Australia for this exploitation. The major parties have squandered our natural wealth for decades, making Australia a cheap dirt mine. We could have had a sovereign wealth fund even bigger than Norway's, which is more than $2 trillion. One Nation considers that even minimum reform of taxation, like the petroleum resource rent tax, could generate $25 billion to $30 billion in additional revenue.
To hear the Greens saying we should wipe the debt from students is ridiculous. There's a debt of over $60 billion owed by students who have gone to universities. They say they're not going to tax students going to universities, and we have people going to universities now who shouldn't be in universities; they don't have the qualifications. If you were to open it up for anyone to attend university, those hard-working taxpayers would then fund people who don't have to pay a cent towards it. If people don't pay and don't contribute, they won't put the work and effort in to it. It is not up to the taxpayer. We have provided universities. Those who genuinely want to improve their lot in life, who want to study and learn, must pay their way. We expect people to fund their own health insurance, so they have to pay for their education. We have free education right up to year 12 for students but it's not a given that you should get free education. Who is going to pay the $60 billion? Where is that going to come from? I have no problem with TAFE colleges, but we are pushing people through a university program where they are being brain washed into an ideology where students believe they have to think that way to go out into the world. These are a lot of the things we need to address.
Taxation is collected by governments. There are only two ways to fund it—through taxation or by increasing productivity. The government are continually raising taxes, and now Minister Plibersek is talking about putting a tax on clothing, which will only increasing the cost of living for the Australian people, because it will be passed on to the consumer. This would rake in in another $37 billion in taxes that the Australian people can't afford. This is all the government do—more regulation and more control and more taxes put onto the Australian people who are struggling. They don't get it and don't understand how people are struggling with the cost of living, because they're only making it worse. I don't see government services getting productivity up. The government are not watching where the spending is going, and haven't even had an investigation into the Aboriginal industry, which I've been calling for nearly 30 years, to find out where the money is going. They wasted $450 million on the Voice, and this money could have gone to taxation relief.
As I said, if we had a fair taxation policy where everyone paid the right amount of tax, if we had a 25 per cent taxation right across the board, more people would actually show that they have earnt that money. They would have nothing to hide. Businesses wouldn't be paying employees under the counter. They would admit they've earnt the money but they would go out there and spend it as well. People would actually save a lot of money in accountants while putting their taxation claims in. The Taxation Office would save a lot of money as well. How much does that cost the taxpayer?
There is no clear thinking or vision for this country at all. All the government are worried about is where they will reap the next round of money from. We have failing defence forces, veterans who have not been looked after properly. The farming sector is being destroyed because of the ideology of going after climate change or net zero, which is a big scam and which is costing the taxpayers billions of dollars to fund.
If they think it's so good, then why don't they stand on their own two feet and prove to the Australian people that they can reduce the cost of it, instead of going for all these subsidies? What I see in this government is incompetency. You really have no idea what you're doing. That's why you ram legislation through this parliament. You don't open up for debate. You won't answer the questions. You can't answer the questions! It's the worst government that I've actually had to see working in progress while I've been in the parliament, from 1996 even to this time that I've been involved in the Senate.
Unless you really truly want tax reform, you have to look at your own before you go taking these tax cuts off the Australian people. It was promised by the PM that he would not touch these personal tax cuts. He's lied again to the people. He is doing it. The fact is that you're trying to fill up the coffers because of the waste of money that you've allowed to happen. As far as I'm concerned, look at real tax reform. Incentivise people to get that second, third and fourth job. As one man up around Rockhampton said, he's got five jobs. How much of that money does he lose because of taxes? Put more money back into the pockets of the Australian people. They will spend it. They will make productivity. They will employ more. Instead of denying people tax cuts, what you should be looking at is working with the states to get rid of payroll tax. Incentivise companies and businesses to put on more employees instead of forcing them to pay a payroll tax through the states. All that people have seen is lies and more lies all the time. When we got the GST, we were told that all these other taxes would go. They never went. That's why the people don't trust governments or a lot of the politicians here anymore.
Just come up with something, will you? Both sides should get together to actually come up with something that is going to help the Australian people, because they are seriously struggling out there. These days, both parents have to go out and work to earn money, possibly even to pay a mortgage or a bill, and they're still struggling. And you keep hitting them with higher and higher taxes, one way or another, like the clothing tax that Plibersek is looking at. It just disgusts me that you can't come up with some decent solutions to actually pay down our debt to forge ahead in this country and create productivity. Your answer to it is to increase the immigration levels. That's all it is. Let's increase the immigration levels to—what was it? Nearly a million people? You're bringing 750,000 students into the country, causing a housing crisis. What are you doing?
You can't even look after the pensioners. That's another suggestion I'll give to you. Allow the age pensioners to work unlimited hours. Whatever they work, let them pay the taxes on the money that they've earnt without it affecting what they're entitled to in the pension and with the healthcare benefits. Get the people of the older generation. You can't get the younger ones to work. You're quite happy to pay for the welfare system of over $250 billion a year. Why don't you let the older Australians get up there and work? A lot of them would dearly love to be able to without being crucified and having to pay these ridiculous taxes that you always want to take from them.
Anyway, as I said, I don't support your bill. I won't be supporting it. I support the fact that it's giving those tax cuts to the people, but, in full, you've lied to the Australian people. It was a promise made. You've taken that promise. But I will fight for the Australian people, if we get control of this Senate at the next election, to give those full tax cuts to all Australians.
]]>That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
The need for the Senate to express a vote of no confidence in the Albanese Labor Government due to its broken promises and multiple failures to deliver for the Australian people on everything from national security to cost of living pressures.
Back in 2017 I was in a delegation to India with other parliamentarians, including the current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. I learnt quite a bit about him and his leadership style, and my assessment back then was that he was a nice bloke but no leader. Since last year's election, my assessment has been proven correct. I have no confidence in the Albanese Labor government. The Prime Minister is unfit to lead and Labor is unfit to govern this nation. They are controlled by unions and by the anti-Australian Greens. They pursue policies which directly harm the Australian people and the national economy. Their list of failure, neglect and incompetence is a long one in only 18 months.
Their obsession with climate change and renewables is directly responsible for the record energy bills hurting Australian families and businesses, not to mention transmission lines on farming land. This obsession is well on the way to killing our mining and farming industries, our economic mainstays, which support regional communities and much of the taxpayer funded services Australians take for granted. They're also attacking farmers by taking more water from the communities in the Murray-Darling Basin, shutting down live exports, and polluting agricultural land with renewables or locking it up for nature repair. If you think your groceries are expensive now, just wait.
Labor's incompetence has seen the release of dangerous criminals, three of whom have already been arrested for more alleged crimes, into the community. One hundred and forty-seven have been released or are about to be released, despite the fact that the High Court's decision on extended detention related to only one of them. The government jumped the gun after they were caught with their pants down, and their only response is to blame the former government. People smugglers also have heard the message loud and clear, with a boat actually reaching the Australian mainland a few weeks ago. Immigration is out of control, with record numbers driving inflation and the national housing and rental crisis.
The PM sowed division in Australia with his disastrous campaign for a Voice to Parliament, wasting $450 million At least his divisive referendum exposed the failure of the $40 billion-per-year Aboriginal industry to close the gaps. Labor refuses to investigate and audit this industry to get to the bottom of why it has failed Indigenous Australians in genuine need.
Labor has made the family law system even more one-sided against fathers by removing shared parental responsibility, and it is failing men across a range of issues It has done absolutely nothing to address the epidemic of male suicide, which in the past year has claimed the lives of more than 2,500 men and boys. The PM has a Minister for Women and even an Assistant Minister for the Republic, which doesn't exist, but not a minister for men. Go figure.
Labor refuses to support an inquiry into the huge increase in the number of children being treated for gender dysphoria with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Say no more.
Labor has given the chop to critical infrastructure projects that would improve road safety and water security. It hasn't reduced spending; it's just moved money around and held projects hostage against favourable state election outcomes, especially in Queensland.
Australians are hurting from the cost-of-living crisis. Virtually everything costs more than it did in May last year, when the Albanese Labor government was elected, including groceries, fuel, energy, rents, mortgages and insurance.
These costs just keep going up and there's no end in sight. On average, mortgagees are paying over $20,000 more per year on their home loans as the RBA desperately tries to rein in this inflation.
Labor has made a sport of disrespecting this parliament, the seat of democracy and the people's elected representatives. They've rammed through laws heavy with negative consequences for the economy, national security and the cost of living, giving the people's representatives virtually no time to review them, and I can vouch for that. When I don't get the legislation and you put it on the floor and I have no idea what is going to happen here and you expect us to vote on it, you have no respect for the chambers or the other members in parliament, especially the crossbench. That's why there was my notice of motion.
I have no confidence in the PM or his government, and increasing numbers of Australians agree. They're actually calling for a fresh election now. If you think he's a great leader, call an election and see how the people feel about this. As I said, this is the worst government I have ever seen in parliament under four prime ministers.
]]>That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by Senator Hanson today relating to Indigenous organisations.
It doesn't matter that ACS is registered under South Australian legislation. They administer more than $20 million of federal taxpayers' funds, so they must be accountable to federal taxpayers. The fact that ACS is registered under South Australian legislation strongly suggests its leaders—the same frauds who led ATSIC—have learned their lesson from that episode and are avoiding scrutiny. It's not good enough. They will be held accountable for every cent of public money; I guarantee it, even if Labor will not.
No written response from Minister Burney has been remotely adequate. That is why I've said I've had no response: an inadequate response is no response at all.
On the need for a national audit on the whole $40 billion industry: well, why shouldn't we? Only 20 audits have been done since 2014—20 audits, in an industry where there's about 33 and it's been said, through the referendum, that it's up to $40 billion a year that we've spent on this Aboriginal-industry gravy-train that I've been calling out since 1996, and only 20 audits have been done. And guess what? None have been done under this government—not one. In the year and a half that you've been in here, not one audit has been done at all.
The people woke up to all this under your Voice referendum, because they'd been exposed to how much money has gone into this gravy pot, with no audits done for accountability. You should keep raising the facts about closing the gap and making changes. The money's there. You don't need to keep budgeting any more money, Labor. I keep telling you: don't put any more money there. You've got enough money. Just do the job. Put competent people in. Get rid of the bloody fraudsters. Get rid of the misappropriation of money that is happening. Then you might get some reaction.
Question agreed to.
]]>The NDIS has funded things that are anything but 'reasonable and necessary', such as music lessons, corporate box tickets, first class airline travel and even sex workers! A few years ago, it was revealed that more than 5,000 NDIS recipients were on support packages costing over a million dollars.
NDIS support isn't even means tested, but it should be. Millionaires who can easily afford care for themselves or their families are eligible for NDIS support.
Payment rates under the NDIS for various practitioners are up to three times higher than in other critical sectors like aged care, public health and veteran care. It's creating a shortage of these practitioners in these other critical areas. This is discrimination.
Equipment and contractor costs are also way over the top. This could be addressed with an NDIS card for recipients' plans, so that spending could be tracked in real time.
I have had ongoing discussions with Minister Bill Shorten and the department, to fix this mess up. I'm encouraged by his comments to restrict eligibility for minors with mild autism or developmental delay. He's right, in that there must be better support for these kids in the school system—but not in every school, as I've been saying for years. It's a start, but there's a long way to go.
One Nation supports the NDIS, but it must be made sustainable, to ensure it survives. And the way it's going now, it won't be. We can't afford where we're headed with this, and people who are on it who shouldn't be on it should be thrown off.
]]>In the case of NZYQ the minister is talking through his hat because he actually blames former minister Dutton for the mess that we're in now. The minister knows that you cannot get a lot of these people out of the country, because they've destroyed their citizenship and other countries won't take them, so we're in this mess that we're in. I asked the minister yesterday—and remember that they've been in for a year and a half—how many times he has applied to have NZYQ deported and he said that we've applied to six countries. Why hasn't he been deported? Why sit there and blame former minister Dutton for him not being deported when you know you can't do it yourself? You haven't been able to. That's why we're stuck with them.
Minister, people want to know who has control now, at this time, over the stripping of citizenship. Can you answer my question?
]]>The Greens have just completely lost me. I wish people would really understand what they stand for. Every time they stand up in this chamber I don't hear them fighting for the Australian people at all—not at all. It's always about refugees, other countries and everyone else around the world. That's what you portray to the Australian people. I wish they really understood what you stand for. I don't believe that you fully represent the Australian people. You worry about everyone else but the Australian people.
]]>This has to be dealt with. I am sick and tired, as are the Australian people, of the blame going across this chamber. The coalition have put up amendments to try to strengthen it so that this doesn't keep happening. The Australian people have had enough.
I have sat here and listened to the Greens. They are so righteous. They actually want to open the floodgates for 50,000 refugees. They would welcome everyone into the country. Can you imagine that? We can't even look after our own people in this nation and make sure that they have housing and have food on the table. The Australian people are suffering. Let's open the floodgates, regardless of whether they are true refugees, because they should be allowed to come into the country—that's their attitude.
They will open the floodgates to over 50,000 refugees. Where are they going to live? Who's going to feed them? Will they be on welfare? Will they ever work? Are they compatible with our national identity, our culture and our way of life? Are we going to have in our country the many problems that we see happening in other countries around the world? They can't control illegal refugees. They have no control over them whatsoever.
]]>But I will go to the person in question here who we are speaking about in the chamber, NZYQ, and why Minister Watt is saying, 'We're cleaning up the mess of the Liberals.' I was in this chamber when we actually dealt with a lot of these issues and I remember there was bipartisanship. I agreed with this legislation as well and I saw Labor agree with this. What we were trying to do was make Australia a safe place because we didn't know the character of these people, who they were and whether they were former criminals from other countries. We didn't know. So we passed laws that were basically to look after the security of the nation. Labor were there. They voted every time. They supported this. I didn't hear them stand up and make comments about 'constitutional' and 'unconstitutional' or whatever. They didn't. They went along with the consensus of the time, the way the public were going and whichever way the wind was blowing. They knew they couldn't do any different but go along with it, which they did. It galls me to hear this comment now blaming Peter Dutton for this.
Also, NZYQ came into this country under the Labor Party because they lost control of the borders. They were warned about this. We had sovereign nation—
]]>What I don't understand now is the decision by the High Court and your inaction in relation to making sure that society was safe after you released these people. Minister, where does this now leave us? Because of your inaction, we've now got numerous boats coming across to Australia. One has landed on our shores. I know that other boats are being turned back. One boat has landed with 12 people in it claiming refugee status in Australia. Will the High Court ruling now impact those people? How long will you be able to keep them in detention—until we rule whether they are really refugees or economic refugees, whether they are of good character, have jailable sentences or are criminals? What do you intend to do about this? If they are of the same character as the others, what is now going to happen to these illegal boat people who, under your government, are going to cost us billions of dollars? Are you in the same boat—pardon the pun—where you cannot contain them for an unreasonable amount of time?
]]>What I would like to ask you about now is the one case of NZYQ. The decision was made by the High Court regarding his case—one plaintiff. Why did you release the 80 immediately after the decision came down and then more since? Why did you release them?
]]>On 8 November 2023, the High Court answered questions of law reserved for its consideration in a special case to the effect that ss 189(1) and 196(1) of the Migration Act 1958 … on their proper construction, authorised the plaintiff's detention as at 30 May 2023 and 8 November 2023, but the sections are beyond the legislative power of the Commonwealth Parliament insofar as they applied to the plaintiff as at those dates.
What I would suggest to you is that, based on the fact that this was brought to the courts earlier this year, you would have been aware of it if you were right across it and knew what you were doing. As to this whole case and the determination that was brought down by the court, it states here:
The Court held that ss 189(1) and 196(1), as applied to the plaintiff, contravened Ch III of the Constitution because the plaintiff's detention was not reasonably capable of being seen as necessary for a legitimate and non-punitive purpose in circumstances where there was no real prospect of the removal of the plaintiff from Australia becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future.
This has, in a couple of other cases, been brought before the courts well before this. One was the Chu Kheng Lim case, and there was also a case in 2004 where the courts held that you can't keep people in detention for an unlimited period of time if they can't practicably and reasonably be relocated or sent back in the foreseeable future.
Basically, when this was brought to your attention, you'd been in government for nearly a year. The fact is that you didn't understand that in two previous judgements your case was not represented properly, and that's why the judgements were brought down. You were unprepared. Actually, you've been caught with your pants down. To sit here and listen to you accuse Peter Dutton, the previous Minister for Home Affairs, for what happened with this man is completely misleading the people and this parliament. You were caught with your pants down. You didn't know what was happening. You were forewarned of what to expect with this whole judgement.
What I want to ask you is: from your time of taking over government in May 2022, what process or steps did you take to have this man deported?
]]>