Minister under pressure over detainee mess

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has been forced to defend Immigration Minister Andrew Giles after revelations his ministerial direction allowed serial criminal offenders to remain in Australia.

A Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday heard Mr Giles was warned by his department that his ‘direction 99’ changes, which gave non-citizens with ties to Australia greater leniency during visa decisions, would stop serious criminals from being deported.

After he ordered an urgent review following reports that accused rapists had their visa cancellations overturned as a result of the direction, the Coalition seized on the development to demand Anthony Albanese take “responsibility” and fire Mr Giles.

“This is a decision of government that has gone horribly, terribly wrong like every decision of government seems to in this portfolio,” Liberal Senator Jane Hume said.

“The urgent matter is to get a new Immigration Minister because quite frankly this one has failed the Australian people. Anthony Albanese needs to sack Minister Giles. He needs to do it today.”

According to reports from the Australian, a man accused of attacking 25 women and a child was allowed to keep his visa following the ministerial direction that was issued by Mr Giles in January last year.

The direction, requires the immigration minister or a body, including the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), to consider an individual’s community ties when considering to revoke the cancellation of a convicted criminal’s visa.

Under the new rules, the AAT has overturned dozens of decisions to cancel visas, including Sudanese national Emmanuel Saki, who was charged with stabbing a 22-year-old in Queensland weeks after his visa was reinstated, and Lebanese-born Abdul Wahab Trad, who was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2020.

Ms O’Neil denied that Mr Giles was at fault and said was deeply concerned by the decisions made by the tribunal.

“It does appear that the decisions made by this independent tribunal are not meeting community expectations and not putting proper stead on the importance that we place on community safety,” she told Sunrise.

“So actually Minister Giles has stepped in here. He’s taking action as a good minister would do.”

Home Affairs official modelling on the implications of the changes found that two of the eight individual visa cases analysed were likely to be overturned.

Department Secretary Stephanie Foster told Senators the department had breached protocol by failing to brief Mr Giles on potential criminals cases.

“We did not meet our very clear protocol and in particular, we have not put advice before him in any way on the … cases that have been the subject [of media reporting],” she told a hearing.

Following the admission, Mr Giles announced that he would urgently review the AAT’s overturning of visa cancellations.

“My department is now looking at all these cases as a priority, and they are all under cancellation consideration,” he said.

“Direction 99 did not, and does not, decrease the importance placed on expectations such as the … protection of the community from crime.

According to the latest Home Affairs data, there has been a roughly 75 per cent reduction in visa cancellations made on character grounds since 2019-20.