Interview with Natalie Barr, Sunrise

20 March 2024

NATALIE BARR: A stunning twist in the federal government's immigration debacle has been revealed this morning, with suggestions that more than 170 detainees could be released if another challenge, currently before the High Court, is lost by Labor. It comes as it's also revealed the government quietly lifted ankle bracelet monitoring and curfew conditions for four ex detainees, one of which was a man jailed for raping a teenager at a party. For more, we're joined by Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil and the Shadow Finance Minister, Jane Hume. Good morning to both of you. Clare, this always feels like it's going from bad to worse, wasn't it? Could you explain to us how this rapist, who was jailed for two years for raping a 19 year old girl at a party, is now, uh, free and no ankle bracelet monitoring and no curfew?

CLARE O’NEIL: Thanks for your question, Nat and just to remind your viewers, this person belongs to a cohort of people that were being kept in immigration detention by me and Minister Giles when we had the power to do that and your viewers would remember that in November last year, the High Court of Australia took that power away from Federal Ministers. So what the Parliament did working together was set up an alternative way of community protection. So the ankle monitoring bracelets, the curfews and other types of restraints on people's behaviour. We invested $255 million in police and Australian Border Force to help with monitoring these people. The specific conditions that are set for each of those individuals comes to government via a group called the Community Protection Board. This is a group of experts of former lifelong police officers, law enforcement officials, criminologists and psychologists who work to provide advice to Government about which protection should be provided per individual and then Government adopts that advice.

NATALIE BARR: Okay, so do you have to take that advice that someone who was jailed for raping and I won't go into the details on breakfast television because it's just horrible. Do you have to take the advice of that board and, um, and take away his ankle bracelet monitoring and his curfew?

CLARE O’NEIL:So I can't comment on that specific case. Nat, the Community Protection Board does provide expert advice to Government on these matters and the Government takes the advice of the Community Protection Board. Can I just remind your viewers I'm an Australian woman. There's no way that anyone is apologising for the behaviour of this individual and I'll say again, I can just tell you from the bottom of my heart, if I could do anything to put that person in detention, I would absolutely do it. If it were up to me, none of these people would ever have been released. Unfortunately, as your viewers understand, as Jane understands, high courts make decisions. Government must account for those decisions and we do that in a calm and considered way with one thing in mind, and that is the protection of the Australian community.

NATALIE BARR: But just clarifying, are you bound by the advice of that board of experts about the monitoring?

CLARE O’NEIL: We take the advice of the experts because that's the legally safest way for us to manage those decisions.

NATALIE BARR: So you could have kept the monitoring in place and said, look, I don't think this is kosher, we’re the Government, we don't think that's a good idea given the circumstances of this man and what he's done.

CLARE O’NEIL: I completely understand where your questions are coming from. I can't go into the individual cases that are actually not allowed for me to talk about these individual cases.

NATALIE BARR: But he’s out in the community, Australia is watching this morning thinking, look, we're waking up reading this, going, hang on a second.

CLARE O’NEIL: Yeah. So I absolutely understand that and I just say to you again, if I could do anything to put that person back behind bars, I would absolutely do it.

NATALIE BARR: We know you can't put him back behind bars. What about monitoring him?

CLARE O’NEIL: We have done what good Parliaments will do, and we have set up alternative ways of protecting the community. That's a set of conditions that you referred to. It's the $255 million investment in police and in Australian Border Force and this is the system that the parliament has put in place as an alternative to detention. Again, if I could bring that detention system that was back before back, I absolutely would do it. But the High Court has made a decision and the Government must follow the law just like any other Australian.

NATALIE BARR: Jane, what are your views on this?

JANE HUME: This is a crisis that seems to just lurch from disaster to disaster every single week. Let's take a big step back and identify the first failure, which was the fact that Minister Giles gave the wrong advice to the High Court on the original detainee. He said that he couldn't be resettled anywhere, and that was the decision. That was the advice that the High Court based its decision on. So that was the first mistake. The second mistake was Minister Giles not turning up to briefings from his own department, because he was out there campaigning on The Voice. The third mistake was releasing 149 detainees rather than just the one that the High Court was making its decision upon, and not waiting until the High Court's decision was made. Then the request was that we make preventative detention orders available now. The Coalition came to the party on that. Now we find out that those preventative detention orders can't be made because they're too complicated. We are standing by ready to help. Now we find out also that there were visas issued that were issued incorrectly. Last week Clare, you said that those visas were from the Abbott era. Well they weren't. We found out only a couple of hours later that they were from the Gillard era. This seems to be blaming anybody else other than yourself for these problems. Quite frankly, Minister Giles needs to resign and Anthony Albanese needs to stop running a protection racket for this incompetent Minister and rather focus on protecting the Australian people.

NATALIE BARR: Clare?

CLARE O’NEIL: Oh, look, I mean, I think the attitude that Jane's just taken there says a lot about how the Liberals are trying to play politics with this

JANE HUME: This isn't playing politics. This is about community safety, which you have dismissed.

CLARE O’NEIL: Jane, if I could just actually speak, that would be wonderful. The idea that this court decision wouldn't have been made under a Liberal Government is absolutely fanciful. It's ridiculous and the High Court has made a decision. A good Government such as ours makes a calm and considered approach to adjusting to those decisions. I just note for you that throughout this whole debate, we've seen a lot of interviews from Liberal frontbenchers in recent days being asked what would they be doing differently right now if they were the Government? No one's actually got a good answer to that question.

JANE HUME: Well, we wouldn't have made those mistakes in the first place because it never happened under us.

CLARE O’NEIL: Jane, well, the truth is that multiple people have been asked, what would you do differently if you were in Government? The Liberals don't have anything to offer on this.

JANE HUME: Border security wasn't a problem under a Coalition Government. It's a problem under a Labor Government.

CLARE O’NEIL: Sorry, Jane, it's so rude that you're continuously interrupting me. What we are trying to do here is manage these decisions in a calm and consistent manager and not play politics and I only wish I'd see the same from the other side.

NATALIE BARR: Okay, well, look, we find out that decision on the 17th of April, we await that and at the bottom of it, Australians are trying to work out what on earth is going on. Thank you both.