Bill Shorten has suggested that 'the Supreme Court should step down' over their landmark ruling that led to 148 asylum seekers being released from immigration detention.
Two ministers in Albania's Labor cabinet are facing calls from the coalition to resign after one of 141 released prisoners was accused of serious sexual assault within weeks of his release, and a second was arrested for drug offenses.
Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said on Tuesday: “The time has come for the Prime Minister to do the right thing and ask for these ministers to resign, and if they don't, he should sack them.”
The pressure to turn heads has only increased since it emerged that the Labor government only had to release that one detainee: the Rohingya pedophile known as NZYQ, who has been in custody since serving a prison sentence for child sexual abuse and whose case the Supreme Court challenge was based on.
But Disability Services Minister Bill Shorten said the argument was flawed and if that logic was followed, it should be the judges who resign.
“The logic of that is that the Supreme Court should step down,” he said.
Disability Services Minister Bill Shorten said if anyone should be forced to resign, it should be the Supreme Court judges who make the decision.
Afghan refugee Aliyawar Yawari was deemed a 'danger to the Australian community' by a South Australian judge in 2016 after attacks on three elderly women in 2013 and 2014
“If you really think there was a way to prevent this, the reality is the Supreme Court has made its decision. That is their right and privilege in our legal system.”
Mr Shorten argued that both Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Home Secretary Clare O'Neil had moved with 'utmost speed to introduce preventative detention laws'.
These laws would give courts the authority to return former detainees to protective custody if they have reason to believe they pose a risk to public safety.
'The Supreme Court has made a decision, we have had to respond very quickly and there is a bill in the Senate today that regulates that [the Coalition] what we can vote for to protect people,” he said.
The political debate comes as a 65-year-old man was charged with two counts of indecent assault after being released from indefinite detention following the High Court ruling.
Afghan refugee Aliyawar Yawari was originally jailed after being deemed a 'danger to the Australian community' by a South Australian judge in 2016 following attacks on three elderly women in 2013 and 2014.
He was refused police bail to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday.
Meanwhile, another released fugitive, Mohammed Ali Nadari, 45, has been charged with cannabis possession in New South Wales.
Today's presenter Sylvia Jeffreys argued to Shorten that both the Home Secretary and Immigration Ministers 'knew this decision was coming and they had no plan B. That's a rookie mistake, isn't it?'
Mr Shorten said the laws that were overturned as part of the Supreme Court decision had been in place for 20 years and the previous government relied on them during their time in power.
Labor had opposed the court's decision.
Tehan accused the government of failing to adequately prepare for the possible Supreme Court ruling that indefinite immigration detention would be illegal.
“We would have made sure in the months leading up to the Supreme Court ruling that we looked at what legislation we could put in place to keep the community safe,” he said.
'It was warned that there was a real fear that these people would reoffend and unfortunately it appears that this has happened.'
Under the federal government's proposed amendments, preventive detention orders would apply to those released, including murderers and sex offenders, and are based on similar measures for high-risk terrorist offenders, Ms O'Neil said.
There are calls for the resignation of Home Secretary Clare O'Neil
There are calls for the resignation of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles
It is not known how many released detainees would be subject to preventive detention orders.
Defense Minister Richard Marles supported his ministerial colleagues.
“What has happened here is that the Supreme Court has ruled against a law that was put in place by the Howard government, and it was there during the Turnbull and Morrison governments,” he told ABC Radio.
“The question is whether or not (the opposition) will support strong legislation that will put the strongest possible conditions on those who have been released.”
When asked by Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash why the government had released the high-risk detainees, Foreign Secretary Penny Wong said it was imperative to comply with the court's ruling.
“A shadow attorney general must understand that a government under the Westminster system does not behave like an autocratic dictatorship and actually does what the court says,” Senator Wong told Parliament on Monday.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the coalition was likely to support the laws.
“If the government has adequate measures in place to keep Australians safe, then we will support those measures and we will see what they have to say,” he told reporters in Sydney.
“If we see a bad bill, we won't support it.”
Greens senator Nick McKim called the laws a 'race to the bottom' on refugee policy.
“It creates two different classes of people in this country under the law, depending on whether you hold a certain class of visa or not,” he said.