Nat Barr sums up the government’s catastrophic refugee bungle in two brutal words – as sex offender asylum seeker allegedly commits a crime after being released from detention
Afghan refugee Aliyawar Yawari, 65, has been charged with indecently assaulting a woman at a hotel in South Australia.45-year-old Mohammed Ali Nadari has been charged cannabis possession in New South Wales.
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.
An excited Nat Barr asked if this meant all the safety measures the government had put in place since the Supreme Court ruling 'meant nothing'.
Dan Tehan, the Shadow Immigration Minister, said the government had failed in its main duty: keeping the community safe.
“This is a catastrophic failure. The Albanian government has failed in its primary duty of protecting the Australian community,” Tehan said.
“Ministers O'Neill and Giles, the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister have failed in their primary duty to protect the Australian people.
'They must now do the honorable thing and resign.
Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan said the government had failed in its primary duty: protecting the Australian public.
Tehan accused the government of failing to adequately prepare for the possible Supreme Court ruling that indefinite immigration detention would be illegal.
'We warned about this. We said that strict action was needed immediately after the Supreme Court decided to do so. They were required to have a preventive detention regime in place when the Supreme Court ruled.
'She If they haven't done that, they haven't been transparent with the Australian public about who these people are and why they failed the character test.
“There are still three people in the community without visa requirements. We know nothing about them.
Tehan said the Labor government had been warned as early as June that the High Court was likely to release 148 prisoners.
“Yet they failed to prepare for that eventuality,” he said.
“And that failure has meant that the community is not safe, and that is the first priority of any government. That is why both ministers must now do the honorable thing and resign.'
“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.
He then took a swipe at the Prime Minister, saying that “people are afraid he is a weak leader.”
“He'll have a chance to show some strength soon,” he continued.
“If they don't resign, he should fire them.”
Dan Tehan slammed the Prime Minister (pictured) and said: 'People are worried he is a weak leader'
Aliyawar Yawari has been charged with two counts of indecent assault, just three weeks after he was released from immigration detention following the controversial Supreme Court ruling
Yawari appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday, less than a month after being released from the Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Center in WA.
Police arrested the 65-year-old at the Pavlos Motel in Pooraka in Adelaide's north on Saturday evening following allegations a woman was assaulted by a guest.
Yawari was previously described by a judge as a 'danger to the Australian community' and has served a prison sentence for assaulting three women, including one he hit with her own walking stick.
Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan has called on Home Secretary Clare O'Neil (pictured) to resign or be sacked by the Prime Minister
Yawari had arrived in Australia in 2010 after fleeing Afghanistan, where his father and brother were killed by the Taliban.
He found work in Bordertown in South Australia, but between October 2013 and December 2014 he carried out attacks on women in rural parts of the state.
In 2013, he was acquitted of rape but convicted of assault and given a presumptive prison sentence. But in 2016 he was sentenced to three years and 11 months with a non-parole period of two years and eight months.
After his sentence, he was sent to immigration detention to await deportation, but was released in November following the Supreme Court's ruling.
The federal government on Wednesday will make changes to laws introduced to address the fallout from the Supreme Court's decision, resulting in the release of more than 140 detainees.
Under the 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.
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.