Bobby. wrote on May 28
th, 2024 at 12:34am:
UnSubRocky wrote on May 28
th, 2024 at 12:24am:
Bobby. wrote on May 27
th, 2024 at 10:44pm:
Should we bring back the White Australia policy?
That is one of the most stupid questions on this forum. When colonialism ended, there was no way that we were to continue trade with those colonies unless we started to allow migration from those countries. If we abandon a non-discriminatory immigration process, then we are likely to see our trade dry up.
John Howard,
"We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come." Well, we aren't deciding.
Anthony Albanese must rue the day he allocated the immigration portfolio to his factional mate Andrew Giles. Yet the Prime Minister surely knew what to expect. At the 2015 ALP national conference, the pair led the fight to reject the Coalition’s boat turnback policy under Operation Sovereign Borders, as Geoff Chambers wrote on Monday. And in his maiden speech in 2013, Mr Giles said it was acting on behalf of the asylum-seekers on board the MV Tampa that “set firm my resolve to be heard in public life’’. That did not qualify him, however, to lead a complex portfolio demanding tough decisions that often disappoint those vying to enter or remain in Australia – including serious criminals whom most Australians, for good reason, do not want here. After months of calamities arising from the government’s inept handling of the NZYQ decision by the High Court in November that resulted in 151 non-citizens, including violent criminals, being released from indefinite detention, we argued last week that Mr Giles’s time in the job was up. Subsequent revelations about the unintended (though hardly surprising) consequences of Mr Giles’s dangerous Direction 99 reinforce the need for his departure, in the interests of public safety. More importantly, Direction 99 needs to be rescinded or overhauled immediately.
Direction 99, which Mr Giles introduced in January last year – 10 months before the High Court let hundreds of criminals out of immigration detention – instructs the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to show leniency towards overseas-born offenders when assessing whether their visas should be cancelled. On Monday, we reported that a child rapist who attacked his stepdaughter while his wife was giving birth was allowed to stay in Australia as a result of Mr Giles’s leniency direction for foreign-born criminals with ties to the nation.
AAT member and former Labor Speaker Anna Burke said the Direction “clearly states” tolerance for such offenders.
It also played a role in at least two cases involving migrant criminals who were allowed to stay after they claimed they were Aboriginal or accepted as Aboriginal by association to their romantic partners and children. In all cases, the offenders failed Australia’s character test and were going to be deported before the AAT reinstated their visas, citing Direction 99. The Australian has uncovered dozens of such cases, arising as a result of Mr Giles’s Direction.
Another three convicted non-citizen child rapists have also been allowed to remain in the country, Paul Garvey reports. Abdul Wahab Trad, a 45-year-old Lebanese citizen who permanently relocated to Australia in 2013, escaped deportation in March over his 2020 rape of a 13-year-old girl he picked up off the side of the road in Sydney’s Bankstown. Another case, dubbed ZJFQ, involved an Afghan citizen who raped two girls, aged 16 and 14, in separate incidents in the space of six months in 2020. The AAT found a “moderate to high risk” of his committing further sexual offences. The third case, XLFM, involved a Kenya-born man who raped a 17-year-old girl and also robbed a female service station attendant, using a meat clever. Regardless of his soft heart for foreigners wanting to remain in Australia, how long can the Prime Minister tolerate the situation, putting the public at risk? If he protects his mate and fails to act when parliament resumes on Tuesday, his credibility will suffer.
As Garvey wrote on Saturday, a suspected people-smuggler, a pedophile, multiple repeat domestic violence perpetrators, drug traffickers, a kidnapper and a man who drove a stolen car into a police garage at speed are among dozens who avoided deportation because of Mr Giles’s push for greater leniency. Another beneficiary of the direction, Sudan-born Emmanuel Saki, allegedly stabbed a man to death in Queensland on Mother’s Day.
The seeds of these disasters can be found in Labor’s desire to appease New Zealand’s deficient former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who demanded repeatedly that Australia stop deporting foreign nationals who broke the law. Her concern was that New Zealand criminals with few domestic ties would fall into her nation’s violent gang culture. Mr Giles introduced Direction 99 shortly before Ms Ardern’s Labour Party replacement as prime minister, Chris Hipkins, arrived in Australia for a visit. The consequences are now on full display.