https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/15/labor-to-fast-track-legis...The Albanese government has confirmed on Thursday
it will introduce emergency legislation to respond to the decision,
which has resulted in the release of 83 people from detention.
The immigration minister, Andrew Giles, has repeatedly reassured that community safety has been ensured by placing conditions on the visas of all those released.
But the Coalition opposition has identified an apparent gap in the law: that breach of visa conditions is usually punishable by immigration detention, which is no longer possible after the high court’s NZYQ decision.
The high court building in Canberra
Indefinite immigration detention ruled unlawful in landmark Australian high court decision
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The high court ruled last week that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful where there was “no real prospect” that a person’s removal was “reasonably practicable in the foreseeable future”.
On Thursday the government will introduce bills called the migration amendment (bridging visa conditions) bill and the crimes and other legislation amendment (omnibus no 2) bill.
Guardian Australia understands the bills will criminalise the breach of conditions at least of bridging visa category R, on which those detained have been released.
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said the opposition “will be briefed on Thursday morning ahead of the bills introduction”.
“I hope given the time it has taken to finally bring this bill forward that it is a comprehensive response that guarantees the community’s safety, and not just a minor amendment to enforce visa conditions that should have always been the case,” he told Guardian Australia.
The Human Rights Law Centre’s acting legal director, Sanmati Verma, said that “additional restrictions and criminal penalties on people released after years of unlawful detention” would be “substituting one form of punishment for another”.
“Every single day, Australian citizens who have been convicted of an offence, even serious offences, re-enter the community after serving their time,” she said.
“Why does this government think that migrants and refugees in the same position pose a different or greater risk?”