By Angus Thompson and Olivia Ireland
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has gone to ground after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the community protection board that operates at the government’s discretion made the wrong call over a former detainee who wasn’t made to wear an ankle monitor before he allegedly committed a home invasion.
The government is facing questions over its accountability for 150 foreigners – many with criminal records – released after the High Court’s November ruling outlawing indefinite immigration detention. Monthly “community protection” reports promised months ago are yet to be published, while justice experts paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by taxpayers to advise on visa conditions have either declined or not replied to requests for comment.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has not commented since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denounced the board’s advice.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Giles, who this week apologised to the Perth couple who fell victim to the April 16 attack, is looking into the community protection board’s advice, but the opposition has intensified calls for his resignation after his office refused to respond after Albanese said the board had failed.
“I think that’s a wrong decision by that board, but they make the decisions,” Albanese told Seven’s Sunrise program on Friday, repeating a previous assertion the board was independent.
While the board makes recommendations on conditions, they must be signed off by the minister, Giles, or a delegate. Half of the eight members of the board are Australian Border Force and Department of Home Affairs employees, including its chair, ABF assistant commissioner Sandra Jeffrey.
Three of the non-departmental members of the board have refused to speak to this masthead: former Victoria Police commissioner Graham Ashton; former Queensland Police deputy commissioner Peter Martin; and youth advocate Carmel Guerra. Comment has also been sought from clinical psychologist Dr Monique Phipps.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Community Protection Board made the wrong decision with removing an ankle bracelet.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Guerra and Martin deferred all questions to Border Force, who also refused to comment.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the board made recommendations the minister was under “no obligation” to accept, adding Giles should stop “hiding behind public servants”.
“It’s time for him to front the media and answer for the Albanese government’s litany of failures on community safety,” Paterson said. “Unless Minister Giles can explain why he let this detainee back into the community without an ankle bracelet, he should resign.”
Giles conducted one interview this week with ABC Radio National’s PM program in which he declined to talk about the circumstances of alleged incident involving former detainee Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43.
“We are continually looking at everything that we can do that will assist us, and our law enforcement agencies in particular, to maintain the safety of the community,” he said.
O’Neil gave an interview to Seven’s Sunrise on Wednesday in which she refused to discuss the details of the alleged assault but did express her sympathies for the victims, Ninette and Philip Simons.
“Every Australian is entitled to feel safe in their own home, and the fact that this occurred within someone’s home I think just makes it all the more violent and horrendous, and I really do express my deepest sympathies to them,” she said.
Both O’Neil and Giles have been contacted for comment in the wake of the prime minister’s criticisms of the community protection board.
The prime minister also said that a Friday meeting of the state and federal attorneys-general would discuss detainees.
It was revealed on Thursday that at a February federal court hearing over curfew breaches allegedly committed by Doukoshkan, the prosecutor raised concerns he could commit further offences, but did not oppose bail.
Albanese told Sunrise that if it were up to him, “I assure you that there wouldn’t have been bail granted in that case.”
“I am just as upset about that decision as you are. I think that lacks common sense,” Albanese said.
The curfew charges against Doukoshkan were withdrawn on March 22 because of a Commonwealth bungle over invalid bridging visas, however, the former detainee – previously jailed over drug offences – allegedly went on to stage the home invasion with two other men.
Doukoshkan also faced court on February 21 and April 10 for state offences of driving without a licence and trespassing, for which he was fined a total of $400 just days before the alleged home invasion.
Warning of years of legal upheaval following the High Court’s November ruling on indefinite detention, the government in March broadened the remit of board to also consider any new issues arising from legal uncertainties about immigration detention.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has slammed Albanese and Giles for failing to protect the community, saying the government needs to change its approach to managing the released detainees.
“The minister [Andrew Giles] has responsibility here. The first charge of the Prime Minister of our country is to keep people safe, not to make them, not to put them in harm’s way. And that’s what’s happened,” he told Nine’s Today show on Friday.
“People are right to be angry about it and upset, this could be anybody’s grandmother or mother and the Prime Minister’s office [is] going out there telling people, you know, lies is just not acceptable.”
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