Former detainees referred to AFP over ankle bracelet rules

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Four of the 138 people now released from immigration detention following this month’s High Court ruling have already been referred to the federal police for refusing to wear ankle bracelets, with Australian Border Force officials still trying to contact one of them.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said no more people would be freed until the High Court published its reasons for overturning the Commonwealth’s ability to indefinitely detain people it could not deport, as the government moves to introduce more criminal penalties for the cohort.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles during their Parliament House press conference on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram said 132 of the 138 former detainees had so far been fitted with ankle bracelets, two were “difficult, complex cases” that included health issues, and four were refusing to comply.

“In terms of the scale of offending … they’re at the lower end of risk to the community, those four. In one case that’s been referred to the Australian Federal Police, we’re still making attempts to contact that person. The other three have been contacted and we know where they are,” Outram said at a press conference in Canberra on Monday morning.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the government would “vigorously defend” a fresh High Court challenge that says Labor’s emergency laws requiring ankle bracelets and curfews are punitive and unconstitutional, as he announced the introduction of further laws.

“We are strengthening our approach that already exists in these laws by making it an offence to work with another person who is a minor or another vulnerable person for one of these people, an offence for going near a school, a child care centre or a day care centre and also an offence for an individual – part of this cohort to contact a victim or a member of that victim’s family,” Giles said.

The government was also “clarifying and expanding the power” of law enforcement agencies such as the ABF after questions arose last week over federal agencies’ ability and capacity to monitor the released detainees, he said.

“We are making strict laws stricter, tough laws tougher,” Giles said.

A support service has also been established for victims of some of the released detainees, who include multiple murderers and child sex offenders.

On Sunday, the government announced Border Force and Home Affairs staff numbers would be increased as part of a $255 million injection designed to bolster community safety from the release of the cohort.

O’Neil said the government was also introducing new laws to allow judges to strip the citizenship of convicted terrorists after notorious extremist Abdul Nacer Benbrika, jailed over a Melbourne bomb plot, won a High Court battle at the beginning of the month allowing him to stay in the country.

“Our laws for the first time will make it possible for a court to withdraw someone’s citizenship if they offend those particular laws,” she said.

North Sydney independent Kylea Tink also introduced a bill into the House of Representatives on Monday imposing a 90-day limit on immigration detention. It also includes a prohibition of the detention of minors.

Tink described the High Court decision as a “win for human rights”.

“It is reprehensible that this ruling should be used as a pawn for political gain and the new laws, developed in response to that political posturing, are already being challenged in the High Court less than a week after they were rushed through parliament,” she said.

O’Neil said the government was “very well served by the ABF” in patrolling the country’s borders and the government had made sure the agency’s resourcing news were met following the arrival of an asylum seeker boat in the Kimberley region last week. Twelve people were taken for offshore processing on Nauru.

Outram told a parliamentary hearing last month that contractors’ ability to recruit pilots had reduced aerial surveillance, while a reduction in maritime patrols was due to an ageing fleet and maintenance timeframes.

But O’Neil told the press conference she did not agree there had been a reduction in patrols due to worker shortages.

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