CRIMINAL ‘JUSTICE’
Cops are lobbying the federal government to deport non-citizens accused of crimes that haven’t gone to court yet, The Age ($) reports. Non-citizens lose their visa if they are sentenced to more than a year in prison, but they can appeal it, and remain in detention while they do so. But police have written to ministers — including former home affairs minister Peter Dutton — and the department with the details of unproven crimes. That’s according to FOI’d documents that show immigration systems being used as an alternative to convictions and sentences, an expert told the paper. It comes as Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil confirmed up to 340 people may be released from immigration detention after the High Court ruling, The Age ($) continues, but called it “very unlikely”. They have already served their sentences but are stateless and have nowhere to be deported to.
Meanwhile opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson doesn’t agree with his boss Dutton’s argument that the government should re-detain 93 people already released, Guardian Australia reports. He carefully responded to ABC’s Insiders that we should investigate “all lawful options” — Dutton’s portfolio successor O’Neil went harder, saying Dutton knows full well what he’s suggesting is legally impossible. To another Labor minister now, and did you catch the rather fawning profile of Jim Chalmers in Nine newspapers’ the Good Weekend ($)? Chalmers is described as having “started the day by driving his body hard” at the gym, many of whom, the journalist notes, are “members of the local Pasifika community”. Okay? Between interviews with his mum and friends, the treasurer is warmly described as having “intellectual restlessness”, being “a hard taskmaster”, having an “unstoppable rise” up the political ladder, and being “highly media-savvy”. Indeed — a cynic might note you can’t buy this sort of oddly personal press.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THAT…
Did you ask China’s President Xi Jinping about Australia’s injured Australian Navy divers or not, the opposition asked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as the AFR ($) reports. The incident happened in international waters last Tuesday, although the government didn’t release the details until after Albanese’s APEC trip to San Francisco — Defence Minister Richard Marles said the navy advised the People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer multiple times about the divers, but it continued to approach with its sonar pulsing, The Australian ($) reports. Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson had a lot to say: that it was deliberate, egregious, malign behaviour, it was the opposite of the apparent friendship on display between the two nations, and Albanese should say whether he raised it. Though he might not be about to take advice from the Coalition on relations with China.
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