How Long before This Activist Is Rolled?

Parachuting activists into safe seats is rarely a good idea, while giving them pet ministerial portfolios never is. Because an activist’s focus is almost always monomaniacal. They see everything only ever through the lens of their single-minded activism.

Labor should have learned that lesson when it parachuted Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett into a safe seat and made him environment minister. It was, inevitably, a disaster. Of course, when you’re talking about the Rudd government, disaster is a relative term. But Garrett’s woeful performance – encompassing everything from signing off on new uranium mines, quite the eyebrow-raiser from the great anti-nuke shouter, to the deaths of multiple apprentices in a dodgy rooftop insulation scheme – was cataclysmic even by the Rudd/Gillard metric.

Plus ca change… here we are, back with a Labor government, and once again the activists are given pet portfolios to make a complete bollocks of.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has dodged ministerial responsibility after it was revealed criminals were allowed to remain in Australia as a result of Direction 99, claiming issues were also reported under the directions of the former government.

But the former government didn’t appoint a former boat-chasing activist who explicitly directed bureaucrats to give primary consideration to letting foreign-born criminals stay in Australia, just because Jacinda Ardern was having a big sook.

The opposition are buying Giles’s dodging and blame shifting no more than the Australian public.

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson says Andrew Giles should lose his job after it was revealed Direction 99 resulted in criminals being allowed to stay in Australia and avoid deportation […]

“Some of the most horrific criminals you will ever hear about, you will ever read about, were released back into the community, were allowed to stay here despite being non-citizens by the AAT, and every one of those decisions they cited the new provisions of Direction 99 as the reason they did so,” he told Sky News this morning.

“The only thing that’s missing now from the accountability here is that no one personally has paid a price, no one has lost their job, and in my view it has to be Andrew Giles and it should happen today.”

The Australian

Except, if Giles were sacked it would be a tacit admission by Anthony Albanese that he bollixed up the appointment in the first place. Albanese is already badly damaged by stuff ups in the immigration portfolio, not least the utter debacle of turning loose murderers and sex offenders in a panicked over-reaction to a High Court ruling. Many of them without even the most rudimentary supervision.

At least two murderers and 26 sex offenders released from immigration detention as part of the NZYQ High Court ruling are not wearing ankle monitors, as Australian Border Force officials revealed more than $300,000 has been spent on income support for the freed detainees.

A further $1.1m has been spent on the government’s hand-picked community protection board.

A hand-picked board that ordered removal of restrictions on a violent detainee.

Who went on to attack an elderly couple in a violent home invasion.

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson lashed the removal of restrictions on some of the most “high risk” of the former detainees.

“Allowing former murderers into the community without electronic monitoring … there needs to be justification for that,” Senator Paterson said at Senate estimates on Wednesday.

Of 39 sex offenders released under the NZYQ decision, only 13 were wearing ankle bracelets and 12 were subject to curfews, while 28 of the 73 detainees convicted of assault were being electronically monitored.

The Australian

Dozens have gone on to commit further crimes, including sexual assault and offences against children.

Tell me this isn’t a Labor government.