Subjects: Administrative Appeals Tribunal; deadline for IMAs to lodge protection claims.
E&EO…………………………………………………………………………………………..
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Murderers, rapists, paedophiles and drug dealers, these are just some of the 81 criminals the Administrative Appeals Tribunal says should not be deported. The Immigration Minister Peter Dutton joins me now, Peter good morning to you.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Karl.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Is the Administrative Appeals Tribunal serious?
PETER DUTTON:
Well it's pretty frustrating. As we've discussed on the show before, we've been going through individual cases in cancelling visas at a record rate because I believe that if people come to our country they need to abide by our laws and if they don't, then they can expect to be deported.
So people that have committed offences, particularly sexual offences against children or women, we have been cancelling those visas at a record rate and it is frustrating when they're turned over or overturned by the AAT. It becomes a very frustrating process for me, for all of us, but most of all for the victims of these crimes and for the future victims of these crimes. It's a great concern.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Murderers, rapists, paedophiles, armed robbers and drug dealers; allowed to stay.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Karl from my perspective we are looking at ways in which we can tighten the laws up and obviously we would need Labor Party support for that in the Senate. But we are cancelling visas of people we believe – having a look at all the facts of the individual cases – don't deserve to be in our country as a non-citizen on a visa and I'm just not going to change that practice.
We are going to continue to look at these individual cases. Where the AAT overturns a decision, in certain circumstances, I have the ability to reinstate my original decision, but it is just a prolonged process and it costs us millions of dollars as tax payers each year defending these cases in the courts when, you know…I think people should have their fair day in court, but I don't think we should be taken for a ride.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
The AAT, does that need to be looked at?
PETER DUTTON:
Well the AAT obviously has a number of appointments under the last government that are coming to the end of their term now and we'll make a number of appointments shortly, but again, I want to see an application of the law, but common sense here as well. These are people that we've looked at very closely and where you've got convictions that run for pages and pages, people that have got dozens and dozens of criminal convictions, I don't understand what logic there could be applied to allow those people to stay, in some of the cases I've had a look at, and really it is up to the AAT to explain their actions or for us to have a look at ways in which we can tighten the law – and as I say that's what we're having a look at right now.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well not knowing the details intimately, but some of these cases I agree with you completely. Meantime, refugee lawyers are cranky with you and your crackdown on fake refugees, as we call them, they say you are politicking with the lives of 7,500 people. Do you even care?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Karl, these are people that have been here for maybe five, six, seven years, claiming to be refugees, but won't provide any information, won't answer questions, in some cases won't even provide information about their identity and they expect me to grant visas, allow some people to become citizens when we don't even know the identity of these people.
The lawyers can rant all they want. From my perspective my job is to try and keep people as safe as possible in our country and if people aren't genuinely engaging in the process, if they aren't providing information, then frankly we're better off to concentrate our support on those that are, those that are legitimate refugees and this is costing us hundreds of millions of dollars a year in welfare and I've said look; you know you've had a lot of time to provide the detail, if you can't provide that detail by the 1st of October this year, then we're going to discount your application, we're going to deport you from our country and hopefully that's an incentive for people to get the information in that's been requested over a long period of time and again; we are a generous country, we allow thousands of refugees in each year, but we aren't going to be taken by a ride for those people that enjoy life on welfare – there are lots of people who work hard in our country, pay their taxes – they want to support those people that are worthy of support, not these people who are seeking to rip us off.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Minister, thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Karl.
[ends]
