Anthony Albanese urges Opposition to back immigration curfew, monitoring laws

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has urged the Coalition to back new laws allowing the Government to pay countries to take former immigration detainees and a workaround for the High Court ruling that meant they could not be subject to curfews of electronic monitoring.

The Government put the legislation to Parliament on Thursday that it said dealt with the High Court’s ruling a day earlier, but the powers it seeks go far beyond the issue of visa conditions.

The bill proposes allowing the Government to pay foreign countries for a “third country reception arrangement” – in other words, to take people Australia wants to deport.

It also gives the minister the power to put non-citizens on the special bridging visas created in response to last year’s NZYQ High Court ruling back into immigration detention if another country agrees to take them, and to cancel any refugee protection Australia owes them.

Mr Albanese avoided answering a question about which countries he anticipated would take these non-citizens off Australia’s hands.

“I think the real question, in response to your question is, will the Coalition support our legislation and make our third country removal powers more effective? I hope that they do,” he told reporters on Friday.

As to the constitutionality of the workaround for the ankle monitors and curfews, Mr Albanese said lawyers always had many opinions.

“Lawyers obviously had opinions about our legislation before the High Court made the decision that they did,” he said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton earlier said the Government had mishandled the whole “debacle” starting with the NZYQ High Court case last year that ruled indefinite immigration detention was unconstitutional.

“I think it’s one of the worst exercises that the Albanese Government’s been involved in,” he said.

The Coalition has indicated it is likely to want a short committee examination of the new legislation.