Labor's trouble at Home
More than three months after the High Court handed down its decision in the NZYQ case, the Albanese government this week found its agenda again derailed by the release of hardened criminals onto the streets.
What a difference a few weeks makes in politics.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ended last year looking worn out after the Voice referendum failed and the landmark NZYQ High Court case raised serious questions about the government’s competence in handling a crisis.
But Albanese came out this year firing with his reversal on the stage 3 tax cuts, which created a difficult wedge for Opposition Peter Dutton to manage and put the Coalition on the backfoot last week.
Heading into this week, the government thought it was onto another winner with the release of former senior public servant Dennis Richardson’s review into Australia’s offshore detention regime, which found that contractors suspected of drug smuggling and weapons trafficking were handed multimillion dollar contracts.
It didn’t go as planned.
On Monday morning, the Department of Home Affairs tabled documents in Senate estimates that brought the NZYQ judgement back to the top of the political agenda. They revealed that 149 detainees have been released from detention, including seven murderers, 37 sex offenders and 72 violent criminals. Despite 18 of the former detainees having been charged with criminal offences since their release, the documents also revealed that the government has not made a single application under the preventive detention regime it legislated in December in response to the High Court case.
