Pressure piling up on Immigration Minister Andrew Giles
Under siege over a litany of crimes committed by foreigners, the Albanese government's made a snap decision to abandon a controversial legal order that's allowed dozens of non-citizens to avoid deportation. It'll re-write a ministerial directive, stressing the safety of Australians must be put above everything else when appeals are lodged to be allowed to stay here.
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00:00Defiant, despite relentless pressure.
00:04I owe the Australian community to work day and night to keep the community safe.
00:11The beleaguered Immigration Minister standing firm amid chatter about his looming ministerial
00:16mortality.
00:17I owe my colleagues my absolute focus on continuing doing my job.
00:22Andrew Giles blaming the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for decisions to allow foreign nationals
00:27guilty of heinous crimes to remain in Australia, among those to have their visas reinstated.
00:33People convicted of...
00:34Hitting a three-year-old disabled toddler in the head.
00:37Punching his wife so hard he split her eyelid.
00:41Possessing images and videos police described as at the most extreme end of child abuse
00:47material.
00:49Ministerial Direction 99 signed in January 2023 demanded officials and tribunals take
00:54into account an individual's ties to the community before cancelling a visa.
00:59It's soon to be replaced with a new edict.
01:02The new revised direction will make it abundantly clear that community safety is a consideration
01:07that outweighs all other considerations.
01:10His boss effectively conceding his minister did have a role to play in shaping those decisions.
01:16The only effective way of ensuring that tribunal members are making better decisions is to
01:22issue a new revised direction which the minister will be doing.
01:27The minister furious he learnt of criminals walking free from the media rather than his
01:32department.
01:33Some of these cases had been decided some time ago.
01:36That is unacceptable.
01:38This direction was originally designed to placate the complaints of successive New Zealand
01:42Prime Ministers that Kiwi criminals were being deported despite having few ties across the
01:47Tasman.
01:48In trying to put out this domestic political fire, Andrew Giles has rekindled an international
01:53one with the New Zealand government already voicing concern about today's development.