PETER VAN ONSELEN: It’s time to put Australia’s safety before your best mate, Albo

Why won’t the Prime Minister do his job and sack his most incompetent frontbencher, immigration minister Andrew Giles? 

As we all know, Giles presided over the release of rapists and child sex offenders from immigration detention into the community. He failed to heed warnings from the High Court and his own department which could have prevented their release, or at least ensured it was better managed. 

The bungles continued as authorities lost sight of many of these offenders after they walked from detention. A number allegedly went on to commit further criminal offences, including the bashing of an elderly Perth woman. 

Now we find out that convicted rapists and other criminals from overseas who are living in Australia are allowed to stay, rather than be deported as they were in the past.

Why? Because of a direction from Giles that these offenders be shown leniency if they have family ties to Australia. 

Anthony Albanese (pictured) continues to stand by his immigration minister, but for how long?

That includes a child rapist who attacked his stepdaughter while his wife was giving birth. He gets leniency to stay on family grounds. Hard to believe, but true. 

Thanks to Giles, the child rapist is entitled to stay because of Ministerial Direction 99. What is that I hear you ask? 

It is Giles’ instructions to his own department about how to administer visas, when to cancel them and when not to. As it turns out, it’s also a leave pass for convicted criminals to abuse a system now tilted in their favour. 

Immigration ministers issue directions from time to time about how visas should be assessed. In January last year Giles issued this new one – Direction 99. 

A new primary consideration when assessing visas was added that never existed before: Ties to Australia can out-rank crimes committed. Even ones as serious as child rape.

The incompetence is staggering. 

So why won’t Albo simply sack Giles to send a message that he expects more from his ministers? 

Is it loyalty to his friend over prime ministerial responsibility to the nation? Giles and Albo are extremely close, hailing from the same faction within the Labor Party. He’s one of the PM’s closest friends in the parliament. 

The Australian community has been forced to deal with the release of dozens of convicted criminals from immigration detention

Immigration minister Andrew Giles (pictured) is a close personal friend of the PM. Is that why he hasn’t been sacked?

Does Albo agree with the decisions Giles is making? The PM stood next to former New Zealand PM Jacinta Ardern when changes to immigration rules were announced that prevented long-term Australian residents from NZ from being shipped back home when they had been living here for decades with ties that bind. 

But is this latest example really how the PM intended this policy shift to operate? And does he really believe the population that elected him to The Lodge agree with his judgment if that is the case? 

The policy change doesn’t only apply to Kiwis by the way. It applies to virtually any resident who comes here. 

There have been a dozen Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) cases where criminals who have previously been deported can now stay, thanks Giles’ Direction 99. 

Which member of the AAT authorised this latest criminal – a child rapist of a family member – to stay because of family ties to Australia? 

Former Labor Speaker of the House of Representatives, Anna Burke. 

Remember when the Labor Party complained that the Coalition was appointing too many of its own partisan allies to the AAT? 

Oh the irony. 

Former Labor Speaker Anna Burke (pictured) was the AAT member who approved a child rapist to stay in Australia because of family ties to the community

Perhaps Albo won’t dump Giles because of pride: not wanting to admit he made a poor choice with his first selection of a first-term immigration minister. Someone who in a past life was an activist for causes in the same policy space. 

It was a bad decision, evoking plenty of murmurings within Labor at the time.  

Albo probably has concerns that if he dumps Giles it will only add to calls for other ministers to fall on their swords too. Such as Giles’ senior minister in cabinet, Home Affairs minister Clare O’Neil. 

The PM would also worry that dumping Giles might reek of hypocrisy, given Albo’s championing of changes to immigration laws when standing alongside Ardern shortly after becoming PM. 

After all, would Giles have made such directions without at least tacit prime ministerial support? 

Whatever the reason Albo won’t sack this failure of a minister, the risk is that by not doing so the failures will only continue, the government will lose the faith of voters who once supported it, and Australia will continue to welcome with open arms just the sort of people most of us would rather were deported for their crimes. 

Is defending Giles really the hill this PM wants to die on?