Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil has thrown her support behind under siege Immigration Minister Andrew Giles as the Coalition escalate calls for him to be sacked over the latest visa scandal.
Mr Giles is under extreme pressure after dozens of cases were brought to light where people convicted of crimes including child rape had visa cancellations overturned when they took their cases to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The minister on Tuesday promised to personally review the case after claiming his own department had kept in the dark about the tribunal’s decisions.
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley on Wednesday again demanded Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sack Mr Giles.
“How can the Prime Minister say that he stands up for women and women’s safety when he allows his minister to release predator after predator into the community?” she said.
Ms O’Neil – whose has survived calls for her own sacking as Home Affairs Minister amid the detainee saga – backed in Mr Giles.
“So actually, Minister Giles has stepped in here, he’s taking action as a good Minister would do, he has demanded answers from the Department about why these visas were not brought to his attention, and he is also actively reviewing about 30 cases that we are concerned about, indeed he has already cancelled some of those visas,” Ms O’Neil told Sunrise.
“So he’s doing the right thing, he’s stepped in at the right moment, and it’s important that this action is taken.
The cases hinge on a direction Mr Giles issued in January 2023, which said that decisions to cancel visas “will generally afford a higher level of tolerance of criminal or other serious conduct by non-citizens who have lived in the Australian community for most of their life or from a very young age”.
But it also said there should be low tolerance for people who had only been in the country for a short time and that domestic violence and crimes against women or children were so serious that mitigating factors would not be sufficient to overturn a cancellation.
The direction was intended to fix a long-running issue in the relationship with New Zealand that saw Kiwis who had spent nearly their entire lives in Australia being deported.