Why doesn’t the Prime Minister do his job and sack his most incompetent leader, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles?
As we all know, Giles presided over the release of rapists and child sex offenders from immigration detention centers into the community. He ignored warnings from the High Court and his own department that could have prevented his release, or at least ensured it was better managed.
The mistakes continued when authorities lost track of many of these criminals after they were released from detention. Several of them allegedly committed other criminal offences, including the assault of an elderly Perth woman.
We now discover that convicted rapists and other foreign criminals living in Australia are allowed to stay, rather than being deported as they were in the past.
Because? Due to an order from Giles that these criminals be shown leniency if they have family links to Australia.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles (pictured) is under pressure after allowing a child rapist to stay in Australia due to family ties.
Anthony Albanese (pictured) continues to support 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 for family reasons. Hard to believe, but true.
Thanks to Giles, the child rapist has the right to stay thanks to Ministerial Directive 99. What do I hear you ask?
They are Giles’ instructions to his own department on how to manage visas, when to cancel them and when not to. Turns out, it’s also permission for convicted criminals to abuse a system that’s now tilted in their favor.
Immigration ministers give instructions from time to time on how visas should be assessed. In January of last year, Giles released this new one: Direction 99.
A new major consideration has been added when assessing visas that has never existed before: links to Australia can outweigh crimes committed. Even cases as serious as child rape.
The incompetence is astonishing.
So why doesn’t Albo simply fire Giles to send a message that he expects more from his ministers?
Is loyalty to his friend above the prime minister’s responsibility to the nation? Giles and Albo are very close and come from the same faction within the Labor Party. He is one of the prime minister’s closest friends in parliament.
The Australian community has been forced to deal with the release of dozens of convicted criminals from immigration detention centres.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles (pictured) is a close personal friend of the Prime Minister. Is that why he hasn’t been fired?
Does Albo agree with the decisions Giles is making? The Prime Minister stood alongside former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern as changes to immigration rules were announced preventing long-term Australian residents of New Zealand from being sent back home when they had lived here for decades with ties that united them.
But is this latest example really how the Prime Minister intended this policy change to work? And does he really believe that the population that elected him to The Lodge agrees with his judgment if that’s the case?
By the way, the policy change doesn’t just apply to Kiwis. It applies to virtually any resident who comes here.
There have been a dozen Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) cases where criminals who had previously been deported are now able to stay, thanks to Giles’ Directorate 99.
Which AAT member authorized this latest criminal, a rapist of a relative’s children, to stay because of his family ties to Australia?
Former Labor Speaker of the House of Representatives, Anna Burke.
Remember when Labor complained that the Coalition was appointing too many of its own party allies to the AAT?
Oh, the irony.
Former Labor president Anna Burke (pictured) was the AAT member who approved a child rapist to remain in Australia because of his family ties to the community.
Perhaps Albo is not leaving Giles out of pride: he does not want to admit that he made a bad decision in choosing an immigration minister for the first time for his first term. Someone who in a past life was an activist for causes in the same political space.
It was a bad decision, which caused much murmuring within the Labor Party at the time.
Albo is probably worried that getting rid of Giles will only increase calls for other ministers to also fall on their swords. As the senior minister in Giles’ cabinet, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.
The prime minister would also be concerned that getting rid of Giles could reek of hypocrisy, given that Albo championed changes to immigration laws when he stood alongside Ardern shortly after becoming prime minister.
After all, would Giles have given such instructions without at least the tacit support of the Prime Minister?
Whatever the reason Albo will not sack this failed 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 embrace it. open. just the kind of people most of us would prefer to see deported for their crimes.
Is defending Giles really the hill this Prime Minister wants to die on?
