Former immigration detainees face being deported as the government presses ahead with efforts to restore the use of ankle bracelets.
Laws to circumvent a High Court ruling that it was unlawful to force former detainees to wear ankle bracelets and adhere to curfews have been rushed into parliament by Immigration Minister Tony Burke.
Under the proposal, the cohort could still be subject to curfews and electronic monitoring bracelets if the minister is satisfied they pose a “substantial risk” of harming the community by committing a serious offence.
Before the court ruling, the measures were automatically imposed on all detainees unless the minister decided otherwise.
Mr Burke introduced the legislation to the House of Representatives on Thursday, saying it filled in what the court left out.
“The decision of the High Court yesterday is not the one the government wanted, but it is one we prepared for,” he said.
He emphasised the government’s tough stance of deporting non-citizens to a third-party country.
Australia is a signatory to international human rights laws including the principle of non-refoulement, which means refugees cannot be sent to countries where they face persecution.
Mr Burke said the powers would be implemented in accordance with the obligations.
“The first priority is not ankle bracelets or detention for these people, our first priority is that we don’t want them in Australia at all,” the minister said.
“That is why we introduced powers today to improve the government’s capacity to remove people from this country in this situation.”
The bill has a clause that would allow the government to “make payments in relation to a third country reception arrangement with a foreign country.”
Ankle monitors and curfews were enforced in legislation passed in 2023 under former minister Andrew Giles, after a landmark High Court decision deemed indefinite detention was unconstitutional and unlawful.
The ruling led to the release of 215 immigration detainees.
As of mid-October, 126 of them were subject to a strict curfew from 10pm to 6am and 143 were forced to wear ankle bracelets.
But on Wednesday, the High Court ruled those restrictions were unconstitutional.
It found they breached the separation of powers between the courts and the government, because only the judiciary can administer criminal punishment.
The stateless Eritrean who launched the legal bid, known by the pseudonym YBFZ, had been charged with six offences for failing to comply with curfew and monitoring.
Their lawyer David Manne of Refugee Legal said ankle bracelets had caused a real psychological and emotional burden.
But the opposition said the government’s regulations did not go far enough to ensure community safety after the “embarrassing loss” in the High Court on Wednesday.
“Despite introducing new regulations and proposing new legislation, the Albanese government has failed to re-apply any curfews or electronic monitoring today,” Senator James Paterson, Dan Tehan and Senator Michaelia Cash said in a joint statement.
The coalition said it wrote to the government seeking a parliamentary inquiry to scrutinise the new regulations.
