A sex offender released from immigration detention following a High Court ruling has been charged with two counts of indecent assault, prompting the federal opposition to call for two ministers to resign.
Afghan refugee Aliyawar Yawari was deemed a “danger to the Australian community” by a South Australian judge in 2016 following attacks on three elderly women in 2013 and 2014.
SA Police have confirmed the 65-year-old man was charged with two counts of indecent assault on Saturday, December 2 following an alleged incident at a hotel in Pooraka, in Adelaide’s north.
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On Monday, in Adelaide Magistrates Court, Yawari did not apply for bail and has been remanded in custody.
The Australian Border Force confirmed that two immigrants released from immigration detention following a High Court ruling had reoffended in South Australia and NSW.
One of them remains in custody after allegedly committing a serious sexual assault, opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said, as he called for Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to resign.
“This is a catastrophic failure. The Albanese government has failed their number one duty, which is to keep the Australian community safe,” he told Sunrise on Tuesday.
“The time has come for the prime minister to do the right thing and ask for these ministers to resign, and if they don’t, he should sack them.”
Tehan accused the government of failing to adequately prepare for the possibility of the High Court ruling that indefinite immigration detention was illegal.
Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns said the charged detainees were entitled to the presumption of innocence.
“Every day of the week, ex-prisoners, unfortunately, commit further offences and, depending on the allegations and their circumstances, they are not necessarily detained but are granted bail,” he said.
Strengthening detention laws
The federal government will introduce amendments on Wednesday to laws brought in to deal with the fallout from the High Court decision that ruled indefinite detention was illegal, resulting in the release of more than 140 detainees.
Under the amendments, preventative detention orders would apply to those released, including murderers and sex offenders, and are based on similar measures for high-risk terror offenders, O’Neil said.
The exact number of released detainees the preventative detention orders would apply to is not known.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles backed his ministerial colleagues.
“What’s happened here is the High Court have ruled against a law that was put in place by the Howard government, it was there throughout the Turnbull and Morrison governments,” he told ABC Radio.
“The question is whether or not (the opposition) is going to be supporting strong legislation which will put the strongest possible conditions on those who have been released.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the coalition would likely back the laws.
“If the government has adequate measures to keep Australians safe, then we will support those measures and we’ll see what they have to say,” he told reporters in Sydney.
“If we see a bad bill, we’re not going to support it.”
Greens senator Nick McKim called the laws a “race to the bottom” on refugee policy.
“It creates two different classes of people in this country under the law, depending on whether you are the holder of a particular class of visa or not,” he said.
