Immigration Minister Andrew Giles is under fire over a ministerial direction he issued in January last year that has been linked to several legal decisions to allow foreign-born criminals to stay in Australia.
Direction 99 was given under section 501 of the Migration Act – which deals with refusal or cancellation of visas on character grounds – and signed off by Giles. It came into effect on March 3 last year after years of lobbying by the New Zealand government to stop Australia from deporting New Zealanders convicted of criminal offences when they had spent most of their life in Australia.
Giles was meant to be informed of cases before the tribunal by Home Affairs. However, Foster admitted the department failed the immigration minister as “we did not meet our agreed protocol and in particular we did not put advice before him in any way”. Foster was again taking questions on Wednesday morning, placing blame on a Coalition-era policy for reducing the resources of bureaucrats which led to them failing to warn Giles about criminals’ visas being reinstated.
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