Australia’s immigration minister, Andrew Giles, is seeking “urgent advice” about the possible re-cancellation of the visa of a Sudanese man charged with murder.
Giles said on Thursday that despite the administrative appeals tribunal releasing the man from detention by restoring his visa the minister had “sought urgent advice from my department about the implications of this”.
The AAT reinstated Emmanuel Saki’s visa in March, in part citing new rules that require an individual’s ties to the community and time spent in Australia be considered in visa cancellation decisions.
Labor had introduced the rules through a ministerial direction as a safeguard against the former government’s practice of deporting people to countries such as New Zealand, where they had no significant ties.
Saki is accused of the murder of a 22-year-old man in Acacia Ridge in Brisbane in May, just weeks after being was released from immigration detention.
He is not part of the NZYQ cohort released from detention due to the high court’s decision on indefinite detention. But the opposition has sought to weaponise the issue by blaming the ministerial direction issued by Giles and arguing he should have intervened at the time Saki’s visa was reinstated by the AAT.
On Thursday Giles told reporters in Bendigo: “Obviously my thoughts … are with the family of the victim.
“And I should be very clear in articulating … that I don’t want to say anything that might interfere with those criminal processes,” he said.
“What I can say is that over five years successive governments sought to maintain the cancellation of this individual’s visa.
“The AAT made a decision to overturn it, notwithstanding the directions which put a very high priority on community safety and recognise the importance of the Australian community to domestic violence.”
Saki’s visa was cancelled in 2019.
In Brisbane the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told reporters that the member of the AAT who made the decision had not been appointed by the Labor government. Stephen Boyle was appointed by the Coalition government in June 2017.
“This was a decision by the AAT,” Albanese said. “Minister Giles has responded and done a press conference on these matters today.”
Earlier, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, addressed what he described as a “tragic case … of a murder of a young man and the allegation is that the person who committed that heinous crime is somebody who was released out into the community after an AAT decision”.
“The government changed the character assessment test when they came into government,” Dutton told reporters in Perth.
Dutton said Saki had been allowed back into the Australian community because Labor had wanted “to try and please” the former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern. He queried why Giles had not intervened when the AAT made the decision.
“There’s no sense in the prime minister and Andrew Giles blaming the AAT,” Dutton said. “The AAT can only abide by the laws in front of them, and the government watered down the character test.”
Australia’s Migration Act gives the minister extensive personal powers to cancel visas, including some that put the decision beyond the reach of merits review.
