Anthony Albanese has struck a blow at Peter Dutton amid pressure for the Prime Minister to sack Immigration Minister Andrew Giles over the Direction 99 blunder.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has commented on former US President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict saying that it will be “the global story of the day”.
Mr Albanese said it is important that the Prime Minister of Australia “not comment”.
The Prime Minister, however, did detail his relationship with US President Joe Biden saying it was a “close” one.
“We get on very well,” he said during a media conference on Friday.
“But the relationship between Australia and the United States is a relationship between nations, not just between individuals.
“I wish the United States well, they are an important relationship that we have.”
Mr Albanese’s fierce criticism of the Liberal leader comes after repeated calls from Mr Dutton and his fellow party members for Mr Giles’ resignation after the minister’s controversial Direction 99 allowed foreign offenders to stay in Australia.
The direction, which will be revised following mounting pressure on the minister, was confirmed to be changed on Wednesday afternoon alongside the replacing of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).
Mr Albanese told the media on Friday morning he had no plans on sacking the Immigration Minister and lashed out at the Opposition Leader, who served in the immigration portfolio from December 2014 to August 2018 under former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Albanese has defended Immigration Minister Andrew Giles after repeated calls for his resignation by Coalition MPs. Picture: NewsWire / Damian Shaw
Mr Giles has faced a barrage of criticism from the Coalition over the past few weeks over Direction 99. Picture: Sky News
“Andrew Giles is the Immigration Minister, I’m the Prime Minister and I have no intentions of making changes imminently,” Mr Albanese said.
“I know that there’s a campaign being run by Peter Dutton. I say this: If Peter Dutton held himself to the same account that he wishes other minister to be held, then he wouldn’t have lasted in that portfolio for a week.”
Alongside questioning the Opposition Leader’s standards, the PM took aim at those in the AAT which allowed foreign repeat offenders to roam free in Australia despite committing heinous crimes.
Mr Dutton, alongside fellow Coalition MPs, have taken aim at Mr Giles over Direction 99. Picture: Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images
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“The AAT had been stacked with – if you’re a former Liberal counsellor somewhere who’d lost pre-selections, chances are you could put your hand up and get a guernsey on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal,” the PM said.
“We’ve abolished it, gotten rid of it and replaced it with the Administrative Review Tribunal which will be more rigorous (and) which will be not full of party-political appointments.
“Now, the coalition this week opposed the abolishing of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. They voted against it in the House of Representatives this week.
“As part of the new tribunal, we will be doing a new revised direction in which protection of the community outweighs other considerations and that’s appropriate.”
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has slammed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “weak”.
Mr Joyce’s comments come after the Coalition accused Mr Albanese of putting his relationship with former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden above the safety of Australians.
A 2022 department submission has shown the main risks identified in direction 99 were concerns over how the policy would be received by New Zealand.
“He hasn’t had the capacity to come in as the boss and to say, mate, I’m dealing with this,” Mr Joyce said.
Many Coalition MPs attacked Mr Giles, including shadow home affairs minister James Paterson who said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if there was a “quiet reshuffle done and Andrew Giles is moved aside”.
Alongside Mr Paterson was shadow finance minister Jane Hume who demanded the Prime Minister sack Mr Giles after making “one shambolic decision after another”.
“So far they’ve blamed the courts, they’ve blamed the Coalition – at some point, somebody has to take responsibility for decisions that this government is making and if Minister Giles can’t step up and either take responsibility and resign, then Anthony Albanese must sack him,” Ms Hume said Wednesday.
“He must sack him and he must do it today. Not only must he sack him but they must immediately repeal this Direction 99 that is allowing, now, more and more criminals to wander our streets, that are non-citizens, allowing them to continue to commit crimes against Australian citizens.”
Ms Hume has been an outspoken critic of Mr Giles in the ongoing immigration row. Picture: Sky News
The government’s decision to overhaul Direction 99, which could mean the deporting of foreign offenders deemed to have “ties to Australia,” drew the ire of political leaders in New Zealand.
Direction 99, signed by Mr Giles in 2023, was created following pressure from the then-New Zealand government to stop deporting people born in NZ convicted of criminal offences if they had spent the majority of their time living in Australia.
NZ’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the Kiwi government does “not want to see deportation of people with little or no connection to New Zealand, whose formative experiences were nearly all in Australia”.
The Coalition has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of putting his relationship with former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden above the safety of Australians.
This comes as Immigration Minister Andrew Giles is facing increasing pressure over Direction 99.
The move has allowed several foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes to avoid deportation.
A 2022 department submission has shown the main risks identified in the direction were concerns over how the policy would be received by New Zealand.
New Zealand has recently warned the government not to resume the practice of deporting people with little connection to the country they had left.
Mr Albanese insisted moves made by the Labor government are in the Australian national interest, not from pressure across the Tasman as he highlighted his “good relationship” with NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
“I’ve got a good relationship with Prime Minister Luxon, I’ll be hosting him here in a short period of time – we have the Australia New Zealand leaders meeting to be held here, and he’ll be very welcome here,” he said.
“I had a chat with him yesterday, we talk regularly… I’ve known Prime Minister Luxon for a long period of time because he was a former CEO of Air New Zealand, so we have a good relationship.
“We had a good chat yesterday. Australia makes our decisions in our national interest.”
Under the Immigration Minister’s original Direction 99: “Australia will generally afford a higher level of tolerance of criminal or other serious conduct by non-citizens who have lived in the Australian community for most of their life”.