Calls for Mr Giles’ axing have mounted over the past few weeks when information arose about foreign offenders, including a convicted child rapist, being allowed to stay in Australia under Labor’s Direction 99, which will be revised by the minister.
The detainee saga worsened for the Labor MP after he told Sky News on Thursday his department was using drones to monitor detainees released into the community from the High Court NZYQ ruling, only to backflip on claim just before Question Time on Monday.
“I relied on information provided by my Department at the time, which has since been clarified,” he said.
Mr Giles’ blunder drew the ire of Clennell who questioned why the Immigration Minister remained in his job after repeated stuff ups.
“He’s got to go. I mean, you can’t be saying things that just aren’t true and then blaming your department,” Clennell said on Politics Now.
“How can this guy stay in this job? In all my 20 plus years covering politics (and) 30 years as a journalist, there’s only one outcome from this, and that’s that Andrew Giles loses his job.
“You cannot carry someone like this. If you do as a leader then you end up going down with them. It’s as simple as that.”
Clennell continued to criticise how long it took the Labor MP to clarify the truth despite first making the drone claim on Thursday morning and upholding it on the weekend.
“Andrew Giles’ office told me on Saturday morning that the minister’s statement on drones was correct. Andrew Giles’ office told me that,” Clennell said.
“Now they’ve had since Thursday morning when they’d spoken to Kieran to establish its truth. These guys – this minister is not in charge. If he’s not in charge of the immigration system – which is a pretty important portfolio area in a federal government – what is he doing there?
“What is Andrew Giles doing in that job?”
The Immigration Minister’s false drone claim also caught the attention of Liberal MP and former army officer Keith Wolahan who called out the absurdity of drones flying around the suburbs to track people.
“In various deployments in Afghanistan (I) relied upon them as someone on the ground and then in headquarters saw what they were capable of,” the Liberal MP said.
“It didn’t seem right to me that that technology was being deployed in this area.”
Mr Wolahan continued to delve into how these drones operate and joked they were more appropriate for delivering Uber Eats than tracking citizens in suburban environments.
“(Drones) are strategic assets that are so high up in the sky – they look like a star at night – and they’re obviously not appropriate for this,” he said.
“But there are now tactical drones that we’re seeing in Ukraine and in other conflicts. Again when you’re using tactical drones, you can hear them, you can see them and – thinking of those things buzzing around the suburbs – I think we’re more likely to have Uber Eats using drones.”
The beleaguered Immigration Minister will revise Direction 99 and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), which implemented the directive, will be replaced by the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).
Mr Giles said the ART will be guided by “protection of the community and commonsense”.
“The new direction will ensure that all members of the ART will adopt a commonsense approach to visa decisions, consistent with the intent of ministerial direction 99,” Mr Giles said, adding the new approach will “strengthen the principles of community safety,” he said last week.
“This is a change that will guide all decision-makers within the department of the AAT and the new ART to ensure that better decisions are made in line with the expectations of the Government and the community.”