Opinion
‘Community safety is our priority,’ the government says. Tell that to Ninette Simons
David Crowe
Chief political correspondentWhen federal ministers are asked what they would like to do with former criminals who have been released from immigration detention over the past six months, Australians are being given a simple assurance. The vow is to take them off the streets if that is what it takes to keep the community safe.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil made the declaration this week when asked about the horrific bashing of a Perth grandmother, and the accusation, yet to be tested in court, that one of the detainees is to blame.
Home invasion victim Ninette Simons says: “I handed over all of my life’s savings on a platter, only to be bashed for it.”
“The safest thing for the community is for this person to be in detention,” O’Neil told the Seven Network on Wednesday when asked about the detainee. “I’m not going to deny that. And if I had the power to put them back in detention, I would absolutely do it.”
Tough words. And O’Neil has been saying them for months. She and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles are clearly frustrated with the High Court ruling last November that shifted years of thinking about immigration detention and led to about 150 people being released because the government had no reasonable prospect of deporting them.
But those tough words are now shattered by a horrifying image: the face of Ninette Simons, 73, after she was bashed in her Perth home last month. The government’s talk in December of setting up a strong regime to monitor the detainees, including a Community Protection Board to consider each case, sounds empty after the attack on Simons and her husband on April 16.
“I handed over all of my life’s savings on a platter, only to be bashed for it,” Simons told the media last week. “They could have just taken it. I wasn’t even screaming. I couldn’t because he was hitting me. I was submissive. It was so easy for them to take it all. Why did he have to bash me?”
What is the point of a Community Protection Board if it cannot protect the community? That is just one question that must be asked about the government regime. Another is about whether federal officials are even listening to O’Neil. She says she wants the detainees back in detention. The officials, however, missed the moment when they could have asked for that very outcome.
The former detainee who is accused of the bashing is Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43, who was born in Kuwait and has Iranian citizenship. He came to Australia by boat in 2011 and was released into the community after claiming asylum. Police allege he was one of three men who tied up Philip Simon, 76, and assaulted Ninette before leaving with jewellery and cash said to be worth about $200,000. He has been charged with aggravated home burglary, robbery, impersonating a public officer, assault and detaining someone.
Doukoshkan is now before the West Australian courts and has the presumption of innocence. There are legal reasons his full history cannot be published until the courts decide his fate. It is important, however, to outline some of his recent experience because it is central to the question about whether federal authorities failed.
Court records explain why Doukoshkan was in immigration detention until the High Court ruling last November. He was sentenced in March 2017 for crimes not related to violence. He was sentenced to a maximum of eight years, backdated to 2015.
He was released from jail before serving the full term and transferred to immigration detention. The federal government wanted to deport him to his country of citizenship, but Iran does not accept citizens who are being returned against their will. He remained in detention until the High Court ruling last November.
The big questions are about what happened next.
Court records show that Doukoshkan was before the courts within months of the High Court ruling. He was arrested by WA police on February 20 and was in the Perth magistrates court the same day, charged with breaching a curfew that was meant to keep him out of public areas from 10pm to 6am.
He was released on bail that day after prosecutors chose not to oppose his release. The breach of curfew was a federal matter, so this was a clear instance when federal authorities did not make the attempt to keep him in detention.
The magistrate on February 20 told Doukoshkan he was on “very thin ice” and was lucky to be released because the federal prosecutor chose not to oppose bail. Here are the magistrate’s words in the court transcript: “Commonwealth is being very generous today because, quite frankly, if they didn’t consent to the release of you on bail, I wouldn’t be bailing you.”
So the federal prosecutors were not paying attention to those tough words from federal ministers.
Would a different bail decision have spared Ninette and Philip Simon? Nobody can know. The charges over the curfew breach were discontinued on March 22 because Doukoshkan was one of the former detainees who was given the wrong visa on their release. Federal officials blundered, as the Seven Network revealed, and the visas had to be reissued.
Doukoshkan had other problems with the law. He appeared in court on February 21 on minor charges. Again, he was released on bail. These were state matters and outside the reach of federal ministers.
But the federal authorities fumbled again. At some point between February and April, as Angus Thompson has reported in this masthead, a decision was made to remove Doukoshkan’s ankle bracelet. This was made or cleared by the Community Protection Board.
Ministers do not tell prosecutors what to do in court. It is up to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to manage these cases and decide whether to oppose bail. O’Neil and Giles cannot dictate terms to the courts. The Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, does not send instructions to the prosecutors.
O’Neil and Giles will not be able to put ankle bracelets on everyone because this would expose them to legal challenge. They will be wary of seeking preventative detention orders, under laws passed last year, for the same reason. If they apply these sanctions without good reason, the High Court could find in favour of the detainee and weaken the regime.
Even so, the system failed. There are now 153 former detainees in the community and about half of them were convicted or charged with assault before going into detention. The list includes seven murderers and 37 sex offenders. And the problem will not go away. Like it or not, ministers have to manage these cases. Being in power means being responsible for immigration detention.
One option being canvassed within the government is to change the approach at the Community Protection Board. Why was the ankle bracelet removed? The obvious change is to tighten the monitoring, with regular checks, and take a stricter approach if the detainee ends up in court, even with a curfew breach.
“Community safety is our priority,” the government says. Tell that to Ninette Simons.
Labor is in a world of political pain over migration and borders, and for good reason. It promised a tough system. It has to make that system work.
David Crowe is chief political correspondent.