Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says legal bar too high for preventative detention of NZYQ offenders

Sky News AU

28-06-2025

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has indicated the Albanese government will effectively abandon efforts to use preventative detention measures against the NZYQ cohort of former immigration detainees.
Mr Burke told Sky News Sunday Agenda that the government's repeated attempts to apply preventative detention on offending criminals had been stymied by legal hurdles.
Despite dedicating significant resources, no cases have met the threshold necessary to justify locking up released detainees under the current laws.
'The reality is the legal thresholds that we are stuck with… are more difficult to be able to reach than I want them to be,' Mr Burke said.
He suggested the government would instead pursue deportation and third-country resettlement for individuals on visas who have broken Australian laws.
The government has attempted to resettle three members of the NZYQ cohort in Nauru, though their cases remain in the High Court.
'Those negotiations with third countries continue, but we had the first three visas be offered and those cases are going through the High Court,' Mr Burke said.
'As they go through the High Court, we've been winning the cases, which I've been really happy about, which is giving me more confidence.'
The NZYQ cohort included 12 murderers or attempted murderers, 66 sex offenders, 97 people convicted of assault and 15 domestic violence perpetrators.
At least 28 former immigration detainees have been charged with federal offences since the reissuing of bridging visas in 2024.
'If your visa is cancelled, you should be leaving the country. That is why visas are cancelled,' Mr Burke said.
Pressed on whether the NZYQ cohort would ever be placed into preventative detention, Mr Burke said 'no one' had come close to reaching the legal threshold.
"I'm not giving up, I'm going to keep (trying), but I'll tell you to be honest, I would much prefer the individuals out of the country altogether," he said.
This statement follows a series of highly publicised violent crimes involving individuals from the NZYQ cohort.
Shadow defence minister Angus Taylor told Sky News Sunday Agenda that Mr Burke needed to 'make sure' that offenders were kept off the streets.
'We've always been supportive of Labor doing what's necessary to keep these people off of the streets,' he said.
'And we'll do the same again, but, you know, the job for Tony Burke is to make sure that he is able to do that.
'The key here is to keep people off the street in these circumstances and it's always been too hard for this Labor government to achieve that but it has to be an imperative.'
Among recent incidents was an alleged brutal assault by a 43-year-old former detainee on a bridging visa.
'This is another massive community safety failure by the Albanese government,' shadow home affairs minister Andrew Hastie recently said of the incident.
'This shocking attack is exactly the kind of scenario we sought to prevent when the parliament rushed through preventative detention powers for the NZYQ cohort.
'The government has not made a single application to keep these dangerous criminals off our streets.'