New laws target worst criminals
A TOUGH new Bill that is expected to see the deportation of thousands more non-citizen criminals is an important step closer to becoming law.
It will strengthen the character test to make it easier to kick out sex perverts, violent thugs, domestic violence offenders and criminals who use or possess weapons.
The proposed legislation will also be retrospective to enable it to capture more offenders.
It is expected to be discussed in Federal Parliament this week and the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee has recommended it be passed.
Immigration Minister Peter Coleman yesterday said that while Australia welcomed people from all over the world “people need to know if you come here and commit a criminal offence then you won’t be staying for long”.
A person fails the current character test if any of several criteria are met, including that they hold a substantial criminal record, have been convicted of an offence committed while in immigration detention or are suspected of having links to crime groups — such as a bikie gang.
One of the most-used triggers for mandatory visa cancellation is that the offender has to have been sentenced to jail for 12 months or more.
This provision will continue to exist, but the new visa-scrapping legislation will go further by capturing any person — in- cluding children — convicted of a designated offence for which they can be jailed for two years or more.
It will apply even if they avoid a jail term, as many do, or are sentenced to less than 12 months.
More than 4150 convicted criminals have had their visas cancelled since 2014.
Victorian Liberal MP and former police officer Jason Wood, the chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, yesterday said the rate of deportations would dramatically increase under the new legislation.
He said he had pushed for the new laws after a spate of home invasions and car jackings in his electorate by local gangs.