Home affairs minister Peter Dutton has told the Herald that government is considering “these sensible measures to get tougher on criminals.”
A parliamentary committee headed by MP Jason Wood has proposed these measures. If passed, these laws would give the government power to deport violent criminals as young as 16, the Herald Sun reported.
Gang violence in Victoria is being seen as one of the many motivations behind such proposals. The federal opposition has criticized these proposals.
Under Mr. Wood, the parliamentary committee was investigating the reasons some migrant groups integrate better than others. The committee has recommended automatically cancelling the visas of criminals convicted of violent offences, including assault and aggravated burglary.
These measures are considered unprecedented as the same would apply to offenders as young as 16. The committee proposes deporting them to their country of birth once they reach 18. Currently, automatic cancellation of visas applies only in cases where the sentence is 12 months or more or sexual crime involving a child.
The Daily Telegraph had reported last month that evidence presented to the committee revealed that Australian-born criminals commit the most offences and some migrant groups were over-represented in crime statistics compared to the size of their community.
Recent incidents of gang-violence in Victoria have revived the debate over crimes by migrants. The federal government is targeting Labor government of Victoria for “political correctness” on African gang violence. A former police officer, Mr. Dutton said foreign criminals who did not respect Australia’s laws were “not welcome here”.
A report released last month by Labor members Shayne Neumann, Maria Vamvakinou argue, Steve Georganas argued that “Migrant youth and newly arrived migrants are not involved in criminal activity, with less than 10 percent being overseas-born offenders,” reads a report published by The Australian.
Committee chairman Mr. Wood yesterday accused the Labor members of “cherrypicking” data to justify their position and ignoring the evidence of the Crime Statistics Agency, which produced statistics showing the number of Sudanese-born unique offenders had risen substantially in the past three years, reports The Australian.
