Sussan Ley accuses government of failing to prove it is properly tracking released immigration detainees
Sydney:
Australia’s deputy opposition leader has been criticized for a post claiming “foreign criminals” were attacking women after a migrant was detained for sexual assault, but police have admitted they have the wrong man.
Ahead of the weekend by-election in Dunkley, Victoria, the Conservative Liberal Party’s Sussan Ley sought to capitalize on voters’ concerns about crime and immigration in a tweet condemned by the government as “dirty”.
“If you don’t want to see Australian women attacked by foreign criminals, vote against Labor,” the deputy leader of the opposition Liberal Party posted on the X website on Thursday.
The tweet remained on the social media platform on Friday despite calls for her to delete it.
Ley posted the news after Victoria Police arrested a 44-year-old man, a former immigration detainee, and charged him with multiple sex offences.
On Thursday, however, police apologized for arresting the wrong man, saying CCTV images later identified another man with a similar look as the alleged offender.
“It is clear that the person arrested is not a criminal,” Victoria Police Commissioner Mark Garriott told a news conference.
“We sincerely apologize for the detention of this individual.”
The wrongly arrested man is one of 149 immigration detainees, most with criminal records, who have been released since a High Court ruling last year that they could not be detained indefinitely.
“I find it very unusual that Ms Ley refused to delete the tweet,” centre-left Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters on Friday.
He criticized the opposition for “acting recklessly” and running a “fear campaign” against releasing immigrants into communities.
“You have a fear campaign about everything and you solve nothing,” Albanese said.
The pair feuded on Friday’s morning TV show after Education Minister Jason Clare asked Ley to delete the tweet, calling it a “desperate, dirty campaign of political intimidation”. part.
Ley accused the government of failing to prove it was properly tracking released immigration detainees with criminal records to ensure community safety.
“As a woman, I’m not going to take a step back on this, I’m going to speak out,” she said.
Government documents show that the detainees released include seven people with previous convictions for murder or attempted murder, 37 people convicted of sex crimes, and 72 people convicted of assault and violent crime, kidnapping or armed robbery. of people, as well as 16 people convicted of domestic violence or stalking.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
