WA Premier Roger Cook is seeking an explanation from the federal government about why the former detainee accused of a violent Girrawheen home invasion was not wearing a monitoring device at the time.
At a press conference this morning,Cook said his office was also awaiting responses to a question about how many detainees were still in the West Australian community following the landmark High Court decision in November that deemed indefinite detention of some detainees was illegal.
Despite these questions of his federal counterparts,Cook refused to attribute any blame for the debacle on the Albanese government.
Instead,he praised its “swift” response to the High Court decision and suggested the Albanese government was dealing with flawed migration laws introduced by the former Morrison government.
“I think there are a range of people who should be shouldering the burden of blame in terms of the situation,the High Court[and] the federal opposition,” he said.
“Those laws were found to be inadequate – they were laws brought in by the Morrison Liberal National Government - they were found to be flawed by the High Court and so as a result of those flawed laws those … detainees were then released into the community.”
Cook said he was disappointed that Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan was granted bail in February for breaching curfew conditions – a decision that wasn’t opposed lawyers for the Commonwealth at the time.
“That is disappointing,that represented an opportunity to bring him back into custody,” he said.