Lawmakers fail bid to empower gov't to deport non-Australians

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) – The Australian Senate blocked a government move to rush "extraordinary" immigration powers through parliament to deport non-Australian citizens, local media reported on Wednesday.

The government introduced legislation in the Senate seeking power to deport non-Australian citizens from the country but a majority of senators blocked the bill and sent it to the Senate Legal Committee, ABC News reported.

The bill already passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday is now stalled in the Senate.

The government move came ahead of a High Court case that will be heard next month regarding an Iranian man, who the authorities want to deport but he is refusing to cooperate with them, according to the report.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi opposed the proposed legislation and said it "extraordinarily" expands the ministerial powers.

"This bill is an extraordinary expansion of ministerial powers, to the point where the Human Rights Law Centre has called the powers 'god-like'," the broadcaster quoted Faruqi as saying.

The government has already released some 150 people from immigration detention after last year the High Court of Australia ruled that detention of immigrants for an indefinite period is "unlawful and unconstitutional.”

Before the court ruling, the government had routinely detained immigrants for prolonged periods -- some for more than a decade -- under the previous court decision.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid