Burke said on Tuesday: “Procedural fairness is a fundamental principle in many areas of decision-making; however, these provisions can and are being used by non-citizens to frustrate their removal at cost to the Commonwealth in circumstances where it is neither necessary or appropriate for it to continue to apply.”

Concerns for legal rights

“And it would deprive people of the right to respond before a deportation notice is issued to them, exposing them to prison time if they fail to comply.”

“I think we’re still coming to terms with what that means specifically in this legislation, but that retrospective nature is something that all lawyers around Australia should be deeply concerned by,” she said.

“The fact that the government is looking to legislate around these court decisions is incredibly alarming.”

Legislation ‘secretive’ and ‘extremely dangerous’

“It can’t be read in isolation. It also has to be read in conjunction with the three brutal bills that Labor passed at the end of last year, all of which are really forming this cobweb and framework that is denying access to legal justice, access to human rights safeguards for people in our community,” she said.

The government passed laws last year granting immigration officials additional powers to facilitate deportations, including the option to pay other countries to accept non-citizens from Australia.

‘This is not the way’