Six weeks ago the Coalition and the Greens teamed up to punt Labor’s controversial deportation bill to a Senate inquiry.
It was a sign of the Albanese government’s vulnerability on the immigration detention issue since the NZYQ high court decision that the opposition felt it had more to gain by keeping the issue running than helping to pass tough new laws.
For the Greens, it was a chance to kill a bill they hated. It contains mandatory minimum sentences of one year in prison for a non-citizen refusing to cooperate with their deportation, as well as ministerial powers to blacklist whole countries from new visa applications.