Jeremy Cordeaux opened this Garage edition of the Court of Public Opinion with a story he said he found hard to believe — and harder still to accept. A 42-year-old man from Zambia, with almost 100 criminal convictions and a record of serious child sex offences, has been spared deportation and allowed to remain in Australia.
The Decision
The man’s visa was cancelled in May over his lengthy record. But, as Jeremy relayed from the reporting, he successfully appealed to the Administrative Review Tribunal in Perth, which restored his visa — accepting that he would face significant hardship if returned to Zambia. He was granted anonymity for legal reasons.
The appeal succeeded, Jeremy noted, under a ministerial direction — numbered 110 — maintained by Immigration Minister Tony Burke. That direction, he said, has stood unchanged since 2024, and he pointed to reporting that it has allowed hundreds of criminals to avoid deportation.
The NDIS Argument
The detail that most astonished Jeremy was one of the grounds argued in the man’s favour: that deportation would cost him access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That an offender could cite loss of NDIS access as a reason to stay, he argued, pointed to something badly wrong — in the framework guiding these decisions and in the scheme itself.
He noted, pointedly, that a government committee had lately recommended yet another layer of bureaucracy to oversee the NDIS — more cost, in his view, heaped onto an organisation already struggling.
Why Won’t The Minister Explain?
Jeremy’s central demand was for accountability. The Minister, he said, wouldn’t speak to him — yet had clearly explained the decision, or the direction behind it, to someone. Wouldn’t it be only fair and reasonable, he asked, for the public to hear that explanation directly?
His frustration wasn’t with the tribunal alone but with the policy architecture set at ministerial level. A direction that produces outcomes like this, he argued, is a political choice — and the Minister who maintains it should account for it publicly.
A Question Of Priorities
For Jeremy, the case crystallised a recurring theme: decisions made deep in the machinery of government that ordinary Australians find impossible to understand, and a reluctance by those responsible to explain them plainly.
He invited listeners to ring in with their own view. The specifics mattered less to him than the principle — who sets these directions, what they produce, and whether the ministers responsible will stand up and justify them. In the court of public opinion, he suggested, that accountability is the least the public is owed.
Listen To The Full Episode
Catch the complete Garage edition of The Court of Public Opinion, recorded live around the dining room table.
Watch The Full Episode
The Court of Public Opinion streams live every Friday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (ACST), right here at jeremycordeaux.com. Download the podcast anytime on your favourite podcast app, and join the conversation with your calls and comments.
