Nat Barr has been forced to pull the plug on an uncomfortably tense interview with the Home Affairs Minister and a Liberal Senator after the pair refused to stop arguing over the government’s latest immigration bungle.
Labor minister Clare O’Neil and Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume appeared on Sunrise on Wednesday morning where Barr asked about how the cancellation of high-profile criminal Kevin Farrugia’s visa was revoked.
The TV presenter was due to ask one more question after the visa discussion but instead shut the interview down early after she was unable to get a word in amid Ms O’Neil and Ms Hume’s bickering.
‘You know what no-one likes the arguing. I think we will leave it there. See you next week,’ Barr said as the camera suddenly cut from the interview and moved onto co-host Matt Shirvington.
News broke this week that Farrugia, 51, who is also an associate of ‘s most notorious crime lord Tony Mokbel, was spared from deportation by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).
Farrugia, whose serial criminality started in 1993, has been convicted over reckless conduct endangering life, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms and drug trafficking.
The Maltese national is behind bars but could be freed in May next year.
His visa was cancelled but this has since been revoked as part of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ Direction 99, which was issued early last year.
The direction requires the immigration minister or a body, including the AAT, to consider an individual’s community ties when considering revoking the cancellation of a convicted criminal’s visa.
The decision means that greater tolerance is shown to immigrants who have committed serious crimes and had their visas cancelled if they’ve ‘lived in the n community for most of their life, or from a very young age’.
Farrugia came to when he was just 17-months-old.
‘Clare, is it getting hard to continue to defend Minister Giles?’ Barr asked Ms O’Neil.
Ms O’Neil immediately turned the blame onto former immigration minister and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, saying he had the chance to cancel Farrugia’s visa when he was in charge but didn’t.
‘You probably saw it was reported last week that while Peter Dutton was Home Affairs Minister and Immigration Minister, 1,300 convicted criminals were released from immigration detention,’ she said.
Ms O’Neil was quickly cut off by Ms Hume who said: ‘Oh Clare you are shameless!’
The home affairs minister seemed unfazed by the interruption and said Mr Dutton had refused to answer any questions on the topic.
‘I would say that if the test for Jane and her colleagues set for ministers in our government was set for Peter Dutton he would not have lasted a week,’ she continued.
Ms Hume interrupted again, saying Mr Dutton ‘lasted much more than a week’ and cancelled more than 6,500 visas during his time.
‘You are shameless Clare,’ she said.
Barr then tried to ask for clarity over whether Mr Dutton could have cancelled Farrugia’s visa but did not get a clear answer from Ms Hume as she continued to attack Labor.
‘It is hard to get stuck into this government on this topic if you can’t answer that question about whether your government could have done it,’ Barr said, as Ms Hume continued to speak over her.
Barr then tried to change topics and move on to the final question but the two ministers refused to back down and continued to argue.
The Sunrise host then shut down the interview with both ministers suddenly muted and taken off camera.