Australia’s deputy opposition leader is under fire for a post claiming “foreign criminals” are attacking women, after an immigrant was detained for sexual assault — only for police to admit they got the wrong man.
In a tweet condemned by the government as “grubby”, Sussan Ley of the conservative Liberal Party sought to tap into voter concerns about crime and migration ahead of a weekend by-election in Dunkley, Victoria.
“If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor,” the opposition Liberal Party’s deputy leader posted Thursday on X.
The tweet remained on the social media platform Friday, despite calls for her to take it down.
Ley posted the message after Victoria police arrested a 44-year-old man — a former immigration detainee — and charged him with a number of sexual offences.
On Thursday, however, police apologised for arresting the wrong man, saying closed-circuit video images later identified a different, similar-looking man as the alleged culprit.
“It is clear the person arrested is not the offender,” Victoria police commander Mark Galliot told a news conference.
“We are sincerely sorry that this person has been detained.”
The wrongly arrested man was one of 149 immigration detainees — most with criminal records — who have been released from detention since a High Court last year ruled they could not be held indefinitely.
“I find it extraordinary that Ms Ley has refused to delete that tweet,” the centre-left Labor Party prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told reporters on Friday.
He criticised the opposition for “shooting from the hip” and running a “fear campaign” about the release of immigrants into the community.
“You have a fear campaign about everything and a solution for nothing,” Albanese said.
Education Minister Jason Clare told Ley to delete the tweet as the pair sparred on a morning TV show Friday, describing it as part of a “desperate, grubby political scare campaign”.
Ley accused the government of failing to show it was properly tracking released immigration detainees with criminal records to keep the community safe.
“As a woman, I am not taking a backward step on this, and I am calling it out,” she said.
The released detainees included seven with previous convictions for murder or attempted murder, 37 for sexual crimes, 72 for assault and violence offences, kidnapping or armed robbery, and 16 for domestic violence or stalking, government documents show.
