PETER VAN ONSELEN: Anthony Albanese's bid to wedge his rivals backfires ... trends now
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The Commonwealth might have won in the High Court today, but that victory spells defeat for the Albanese Government on the politics of this issue.
It makes a mockery of Labor's desperate urgings just weeks ago that the parliament rush through laws which might have circumvented a negative judgement.
Today's unanimous High Court decision means that the Iranian man known only as ASF17 will remain in immigration detention until he cooperates with his deportation, because 'he has been found by a delegate of the Minister not to have a genuine and well founded fear of persecution in Iran'.
It also takes the pressure off the Coalition to pass the draft legislation when the Senate returns on Tuesday, which is also Budget day. Labor would have ramped up the pressure on the Opposition to urgently do so if the judgement had gone the other way.
Simply put, there was no need to rush the Bill though parliament in 72 hours in the first place. Legal scholars were almost unanimous in their assessment that the High Court would do exactly what it now has.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil (above) while welcoming the High Court decision has been left with political egg on her face
The High Court ruling means that an Iranian detainee won't be released into the community
Labor should now take the time necessary to get the draft legislation it initially played politics with right, which may mean adopting the recommendations the Coalition has made to improve it.
While Labor enjoyed the political optics before the judgement of the Coalition being forced to side with the Greens to defeat the rushed legislation in the Senate, the two parties came at it from very different perspectives.
