Immigration minister Andrew Giles is doing more backflips than a Romanian gymnast – but just can’t nail his landing, writes PETER VAN ONSELEN

The theater of the absurd continued today as beleaguered Immigration Minister Andrew Giles called a media conference to declare that Direction 99 had been buried dead and cremated.

This will be replaced by ‘Direction 110’, which, according to the minister, puts the safety of the community first. Details remain very scarce.

That begs the obvious question of why Direction 99 didn’t do that in the first place. Because if it was, it wouldn’t need to be replaced. And the fact that this was not enough to have fired this minister a long time ago.

Yet there he was this morning, Andrew Giles, announcing a new system to replace the failed and failed old system for which he was responsible. Both the design and its implementation.

It was poorly designed and poorly managed after its implementation.

The theater of the absurd continued today as beleaguered Immigration Minister Andrew Giles (pictured) called a media conference to declare that Direction 99 has been buried dead and cremated

Direction 99 was introduced over a year ago by the new Labor government, specifically designed to address New Zealand’s concerns that too many of its citizens who committed crimes in this country were being sent home.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was a proud supporter as he was allowed to stand next to then Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern and make the announcement.

The only problem was that community safety was not prioritized as Direction 110 will now do. It also applied to all overseas arrivals, not just New Zealanders.

It resulted in numerous examples of criminals not having their visas revoked because Direction 99 did not prioritize the safety of the community.

Rapists, child molesters and domestic abusers were all allowed to stay instead of being deported.

The same minister who was in charge of this mess – supplemented by inaccurate statements such as perpetrators ‘being monitored with drones’ – is now responsible for solving it.

They were able to rely on their ties to family and community to compel the commissioners of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing their cases, and were forced to accept Direction 99’s construction and allow them to stay.

A Sudanese resident used ties to the local Aboriginal community to justify his stay. Convicted domestic abusers used ties with their families to stay.

You couldn’t make this up.

The deputy head of the AAT, Stephen Boyle, was quite explicit in describing this reality when he provided his written reasons for some of his decisions. His hand forced by Direction 99’s stupidity.

In any case, it is gone and replaced by Direction 110 – if you can now trust the same minister to oversee the new rules.

It is utterly ridiculous that the same minister who presided over this mess – adding inaccurate explanations such as perpetrators being ‘monitored with drones’ – is now responsible for solving it.

Giles is anything but remorseful about his failures and uses Question Time to try to insult the opposition rather than take responsibility.

His inability has been all too clearly exposed in public in recent weeks. But because he is good friends with Albo and is in the same faction, he survived.

Also because the Prime Minister was closely involved in the introduction of this disastrous policy.

The Prime Minister did not want to reward the opposition for its complaints about Giles, with a stubborn political stance becoming more important than doing the right thing.

There should be no escaping responsibility for this mess, especially not for Giles. The whole reason this has happened is due to a change in policy that Labor introduced

There should be no escaping responsibility for this mess, especially not for Giles. The whole reason this has happened is due to a change in policy that Labor introduced. One that they have now fled from and replaced.

Yet Giles won’t take responsibility, his boss won’t take action against him and instead they are all now playing the blame game. Giles says his department failed him. Albo says the coalition had already made a living out of immigration when she was still in government.

That was over two years ago now. The last election was in May 2022. At what point will this Labor government finally start taking responsibility for what happens under its watch?