The sister of a woman murdered by an immigrant who had already been convicted of a serious crime in Australia is demanding shadow citizenship minister Kristina Keneally “spend a day in the life of our family” after Labor senators came out against a bill that would spare others their heartache.
Turkish-born Mustafa Kunduraci stabbed Korinne Aylward and her partner Greg Tucker to death in their lounge room in December 2013 after a dispute over a plastering job he had done. The couple’s three young children were asleep just metres away.
But nearly four years earlier he had violently attacked and threatened to kill a former partner.
Had character test legislation now proposed by the federal government been in place at the time, that earlier crime would have likely led to him being booted out of Australia. A new Senate committee report reveals Labor opposes the bill for reasons including that it causes “undue harm to non citizens”.
Korinne Aylward’s sister Maria told The Daily Telegraph she believed the Opposition could not see how their decision affected innocent people.
She said Senator Keneally should leave behind her “exclusive” world split between Canberra, Hunters Hill and a waterfront weekender to “spend a day in the life of our family”.
Immigration lawyer Simon Jeans — who helped Ms Aylward prepare a submission to the committee and ran for the ALP in the federal seat of Bradfield in the 1990s — said supporting the bill would be a “golden opportunity” for Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese “to demonstrate his return to Labor’s strong border protection policies from before Kevin Rudd in 2007”.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Immigration Minister David Coleman met with Maria Aylward and her other sister Katelyn last year. Mr Coleman said yesterday Ms Keneally and Mr Albanese should explain to the public “why they are against these laws which protect our community from convicted sex offenders, violent thugs and those who commit crimes against women and children.”
Under the bill a migrant convicted of a “designated offence” with a maximum jail sentence of not less than two years would fail the Migration Act character test.
Ms Keneally’s spokesman said she hadn’t “received a request to meet with this individual”, in reference to Maria Aylward.
The spokesman said Mr Coleman “must be the most incompetent Immigration Minister of all time if he doesn’t know he can already cancel the visas of violent criminals”.
so the sister of a MURDERED women my a violent immigrant is just an individual to the left..
at least we can see which side they are on and its not us Australians..