"This individual didn't come as a welcome guest - he came by boat when Labor lost control of the borders." Mr Dutton said Al Bayati had the right to appeal against the decision in a higher court, but he was confident the cancellation would stand. "Good riddance to him and people like him," he said. In a statement on Thursday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was "sickened" that Al Bayati, who arrived in Australia in 2011, "not only committed an appalling crime against an innocent child, but against the country that gave him refuge and a new life". "It’s abhorrent and unacceptable that a young child was terrorised by someone that was granted protection in our country," he said, and blamed Labor for issuing his protection visa.

"He illegally entered the country during the period of Labor’s hopeless border failures and was rewarded by Labor with a permanent protection visa," Mr Morrison said. The visa was cancelled under a law Mr Morrison introduced as immigration minister in 2014. Mr Morrison also appeared on Seven's Sunrise program to warn other visa holders against committing crimes in Australia, saying there had been "about 4000 cases" of people being deported after serving a jail term of 12 months or longer. "If you come here on a visa and you violate our laws, we will boot you out," he said. "That's the change we put in place and it will apply to this character. "Just because you're on a permanent protection visa – it's a warning to everyone – we'll cancel it, and we'll punt you."

Al Bayati, 30, received a report of a lost child and was captured on CCTV walking into the play area and kneeling down as he spoke to the girl. He waited as she sat down to put her shoes on, then grabbed her hand and led her down a secluded corridor and into a set of fire stairs where he exposed his penis and touched her underpants. The pair disappeared for more than 11 minutes before the girl was brought back. Labor's home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said through a spokesman on Thursday that the opposition "strongly supports the cancellation or refusal of visas on character grounds under section 501 of the Migration Act". However, the spokesman pointed out that, in deporting refugees, the government must ensure it is meeting its international obligations, including non-refoulement. "It's up to the government to explain any decision to cancel a visa and Labor would expect any such decision to be legally valid and practical as these matters are too important to get wrong," he said.

Loading NSW District Court Judge John Pickering said this week that Al Bayati had made the "absolute best" of his new life in Australia through work and education, but he put that new life at risk with his offending. He said the assault was "spur of the moment" and "an incredibly risky and extraordinary move" in a crowded shopping centre so close to Christmas, but "there is no point trying to make sense" of it. "As is the case so often in matters of this nature, trying to think logically about why someone would try to behave in such a way to a three-year-old is pointless," Judge Pickering said. Judge Pickering outlined traumatic incidents in Al Bayati's past – including being kidnapped by terrorists, seeing someone beheaded and having the boat to Australia almost sink.

With AAP, Georgina Mitchell