Justice minister Michael Keenan omitted the line when he updated the ministerial direction to the Australian federal police in May 2014

The Abbott government faces questions over its decision to remove the principle of opposition to the death penalty from the high-level instructions that apply to the Australian federal police.

The justice minister, Michael Keenan, omitted the line when he updated the ministerial direction outlining the AFP’s strategic priorities in May 2014.

The previous version of the document approved by Labor’s Brendan O’Connor in 2010 said the AFP should “take account of the government’s longstanding opposition to the application of the death penalty, in performing its international liaison functions”.

Keenan accused the Labor party of “incredibly cheap and invalid” politicking by raising the issue shortly after the execution of two Australians in Indonesia.

Despite the amendment to the overarching ministerial instructions, the AFP still has a specific guideline on how to carry out international police-to-police assistance in death-penalty situations, which requires senior AFP managers to weigh up factors including the risk of capital punishment.

The criteria for cooperation with overseas agencies before someone has been charged include the seriousness of the suspected criminal activity, the reliability of the information, the age and personal circumstances of the person involved, Australia’s interest in securing cooperation and “the degree of risk to the person in providing the information, including the likelihood the death penalty will be imposed”.



Ministerial approval is required for the sharing of information in cases where someone has already been detained, arrested, charged or convicted of an offence that carries the death penalty.



The AFP’s conduct in death-penalty cases has come under fresh scrutiny after Indonesia executed two Australians – Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan – on Wednesday despite a long campaign by the Australian government for clemency. The AFP provided information to Indonesian police in 2005 that led to the arrest of the Bali Nine drug-smuggling group.

Labor’s justice spokesman, David Feeney, wrote to Keenan after the executions on Wednesday to ask about the changes made to the ministerial direction last year.

In the letter, Feeney said the passage approved by O’Connor in 2010 was “a critical addition to the AFP’s governance framework which sent an important message that opposing the death penalty was a key priority for the elected government”.

Feeney said the omission of the passage raised concerns that protecting Australians from the risk of capital punishment was no longer considered a critical priority. “I would be grateful for your advice as to whether this omission was deliberate, or whether it was simply an oversight,” Feeney said in the letter to the minister.

“I would also appreciate your position on reincorporating this important consideration into the Keenan direction, which I believe should occur as a matter of urgency.



“In light of the devastating loss of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran … and the national outpouring of grief which has followed, it is more important than ever that Australia’s political leaders do all we can to protect Australians from the threat of the death penalty and to campaign for the global abolition of this cruel punishment.”



At a media conference in Tasmania on Thursday, Keenan did not answer a direct question asking why he had removed the passage from the ministerial direction.

Instead, Keenan pointed to the internal guideline outlining the factors to weigh up before cooperating with other police forces and said those arrangements remained in place.



“Those guidelines were updated in 2009 by the then Labor government and they are the same today,” he said.



“I might say that I’m pretty outraged and offended that the Labor party would use the tragedy of two Australians being executed to make what is an incredibly cheap and invalid point. I think they should take a long hard look at themselves if they think that this is the sort of time to be politicking in a way that is completely inaccurate.”



When asked whether what happened to the Bali Nine could happen again given similar information sharing was not explicitly ruled out, Keenan said he did not think that was the right question.



“I mean, could Australians be subject to the death penalty again if they were to engage in drug smuggling overseas? Obviously the answer to that is yes,” Keenan said.



“We don’t control law enforcement in other countries, but the way Australia deals with the information, dealing with countries who do have the death penalty in place, is governed by very strict guidelines.”



The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said she was “very angry” at the opposition for “promoting this false line” about the AFP’s rules.

“I am shocked that less than 24 hours after the death of two young Australians, the Labor party would seek to politicise this issue,” she said in Sydney. “Shame on them.”

When pressed on the difference between the AFP guidelines and the ministerial directives, Bishop said they were “completely different documents”.

“A ministerial directive is an entirely different document that does not dictate the operational activities of the AFP. I’m not going to answer another question on that,” she said.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Labor did not want to politicise the issue but was seeking to ensure “that what happened in the early hours of yesterday morning can’t happen again”.

“We’re willing to work with the government but we do think that the government need to make sure that they’re not putting the police in the middle of all these issues and that the government needs to explain its actions,” Shorten said.

The agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, muddied the waters on Wednesday when he suggested there was a need for domestic debate about the death penalty.

“I do get approached by people saying, ‘Well, that might be your view, Barnaby, that you don’t support the death penalty, but it’s not our view,’ ” Joyce told the ABC. “I find that rather startling at times and I think that the discussion that we’re having about others, we should also be carrying out domestically.”



But it is understood Joyce’s call for a discussion should not be taken as a sign he was wavering in opposition to the death penalty. He said he did not believe in the death penalty “in any circumstances in any part of the world” because a person should not be able to take the life of another human being if there was no direct or immediate threat to life.

Joyce also said he opposed calls for trade sanctions against Indonesia, arguing if Australia pursued that course of action it “would have to stop trade to a whole range of other countries where they have the death penalty such as China and the United States”.

The AFP, which has previously defended its conduct in the Bali Nine case, is expected to convene a press conference in coming days to answer questions about the matter.

The independent senator Nick Xenophon called for a parliamentary review to prevent a repeat of the 2005 circumstances.



“I understand and appreciate the work the AFP does, but I understand that within the AFP itself – whatever is said publicly – there is extreme unease about how this unfolded,” Xenophon said. “Two men are dead and that needs honest scrutiny.”



The Greens said they would support an independent investigation.



Two lower house MPs, Clive Palmer and Cathy McGowan, said they would present legislation to parliament to outlaw information-sharing that could lead to the death penalty being applied in foreign countries.



The AFP provided information that resulted in the arrest of the Bali Nine group before their departure from Indonesia to Australia with heroin. AFP officials have previously argued they were operating within protocols in place at the time, but conceded they were aware that the tip-off could lead to charges punishable with the death penalty.