By Dominic Giannini and Andrew Brown in Canberra

The arrest of a registered sex offender has thrown fuel onto the political fire over the release of some 150 detainees from immigration detention.

Victoria Police confirmed the 33-year-old, who allegedly breached his reporting obligations, was one of the recently released detainees, making him the third of the cohort to be arrested since being freed.

The man was alleged to have previously headed a prostitution ring and preyed on children in state care, shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash said under parliamentary privilege.

The government was warned that the High Court case may not go their way and should have had legislation prepared to keep the worst offenders behind bars, the opposition argues.

Senate leader Penny Wong rejected the notion the government could have out-legislated the High Court.

The government never wanted to release any of the cohort but could not act contrary to the court’s ruling that indefinite immigration detention was illegal, she said.

“The government did not decide, the High Court decided,” she said, adding that the minister argued against their release.

“We are not a government that can or will instruct public servants to act unlawfully.”

The opposition has been given the chance to review the legal advice the government received as it continues to attack Labor over its handling of the outcome.

It ramped up pressure this week after another released sex offender was charged with two counts of indecent assault.

Afghan refugee Aliyawar Yawari was deemed a “danger to the Australian community” by a South Australian judge in 2016 following attacks on three elderly women in 2013 and 2014.

SA Police confirmed a 65-year-old man was charged with two counts of indecent assault and he was refused bail.

The charged detainees were entitled to the presumption of innocence, Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns said.

But ministerial heads needed to roll over the situation, the opposition said as it slammed the government for failing to prepare for the ruling.

The government’s response has always been in accordance with the law, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement tabled in the Senate.

“The High Court determines the meaning of the Australian constitution – not politicians,” he said.

The court made a decision that applied to people held in immigration detention in the same circumstances as the original complainant, NZYQ.

“As a result of the High Court’s decision, the continued detention of any NZYQ-affected person would be unlawful,” the attorney-general wrote.

“There is no legal basis on which the government can delay releasing the person until, for example, a court orders the person’s release.”

Any delay could open the Commonwealth up to legal action over false imprisonment, a spokesman for the attorney-general said.

The opposition has consistently argued for law changes to keep the worst offenders locked up as they work with the government to introduce a preventative detention regime to get some of the cohort back behind bars.

Draft legislation should have been in the pipeline and ready to roll out as soon as the High Court handed down its decision to ensure detainees weren’t released, Nationals frontbencher Bridget McKenzie said.

“For the Labor Party to now say, ‘we offered you a briefing, we offered to give you the legal advice, etc’, is simply a ruse – the fact is, they got it wrong,” Senator McKenzie told reporters in Canberra.

But a preventative detention regime couldn’t have kept the whole cohort behind bars because of how the High Court ruled, Mr Dreyfus said.

The federal government will introduce laws to establish the regime on Wednesday.

The exact number of released detainees the preventative detention orders would apply to is not known.

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