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Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has defended the handling of released detainees after a Perth couple were violently assaulted, allegedly by a detainee who stopped wearing an ankle monitor.

Speaking on Seven’s Sunrise, O’Neil said the decision to release former detainee Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43, on bail was a state decision that the federal government has little control over.

“If I had any power to put that person back in detention, that is exactly what I would do,” O’Neil said.

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“There is a bunch of decisions that were made by state courts, usually with regard to state crimes. I’m not going to refer to the specifics of this individual case but as a Commonwealth minister, I can’t do anything to change what state courts decide to do with regards to bail.”

O’Neil would not give comment on why Doukoshkan was not wearing an ankle bracelet at the time of the alleged offence, but repeated there were experienced law enforcement officials making decisions on how to monitor released detainees.

“This is one of the layers of protection we have put in place, including a regime that puts in place ankle monitoring bracelets and curfews that has made that really big investment in different layers of policing that will help protect the community,” she said.