February 7, 2025
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Let's go to the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Senator James Paterson. James, good morning.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning, Stephen.
CENATIEMPO: What do you make of all of this?
PATERSON: Look, I think Michael is right to be cautious and it's an idea that's evolving. The White House has made clear no U.S. troops, no U.S. money and no forced displacement of people from Gaza. But everyone agrees that Gaza needs to be rebuilt, and everyone agrees that Hamas has no role in the future governance of Gaza. It's about how we achieve that. That is the challenging and difficult thing.
CENATIEMPO: We all know that it's a difficult region and a difficult problem because otherwise, it would have been solved decades ago. James, closer to home, we've seen the rise of antisemitism over the last 15 months because of what's going on. Well, off the back of what's going on in Israel at the moment. The leadership from the Prime Minister, I think, has been appalling. But it seems to be going from bad to worse when now he refuses to answer questions about when he was briefed on this caravan explosives plot. Has anybody thought to ask him why? I mean, I know he says that he does want to talk about operational issues, and I think everybody understands that. But why is the date he was briefed an operational issue?
PATERSON: Well, we now have a caravan cover up from the Prime Minister. He is refusing to provide even the most basic transparency that the New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has been very happy to provide. There is nothing operational at all about the date on which the Prime Minister was first briefed about this issue and he's hiding behind operational security because he's embarrassed about the answer. Now the answer either is he wasn't briefed quickly like the Premier was, and that's a failure of our national security architecture. Or he was briefed, but he didn't act. And that is a failure of his leadership.
CENATIEMPO: Are you concerned that the AFP commissioner applied the same line before this Senate inquiry or a parliamentary inquiry that he presented to the other day. And he is playing that same line, but we can't tell you the date we briefed the Prime Minister for operational reasons.
PATERSON: I would have preferred that the AFP Commissioner answer that question, but it was very clear that the Labor chair of that committee was running political interference to try and cover this up because the government is embarrassed about it politically. It would be better for everybody if they had just done what Chris Minns has done and been upfront when first asked. But I think we now are in a situation where we do need an independent investigation by an eminent national security former official who can look into whether we've had a catastrophic failure here because had this event proceeded, had it occurred, it would have been the worst mass casualty terrorism event in Australia's history and it would have changed our country forever and not in a good way.
CENATIEMPO: Well, some would say that that's already happened. And I think I've asked you this question before, which is how do you put the toothpaste back into the tube? If you are elected next month or the month after or whenever the election turns out to be? The difficulty is trying to actually fix this problem retrospectively. We've now seen the government agree to back the minimum mandatory sentencing for those that are found guilty of these kind of effects. Is that going to be enough?
PATERSON: It's a very good first step that the Parliament has taken that does send a very strong message that there are very serious consequences for people who are caught engaging in terrorism offences, but also the public display of prohibited hate symbols like terrorist flags and logos. The problem is that it took as long as it did to get here and that the Prime Minister and his government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it. It was only because of the leadership of Peter Dutton and the Coalition that these tough laws were passed. The Prime Minister was saying only last week it wasn't necessary. His Labor senators voted against a motion for the same mandatory minimum sentences on Tuesday. And so it's very clear that this is a government that doesn't have the natural instinct for national security and nor the strength to make the tough decisions in our national interest.
CENATIEMPO: With regards, I've got no problem with the minimum mandatory sentencing. And I think we should do that across a range of crime categories. But, when it comes to the public display of what you say, hate speech symbols, are we better off knowing who these people are and allowing them to identify themselves?
PATERSON: There are many other ways that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies can identify them. It's very important that we don't have people openly praising listed terrorist organisations in the streets of our major cities for two reasons. One that strikes fear in the heart of the rest of the community and, obviously, especially the Jewish community. But two, it risks recruiting others and inspiring others to join the cause. We cannot have people openly glorifying terrorism in Australia today.
CENATIEMPO: James, good to talk to you. We'll catch up again soon.
PATERSON: Thanks, Mate.
ENDS
