January 24, 2025
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Well, Peter Dutton has criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's handling of Home Affairs, promising to bring it back to life if he wins the next election. This is obviously in the wake of the rise in antisemitism that we've seen over the past 15 months. To talk to us about this. The man that is going to have to spearhead this. shadow Home Affairs Minister, Senator James Paterson. James, Happy Australia Day.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning mate. Happy Australia Day to you too.
CENATIEMPO: Before we get on to the issue of Home Affairs, antisemitism is obviously driving a lot of the focus on this at the moment. What have you made of these claims that foreign actors are paying local, well, let's call them terrorists because that's what these attacks on these synagogues and various other Jewish facilities have been? Is there any evidence to suggest that? I mean, the Prime Minister seems to have latched on to it.
PATERSON: I've not seen any evidence that suggests that it is foreign actors. It's possible that it is foreign actors, but at this stage, I'm not aware of any evidence that that is the case. And in a sense, it doesn't matter or in fact, in some ways makes it worse. Either we have a home-grown antisemitism crisis, which the Prime Minister has failed to respond to adequately, or we have a foreign state or transnational terrorist organisation sponsoring terrorism against the Australian Jewish community, and his failure to act is even more inexplicable and more hard to understand. So either way, the Prime Minister can't shift responsibility here. He can't allow a domestic terrorism crisis to fester on his watch, but that's exactly what he's done.
CENATIEMPO: James, the problem I see here, though, let's say, for instance, the Coalition wins the next election and, you know, in April or May, you become the Home Affairs Minister. Can you put this toothpaste back in the tube because it's been let fester for too long. And it took the third arson attack for the Prime Minister to finally make any move on it. And then it was a kneejerk reaction to call an ad hoc National Cabinet meeting without any preparation.
PATERSON: You're right, Stephen. We've been asking the Prime Minister to hold a National Cabinet for 14 months. He said we didn't need more meetings. Finally, he agreed to hold one, and the only outcome was a new database. I'm not sure how a new database is going to stop anyone setting fire to a synagogue or a childcare centre or a car. But this is where we are. You are also right that this is going to be harder to fix than otherwise would have been because the Prime Minister has let it get so out of control. Had he acted more decisively sooner, he could have kept the lid on this crisis. Instead, now that it's reared its ugly head, it's going to take much more effort, much more resources, and much tougher laws to get it under wraps. But I tell you, we are utterly determined to fix it because this is not Australia. This is not who we should be. This is not what we should permit. And whatever is required to fix it, we will do.
CENATIEMPO: Well, I spoke to your joint party room colleague Matt Canavan this morning, and he made an interesting point that changing law isn't really necessary because there are already laws against everything that's happened.
PATERSON: I understand Matt's point, and a big part of the problem we have is the failure of law enforcement. There are many laws on the books, to Matt's point, that haven't been enforced and need to be enforced, and it's been a lack of will and resources around law enforcement that's been part of the problem. But to your earlier comment, I think the reason why we will need some new laws is because deterrence has failed, because people don't fear the consequences. We need to reassert it and send a strong message. And we think mandatory minimum sentences for terrorism offences are a bare minimum start to that, where we have six year sentences as a minimum for a federal terrorism offence to send a really strong message that if you get caught for this - and you will, if we are in power - there'll be very serious consequences.
CENATIEMPO: I've spoken to a number of senior police officers in the last few days, and they are all in favour of minimum mandatory sentences here because they all say exactly what I say, that mandatory maximum sentences, which is what we usually see, are pointless because magistrates and judges never apply them.
PATERSON: There are too many people getting away with slaps on the wrist, including that ten month sentence that was handed down in New South Wales recently. Now the New South Wales Premier, to his credit, says that the DPP will appeal that sentence. Well they wouldn't have to appeal the sentence if there was a mandatory minimum sentence, that person would have got the justice that they deserved and that's what will happen under a Dutton Coalition government because we're just not going to tolerate this.
CENATIEMPO: Let's talk about the broader issue here. When Peter Dutton says he's going to bring the Home Affairs Department back to life, you're obviously going to have to manage that. What does that mean?
PATERSON: Well, I think the first thing to understand is what are the consequences from Labor dismantling the Home Affairs portfolio? Because what they did after the 2022 election is begin the process of pulling the Home Affairs Department apart again. They never took this to the election. They never told the Australian people they were going to do this. But they started by removing the Australian Federal Police and other law enforcement agencies from the Home Affairs portfolio, and it continued last year when they removed ASIO from the portfolio. So the Minister for Home Affairs today does not have one operational law enforcement or intelligence agency, not ASIO, not the AFP, not the Criminal Intelligence commission, not the financial crimes regulator, AUSTRAC, nothing. And yet the Minister for Home Affairs is supposed to be responsible for counter-terrorism policy and operations. Well, how can you do anything without the levers of power to do it? And that's one of the reasons why we need to bring these agencies back together.
CENATIEMPO: Which makes sense. But I mean, if they're all brought together under the Attorney-General's Department, does it make a difference which department looks after them as long as they're all under the one banner?
PATERSON: Yes, I think there's some continued problems with them now being in the Attorney-General's portfolio because for example, the Home Affairs Minister is the Minister responsible for counter-terrorism but has no levers to do so. They're responsible for new terrorism listings. They initiate the process for new terrorism listings, but actually, the Attorney-General signs off on it, and now we've got a ping pong ball bouncing between two Ministers, and things are falling between the cracks. I mean, the time taken to list a new terrorist organisation on this government has massively blown out. It used to only take a handful of days for ministerial consideration, but in some recent terrorism listing decisions, it's taken six weeks of ministerial consideration time because there are now two ministers involved instead of one. And that's just a real data point of the harm to national security that happens when it's so confused.
CENATIEMPO: James, you're all out on the election campaign trail already. Whilst we don't know exactly when the election's going to be, it's pretty clear we're in an election campaign. Cost of living. Cost of living, cost of living. are still the first 3, 4, 5 or 6 top issues. How much traction are these issues of, I guess, border security, antisemitism, all of those kind of things? How big of a part are they playing when you're out on the hustings talking to people?
PATERSON: I agree with you. Overwhelmingly, the issues are cost of living because the fall in living standards in Australia over the last three years has been the worst in the developed world and Australians are far worse off than they were before Anthony Albanese was elected. But if they can't afford for Anthony Albanese to be re-elected and another three years of Labor on the cost of living, just imagine what would happen to our community safety and our national security if this government was re-elected. God forbid, if they were re-elected as part of a hung parliament in a minority government with the Greens and the Teals that would be Australia's weakest ever government, even weaker than this one. So it is being raised with me, people are concerned about it. And they say to me, if they're not up to the job of keeping the community safe, how can I trust them on anything else? How can I trust them to get inflation under control? How can I trust them to get interest rates down if they can't even protect the community and secure our borders?
CENATIEMPO: Well, any government's first role is to keep its constituents safe. No two ways about that. James, good to talk to you. We will catch up again soon.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS
