November 27, 2024
MICHAEL MCLAREN: Okay. It is eighteen and a bit minutes to one. Busy week in the Parliament offices. We've just discussed already with Di Le, the government hoping to ram through about 30 pieces of legislation. One of the more contentious, though, is a tripartite bill to do with migration. Now, the Coalition have agreed to support these three migration bills. They're largely necessitated by the two recent defeats in the High Court that the Government have suffered because of sloppy legislation. But what are these bills and what's involved? Well, two of them, I think, are fairly, fairly mundane sort of things. But there is one, there's one aspect of this about sending people abroad with a dowry, essentially. So some other nation will take them because we pay them to take them. That, I think, will make even some conservative voters feel a little queasy. James Paterson, as you know, Coalition Senator. He is the opposition's home affairs spokesperson as well. He's seen quite the show in the Senate already today, but he's with us. Senator Paterson, thank you for your time.
JAMES PATERSON: Thanks for having me, Michael.
MCLAREN: Just before we get to that tripartite bill, I mean, what the hell was going on in the upper house today?
PATERSON: It's a bit of a wild and wacky place at the moment. We've got a eclectic bunch of crossbench is probably the most radio appropriate way to put it and it seems to be growing because we've got people like Senator Fatima Payman defecting from major parties like the Labor Party and Lidia Thorpe, who defected from the Greens and Pauline Hanson, all had things to say to each other or about each other in the chamber this morning in a fairly undignified way. I don't think it lifts the standing of the chamber and I wish they'd reflect on the way in which it damages our institutions.
MCLAREN: Were there papers thrown around as well?
PATERSON: There was, yes, a bit of a theatrical display.
MCLAREN: Ridiculous, I mean, look, you are a sensible human being with a brain and we need people like you in the Senate. But clearly, there is a very significant number of people out there that have no brains, now that the nation needs, I mean, we sort of scoff and we laugh, but the Senators technically have double the power of the lower house MPs because there's two of them for every one of you. You are ultimately the emperors. Thumbs up, thumbs down for legislations that are instigated in the lower house. Very important, powerful job. And you know, we've got a bunch of clowns. How can we change this?
PATERSON: Well, it's kind of you to say that about me Michael, and I'll tell you, when I am at barbecues, you know, I’m not always proud to say what my profession is because people do have strong views and I understand why they form strong views, given the conduct of some of my colleagues. And that's not good for our democracy. You're right. The Australian Senate is one of the most powerful Upper House chambers in the world. Only the US Senate has greater powers than we do, and they should be exercised judiciously in the national interest. And we should fulfill our responsibilities to review legislation, to hold governments to account and to represent our states. And the vast majority of my colleagues, I think, do seek to do that as often as possible. But there are a growing number of people who don't, and I just urge Australians to think carefully about who you're voting for at the next election and to study those candidates closely, even if you're frustrated with the major parties, which I understand is a sentiment in the community and we've got things to do to earn back trust in us. But don't cast your vote for some wacko who's here just to make a show of it.
MCLAREN: That's well said. All right. Let's get to the order of the day, as it were. The catalyst is this last year, the high court, we had the NZYQ decision scuttled the government's rather sloppy legislation, and so indefinite immigration detention was unlawful. Then the government responded by imposing curfews and electronic monitoring and all this sort of stuff on that cohort. The High Court then this month ruled, nope can't do that, that's also unconstitutional. So three's the charm. We're now having a go with a three part bill. What do you make of this?
PATERSON: Well, we're doing our best to help Labor clean up the mess that they created for themselves. As you say, their response to the NZYQ decision in the High Court last year which found that you couldn't indefinitely detain someone, was utterly shambolic and they passed legislation urgently, which they assured us was constitutional. And the purpose of that legislation was to protect the community from high risk offenders. It required them to wear ankle bracelets and to be subject to curfews. Now, the High Court a few weeks ago found that legislation to be unconstitutional and the government is again rushing a bill in to try and fix it. And we are again working with them in a bipartisan way in the national interest because public safety has to come first. But we're also seeking to use this as an opportunity to address some long standing problems in our migration system, for example, the lawlessness that's occurring in immigration detention. When we were in government, we tried to ban certain devices from immigration detention, including mobile phones, because they were becoming dangerous places. And Labor voted against that twice, they said that it was a solution in search of a problem. Now they've admitted they were wrong because we've got people running drug smuggling rings out of detention centres and putting the safety of our Australian Border Force officials in danger.
MCLAREN: Okay. So that's I would. Part two of the bill. Just to repeat for our listeners, this would give authorities the power to confiscate mobile phones and other items from people in immigration detention. Okay, so they voted that down. They now what that and you'll give that support. I'll get to part one last. Part three revives a bill that was actually shelved earlier this year, and that's the one that bans entire nationalities from visiting Australia if their government don't accept citizens being returned against their will. So this is countries, I guess, like South Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Russia. So what are we saying here? If they won't take back people that Australia wants to deport, which are their nationals, we're not going to let any of their people come here even as a tourist?
PATERSON: So that was a bill that the government introduced in May and they told us it had to be passed within 48 hours. But we thought, given the extraordinary nature of the powers that the government was seeking, that it should be sent to a Senate inquiry. We sent it to a Senate inquiry, which did find some issues with the bill and made some recommendations. And since that time, six months on, the government had not thought to reintroduce this bill. I think those powers are necessary and are appropriate, but we have secured amendments that put some limits around the Minister's power to exercise that because it is a strong power. And the intention of the government is that this power will not need to be used, but the threat of it will motivate countries to cooperate. So, for example, there are some countries that say we will not take people who are our citizens to us seeking to return to us if they don't do so voluntarily. And so there are some people in our country who are found not to be refugees, have exhausted all their legal options, who refuse to go back to their countries, and these countries refuse to take them. And that's a problem because that means the people who shouldn't be in our country are staying in our country. And this is a pretty important step to motivate those countries to come to the table, because we shouldn't be bringing people in from countries who won't take them back if we find out they shouldn't be here.
MCLAREN: I agree with that. But I just want to get to the nub of this because I don't understand it. Does it mean that let let's say, for example, Iran's on the list. No Iranian person would be able to come to Australia even to visit family on a holiday?
PATERSON: There are some permitted exceptions. So if you have immediate family members in Australia and you want to apply for a tourist visa to come and visit them, you can be exempt and you can apply. So there are some exemptions, but they are narrow and it will have a disruptive effect on migration between our countries. And that is one of the reasons why we hope it's a motivating factor for those governments to change their approach.
MCLAREN: Okay. Now in the last couple, I know you got to run, in the last couple of minutes. Let's just quickly look at this. This is the first part, but let's call it the third part of the bill. This is the, I think, the most contentious. So Australia will pay countries to accept non-citizens who have refused deportation to their home country. So here's a hypothetical. We've got an Iraqi out here who won't go back to Iraq. Australia doesn't know what to do with them. We can't put them in detention because the High Court says you can't do that. Can't put an ankle bracelet on them. The High Court says you can't do that. So we say, Alright, Tuvalu, you're looking a bit skint, how about $300,000 bucks and you can take this bloke? Now that that doesn't sit well with me, James.
PATERSON: Yeah. Look, I understand why that might not sit well with you, but let's think about the problem that this person has posed in our country. So they've come to our country they have committed an offence which is so severe that it has led to their visa being cancelled on character grounds. We can't send them home because they're a refugee or a stateless person. And so right now, according to the High Court, that person has to be free in our community. There are about 200 of them and 65 of them have been charged with new offences in Australia against Australian citizens at the State and Territory level, criminal offences. So our options are let them to continue to roam around our community free to re-offend against Australians or-
MCLAREN: Let them roam around Tuvalu to commit crimes against them.
PATERSON: Find a way to deport them to a country who is willing to take them. And I think this is a tough measure but a necessary measure in the national interest because I don't want to be responsible for any Australian person becoming a victim of someone who has no right to be here, they have violated all provision of the character act.
MCLAREN: I Appreciate that, and in an ideal world, I'd kick them all out and I don't care where they go. But what we're doing as a relatively wealthy nation that should have it within their intellectual capability to create a law to lock these people up. What we're doing is saying, well, you poor, because no rich nation will take them, you poor nations over there, you’ve got no economy, you've got no resource, you've got you've got bugger all nothing. You're desperate for cash. Here's an idea. You're going to have some rapists and you can have some murderers and you can have some violent criminals. And we'll throw you a couple of shekels. Good luck. I mean, that's what we are saying.
PATERSON: Well, I think that's slightly oversimplifying it. And we have in the past actually resettled people to countries like the United States and New Zealand. We have had third country resettlement arrangements for developed countries as well. And we've negotiated those agreements bilaterally with those countries as part of our close, you know, and comprehensive relationships we have with them. So it need not necessarily be developing countries. It may well be developing countries though, and let's remember that the success of Operation Sovereign Borders under the Abbott and Turnbull and Morrison governments that stopped the boats. A critical central pillar of that was regional processing of people who came to our country in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and we were entered into arrangements with those countries that were mutually beneficial. They are sovereign countries, they made a judgement in their own national interest that this was beneficial for them to do and we agreed and it helped solved the problem for everybody.
MCLAREN: Alright, I'll see what the listeners make of it. I do really appreciate your time and thank God we've got intellect like you in the Senate because they are few and far between. Thank you, James.
PATERSON: Thanks Michael.
ENDS
