September 30, 2024
RAF EPSTEIN: James Paterson joins us. He's the shadow Home Affairs Minister, so he is part of Peter Dutton Shadow Cabinet. He is also one of the Liberal Senators for the state of Victoria. James Paterson, can you hear me okay?
JAMES PATERSON: I can. Good morning Raf.
EPSTEIN: Got you now, what's the problem with a few Hezbollah flags? If most of the people are just concerned about the loss of life?
PATERSON: Well, it's a problem because it's a breach of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. In December last year, the parliament voted unanimously to amend the Commonwealth Criminal Code to make it an offence to display either a Nazi logo or symbol or the symbol of a listed terrorist organisation, and that includes Hezbollah. And unfortunately, for the last 12 months, we've seen on repeated occasions, whether it's Hamas logos and symbols or now Hezbollah logos and symbols openly displayed on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney, with absolutely no consequences at all.
EPSTEIN: Do you risk sort of missing the wood for the trees? That most of the people there are worried about innocent loss of life, and just a few people turned up with Hezbollah flags. Are you sure you are focusing on the right thing?
PATERSON: Well, if a small number of terrorism supporters is okay to you Raf, that's one thing, but I don't find it acceptable, and I don't think most Australians would find support for a listed terrorist organisaiton acceptable.
EPSTEIN: I'm asking if you're missing the main message?
PATERSON: People are perfectly entitled to protest about their concerns about events in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. And if you want to turn up and rally in Melbourne and hold a Lebanese flag or a Palestinian flag, there'll be no legal consequences for you and no concern about what you're doing. But if you turn up with the flag of a listed terrorist organisation, that's different. And let's remember, Hezbollah's crimes of terrorism are not just targeted at Israel, although I think that's bad enough. They're also targeted at the United States and France, whose embassies they blew up. They even exploded a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1995 that killed 85 people. That had nothing to do with Israel, that had nothing to do with the Middle East. That was about killing Jews wherever they could find them, anywhere in the world. This is a terrorist organisation that's also been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Lebanese, thousands of Syrians. I mean, Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese reformist Prime Minister in 2005, was blown up by Hezbollah on Hassan Nasrallah orders. This is not an organisation that should be praised or welcomed on the streets of Melbourne.
EPSTEIN: You mentioned Hamas flags in Melbourne. There was a report of Hamas flags. They got that totally wrong. That was an Islamic military, sorry, an Islamic holiday, an Islamic celebration. Do we, have we got a confirmed report of a Hamas flag at a Melbourne demonstration, media watched debunked the report I saw.
PATERSON: Yes, there have been many instances of that and even worse than that, Raf.
EPSTEIN: Many?
PATERSON: Yes. I myself tabled in the Senate during Senate estimates to the Australian Federal Police dozens of photographs of people at rallies in Melbourne wearing memorabilia of Hamas and not just Hamas, but the al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas. In fact, al-Qassam Brigade headbands have been worn openly on the streets of Melbourne for weeks and weeks and weeks in our country.
EPSTEIN: that's a part of Hamas?
PATERSON: Yes, in fact, it's the militant arm of Hamas who was responsible for planning and executing the 7th October terrorist attacks. Now, this is a very clear violation of the law, and the failure to enforce the law has emboldened people. And we're now seeing this happen more often.
EPSTEIN: Well the federal Home Affairs Minister says that will be enforced, is that an Australian federal police responsibility? Are you saying that the AFP aren't doing their job?
PATERSON: Correct. Correct. In the last 12 months there have been repeated instances of violations of the law, and the federal police have not enforced the law. That needs political leadership from the top, the Prime Minister and the Home Affairs Minister.
EPSTEIN: Well, why do they need a politician to tell them what to do? You know, they are supposed to be independent aren't they?
PATERSON: Because the Parliament passed the law, and the law has not been enforced. And I think it should be made clear from the political level down, that our expectation is that the law will be enforced. The Home Affairs Minister today has said he will contemplate cancelling the visas of anyone involved in inciting discord, and that's a welcome statement of fact. But I'll be much more impressed if he actually follows through. As far as I'm aware,
in the last 12 months, not one visa has been cancelled for people openly supporting terrorist organisations or inciting violence against the Jewish community.
EPSTEIN: You've got no idea if someone flying flag is on a visa?
PATERSON: Well, Tony Burke said those people are being closely watched and monitored. And then if cases are brought to his attention, he'll cancel their visas. Well, I'd like to see him actually do that, not just talk about it.
EPSTEIN: James Patterson is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister. We will have a word to someone who's been involved in organising the regular Sunday protests. Usually that's been about Palestine, but of course the conflict has expanded dramatically into Lebanon. So there was significant, protest, I guess, about Lebanon yesterday. James Paterson, just I guess a word on your own language. I'm guessing people at that demonstration might say that your language on people who've come from Gaza has been divisive, that you've been asked that the people coming to escape what's happening in Gaza, you want them to go through security checks, that we've never imposed on anyone else from a war zone. What do you say to the idea that your language is divisive?
PATERSON: Well, that last comment you made is not a factual statement. In the evacuation of both Afghanistan and Syria, we did much more extensive checks because we required people to be assessed for humanitarian visas before they were allowed to come to Australia. We did not grant them tourism visas. In some cases, it took 12 months to assess that people did not present any security risk to Australia before they were brought in. So the government's approach in Gaza has been novel, has been different.
EPSTEIN: But ASIO has been given the name of every single person who's come here on a visa, isn't saying we need more than that divisive?
PATERSON: Well, quite interestingly Raf, in a Order for Production of Documents that I secured through the Senate a couple of weeks ago, the government finally coughed up the fact that they referred these people to ASIO only after their tourism visas were granted. In fact, over 2000 referrals made ASIO in March this year. That is not how the system is supposed to work. If you're referring them to ASIO after their visa has already been granted, that's too late. The whole purpose of ASIO screening is it occurs before the visa is granted, not after. That's why this has been a novel approach. You shouldn't be giving tourist visas to people fleeing a war zone controlled by a terrorist organisation.
EPSTEIN: Look, as I say, we will have a word to, some of the organisers of the demonstration. I want to get back to Calls. But James Paterson, just on the politics of the day. We're going to get confirmation today that the Labor government has delivered two surpluses in a row. You guys promised a surplus. You spoke about a debt and deficit disaster. Nine years, you never delivered a surplus. Labor has delivered two. You must be jealous.
PATERSON: We returned the budget to balance before the pandemic and obviously the pandemic ended any possibility of budget surpluses because we had to spend money to save people's lives and their livelihoods. The easiest thing in the world Raf, is to deliver a budget surplus in an inflation crisis, because everybody's wages are going up with inflation.
EPSTEIN: Well if it was easy, you could have done it?
PATERSON: Well we didn't have an inflation crisis when we're in government. When inflation is running at 7 or 8%, as it has been under this government, it pushes people through bracket creep into higher income tax brackets and they collect more income tax. That's why we've had a surplus. Not because Jim Chalmers is brilliant, but because people have been paying more tax than they otherwise would have been because of inflation.
EPSTEIN: I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.
PATERSON: Thanks, Raf.
ENDS
