September 14, 2023
PETA CREDLIN: All right. Let's get into that whole fiasco regarding the chair of the parliament's powerful intelligence and security committee. This is Labor's Peter Khalil having to issue his own colleague, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil, with a please explain notice last week, in writing what appears to be a bungled terrorist re-listing. Joining me now to get the latest on this is Senator James Paterson, who of course was on this committee, is now the Shadow Minister for Cyber Security and Home Affairs. James Paterson, welcome. I'm going to come back to you on this whole brouhaha with Richard Marles in a moment. But Khalil says that that the Home Affairs Minister didn't do or failed to endorse the re-enlisting as is normally the case. And these are just run of the mill organisations. These are some of the worst terror organisations in the world Islamic State, Islamic State West Africa, Boko Haram. What's going on here?
JAMES PATERSON: It's a great question, Peta, and your description of this as a fiasco is absolutely spot on. One of the most powerful tools that the government has to combat terrorism is the power to list an organisation as a terrorist organisation and very serious criminal penalties flow on from that listing. It makes it a crime to be a member of that organisation, to associate with that organisation to raise funds for that organisation. And so it's absolutely critical that the process for listing an organisation like that is very carefully followed. Now when we were in government there was only one minister who was responsible for that, and that is the Minister for Home Affairs. And whether it was Karen Andrews or Peter Dutton, they efficiently discharged their responsibility to do so. Under this Government there are now two ministers who are responsible for it; the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus and the Minister for Home Affairs, Claire O'Neill. And we had already seen after the election the machinery of government changes that were made to effectively demolish the Department of Home Affairs had led to a massive blow-out in the time taken to list a terrorist organisation and now this very serious administrative stuff up has dropped the Minister for Home Affairs from the process altogether, whereas previously she was writing to express support and confirmed these organisations to be listed. On this occasion, she simply forgot to do so or was excluded in some way from doing so. We are not at the bottom of this yet, but it was a very significant step for the Chair of the Intelligence Committee to write to the Minister to effectively rebuke her for having stuffed this up.
CREDLIN: All right well, someone inside the intelligence community reminded me, of course, that this is a government that's put a lot of effort in bringing back Islamic State women. I'm not going to call them brides because a lot of them are culpable, to Australia. I've got to ask the question. Is She soft on terror? Is labor soft on terror? Or is she just incompetent?
PATERSON: Well, that's a fair question to ask Peta, and we don't yet know the answer. And frankly, it's up to the government to come clean about how this stuff up occurred, so we know whether it just is incompetence or whether it's something else. Frankly, you're right. They did bring back four women who are associated with that Islamic State. One of them has been charged with a declared area offence as a result of their activities while they were over there. The others have not been and they have signalled for some time that they intended to bring back other women and children in the same circumstances but haven't yet followed through. Well, you wouldn't want to be doing things like that if you weren't absolutely dotting the I's and crossing your T's when it comes to terrorist organisation listings. And so frankly, I don't think they've shown the competence required to execute these very sensitive operations.
CREDLIN: And look, just want to remind my viewers to James, we've got about 70 odd serious convicted terrorists who in about this year, in the next sort of 18 months, are due to be reviewed as to whether they'll be let out of jail. And, of course, a part of this relisting process of terror organisations is critical to how we manage them in Australia and upon return to Australia. This is why it matters.
PATERSON: That's right, Peta. There is, over the next year or so, about a dozen high risk terrorist offenders who have been convicted, who are up for release and how we deal with them when they get back in the community is an incredibly important thing. There are a lot of options available to government. A continuing detention order that prevents them from being released at all. That's currently being challenged in the High Court by Benbrika, one of our most serious ever convicted terrorist offenders. Extended supervision orders, which applies a whole lot of conditions to them and what they can do and requirements to report to police and other things, or a range of other lower risk options for people based on the assessment of their risk. Again, the government really needs to step up here and demonstrate that it has got this in hand, that these people being released in the community are not going to be a risk to our society, and I have no confidence based on their performance to date that they're able to do that.
CREDLIN: All right, Just before we go, Richard Marles. Now, unlike James Campbell, I am sympathetic to the Defence Minister having the ability to withhold information related to some flights under security grounds. I think that is sound, but you can't tell me that every single one of those $3.6 million worth of flights, every single one of them relates to a security issue. So where are the documents with the specific security flights if he wants redacted out, but everything else on the table because he can't tell me you take your golf clubs to a security conference. I mean, this is ridiculous. What's your take on what we saw today from Richard Marles?
PATERSON: Peta, as you know, I'm someone who takes security very seriously and I wouldn't want to diminish the absolute serious risk of harm being done to a member of Parliament and their staff, or their family, and there is need for appropriate restrictions on what information can be released. But we also live in a liberal democracy and we spend taxpayers money and we have to be accountable to the taxpayers for how we spend that money and I cannot accept at face value that it is not possible to disclose more information about Richard Marles' and other ministers' use of these jets without causing a security risk. Surely it must be possible to release enough details so that the taxpayers can be satisfied whether the money was spent appropriately or not, without so specific information being released that puts their personal security at risk. Let's remember one of the arguments the government is making that this would reveal a pattern of life that members of parliament engage in and their movements. Well, I tell you what, most members of Parliament, Richard Marles included, provide that pattern of life themselves on their social media channels, so if they can posted on Instagram I'm not sure why the taxpayers are not entitled to know how they got there.
CREDLIN: Spot on, I mean I know how to read these bloody documents as soon as the next round of tabling happens and we hear that the computer's broken. The dear old Don Farrell, I'm going to go through them and I think the pressure has got to stay on him in the Senate. I'll leave that to you, Senator Paterson, but I hope the media out there don't let him get away with it either. Thank you for your time.
ENDS
