February 13, 2024
JAMES PATERSON: Well good morning everyone. Thank you for being here. The revelations yesterday in Senate estimates about the shocking mismanagement of the Albanese government on the released detainees just got worse and worse and worse. We finally learned what they didn't want to tell us, which is that among the cohort of 149 people, we have seven murderers or alleged murderers, 37 sex offenders, 72 people accused of other serious crimes, a dozen people accused of serious domestic violence. We learned that at least 18 have re-offended since they've been released into the community, but Border Force and Home Affairs doesn't know where they are or if they are in custody. We know of at least seven who have breached the conditions of their visa. But again, Border Force and Home Affairs couldn't tell us whether they were in custody or where they were. And Australians right now being harmed because the Albanese government has not applied for one single preventative detention order under the laws of the parliament rushed through before Christmas. It's been two months now and not a single application has been made. It's simply not good enough. They are failing to protect the community they are continuing their weakness and incompetence on national security and community safety.
JOURNALIST: Officials last night said that at the best case scenario, took ten months to prepare an application under the former government for only one of two successful preventive detention orders. So why are you expecting the government now to do it in two [months]?
PATERSON: There's a very important distinction between what happened under those arrangements and this one. Those were continuing detention orders, not preventative detention orders. And then were for terrorists who were already in prison to keep them in prison. So there wasn't the same urgency. We have 149 people out on the streets right now, roaming around in the community and re-offending against the community. They've already offended at least once, that's why we put them into custody in the first place. So it's not an apples and apples comparison. They need to do better, and they need to move more quickly. I'm not expecting all 149 to be in custody by now, but at least one application before the courts would be a good start, and I don't think that's too much to expect.
JOURNALIST: Do you accept that 35,000 documents per person now is a lot to go through in two months?
PATERSON: That's certainly a high number of documents, but most of those should have already been in the position of the federal government. These are immigration detainees that should have all those facts available to them.
JOURNALIST: Senator, can I just get your response to the anti-doxxing laws that the government has flagged? We don't have that much detail on them yet, but where's the Coalition looking to land on something like that?
PATERSON: Look, in my view, it's a very good thing that the Prime Minister has indicated he wants to take up this suggestion from crossbenchers and my Liberal colleague, Julian Lesser. On one level, it's sad that it's necessary in 2024 in Australia to pass a law like this. It should be self-evident that it's not a good idea to assemble a list of Jews, publish their photographs, their social media channels, and their places of employment. But if a law is necessary to stop this from happening then I support it. There are important considerations for press freedom, which I hope will be incorporated into the drafting of the legislation. But subject to that, I think it should be supported and very swiftly put through the parliament.
JOURNALIST: Just on press freedom, are you concerned that they could limit press freedom or freedom of speech?
PATERSON: I wouldn't want to see that happen. I wouldn't want to see that to be an unintended consequence of the legislation. I'm sure it can be drafted in a way that both protects the community from this insidious and dangerous practice and preserves press freedom.
JOURNALIST: Home Affairs apparently has said that they didn't provide, the special case to the minister, and he didn't sign off on it before they made a crucial concession about the ability to deport NZYQ. Should there be a change in the way that sensitive litigation is handled moving forward?
PATERSON: I was very surprised by that evidence by the Department of Home Affairs. It's an extraordinary thing that in such a consequential and important and sensitive case, before the High Court no less, that the government did not check before making a very important concession with the minister who was responsible. I think that should have happened. I'm surprised it didn't happen. It's not clear whether Minister Giles took the opportunity, while being briefed multiple times in the lead up to the case to express a view, or whether his office provided any feedback to the Department of Home Affairs. They took those questions on notice, and I look forward to them have been answered, because really, there should have been political leadership here before a significant concession was made. As Justice Gleason said in that interim hearing. It was the key concession that resulted in the High Court's subsequent decision.
JOURNALIST: Home Affairs apparently were looking at preventative detention as a contingency place in September, well before the decision was handed down. Do you think that adds to your argument that the government should have been more prepared?
PATERSON: Well it makes it even worse. I thought it was possible that maybe Home Affairs hadn't been prepared these contingencies, but on their evidence last night, they were ready. They'd been thinking about things, they had options ready, and the government wasn't ready. It was the government that was caught by surprise. It was the government that failed to act. It was the government that failed to prioritise these issues and to get that legislation ready. You will all remember it was the opposition out there calling for this legislation for weeks and weeks and weeks before they finally acted. It didn't need to take as long, and it certainly didn't need to take that many months now to actually implement the legislation.
JOURNALIST: On foreign interference, Andrew Schearer last night said with half the world's population going to an election this year, that there's a lot of uncertainties, is there a role for Australia to play when it comes to tackling authoritarianism in third countries.
PATERSON: Well, I think we both have a role in supporting other democracies to get through important elections, to make sure that they're free and fair, but also to learn from these experiences. We should be studying very closely the elections in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China's attempts to intervene in that election. It was unprecedented in its scale. But the Taiwanese seem to have successfully resisted that interference. And there will be great lessons from that for Australia. We should be studying these elections very closely.
JOURNALIST: So you say we should have closer security ties, especially cyber security ties with Taiwan?
PATERSON: I think there are great opportunities for bilateral cooperation with Taiwan. It's a very important partner for Australia. We are very likeminded in many ways with many shared values and interests. And I think there's more that we can learn from each other.
JOURNALIST: Your questioning last night was quite critical of the possibility that the government might be dodging cases on the ankle bracelets and curfews by waiving those conditions whenever anyone brings a case to the High Court. Will you, take your share of the blame if those laws that were essentially co-authored by the coalition are eventually struck down?
PATERSON: The government is responsible for the legislation that it drafts, and it introduces through the parliament. We supported it based on the assurance from the government at the time, including the Minister in the Senate debate, Murray Watt, who told me in response to a question that the government's advice is that this legislation is constitutionally sound. The government will be responsible for that. But it's no excuse for failing to enforce the law. If they have concerns about that, if they think it should be remedied, well, we stand ready to work with them to do so.
JOURNALIST: Were you worried by Donald Trump's comments about encouraging other countries, maybe Russia, to attack NATO allies?
PATERSON: Look, I'll be very, careful about commenting on the domestic politics of another country, particularly a democracy and the like minded, an important ally like the United States. Donald Trump is entitled to his views. Certainly, I don't think it would be a good thing if Russia were to attack NATO. Although, of course, it is a legitimate issue that all countries around the world should be doing their fair share of the heavy lifting required to invest in our defence and national security to deter autocrats like Vladimir Putin from doing anything that would be dangerous and destabilising.
JOURNALIST: What sort of reflections or conversations are going on between you and your Liberal colleagues following the Nemesis documentary?
PATERSON: Look, I haven't had the chance to watch all of the program from last night. I've seen the first two episodes. I happily sat down for the program because I think we have a duty to history that it should be told as accurately as possible. I think I sat down with Mark Willacy for about 90 minutes, and about 75 of those minutes were devoted for policy issues, national security, our relationship to China. I'm not sure a single second of that contribution made it to air, but the 15 minutes that we spent talking about leadership, did, almost all go to air. I mean, that's partly a reflection on us. I accept that we were happy to talk about those issues, but I think, you know, when you look back at the ABC, when they've done these documentaries in the past, even The Killing Season, they have really invested very significantly in explaining the GFC and the history of that. Certainly, Labor in Power was a substantive documentary about the history of that government. I don't think the policy issues, achievements, failures and otherwise were adequately covered by this series. And I think that's unfortunate because there is real lessons to be learned from that to.
Last question.
JOURNALIST: Home Affairs Officials are basically telling you they were working as fast as they could yesterday. Do you accept that, or do you think that there needs to be more than 20 people in that task force?
PATERSON: I'm sure the individual public servants are being very diligent and working very hard, and I have no doubt about that, but clearly there is not enough resources in an enormous department to have only 20 people working on this question. And it's no wonder that two months on, we still haven't had a single application to the court. It's up to the ministers, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Immigration to put adequate resources behind this team, to make sure they can do what they need to do to protect the community and get these criminals off the streets.
Thank you everyone.
ENDS
