November 15, 2023
KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me live in the studio is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister and Shadow Minister for Cyber Security, James Paterson. A lot to discuss, let's start off with the suggestion by Peter Dutton that the prime minister shouldn't be getting on that plane and heading to APEC. Why shouldn't he? Given the enormity of the problems facing the world right now, shouldn't Australia have a seat at the table there?
JAMES PATERSON: Kieran I am personally, and the Coalition is generally, supportive of the Prime Minister's travel in uncertain times. We do need to have a seat at the table, we do need to participate. But our criticism is he's had the wrong focus when he's here. In the brief times he is in Australia, he's not dealing with issues like this High Court decision which has put our community at risk. There are 83 people, among them serious criminal offenders, including murderers, rapists and child sex abusers, who are roaming free on the streets with no meaningful restrictions imposed on them and the prime minister hasn't grabbed this issue, seized it, led from the front and said we're going to introduce legislation a week ago to fix it and I think that is the real problem is here. He doesn't have the right focus.
GILBERT: The legislation apparently will be introduced this week despite some mixed messages, to be honest, from the government, as to whether it could or couldn't be. They will be introducing legislation this week to respond to the high court ruling here.
PATERSON: Kieran, I've been calling for almost a week now for the government to do exactly this and when I've done so the government has rubbished that suggestion, saying how can we possibly introduce legislation to overrule the High Court, and even if we could, we would of course have to wait for their ruling to be handed down. Well, the ruling hasn't been handed down. The reasons for the decision haven't been published, and they are now finally doing what they should have done on Thursday last week. This ruling was handed down on Wednesday. They should have been ready to go knowing in advance that it was a risk that they would lose, with legislation on the Thursday in the Senate. It could have passed in the House on Monday and those criminals who have been released in the community could have been under meaningful restrictions for that time. But now we know they haven't been.
GILBERT: Well, meaningful restrictions and meaningful surveillance. If you look at the story out of the West Australian today, a group that had been released, the Minister, Mr. Giles, seemed to indicate that they would be facing appropriate surveillance and reporting requirements. That's not what we're seeing, according to at least that report out of the West. Is that your understanding? Across the board?
PATERSON: I've said from the beginning here, and based on the government's response, I've got no confidence that they're actually doing what needs to be done to protect the community, including monitoring these people and actually controlling their movements in the community. We've asked in the Senate this week every single day, what happens if they breach a condition of this bridging visa? What are the consequences? It was only today that we finally got an answer from Minister Wong, and she admitted there are no consequences because the only consequence of breaching a visa is that you're detained pending your deportation. And the High Court has said for this cohort of people, it's not constitutional to do that. So, none of these restrictions have been meaningful. It has all been window dressing to give the false sense of comfort to the community that they're somehow protecting them. They're not, they haven't been protected at all.
GILBERT: And so, in terms of the legislation, what needs to be done? I know that you don't have the department behind you with the advice and so on to say, where do the holes need to be filled here? But surely this needs to be reversed given the magnitude of what we're talking about.
PATERSON: Well, we've been trying to make constructive contributions for a week and suggestions for a week on this issue, which is that we could look at the terrorism framework, we could look at preventative and continuing detention orders, we could look at control orders and extended supervision orders. Something like that could be applied to this cohort to protect the community. The government has rubbished that and said that they wouldn't be doing that or couldn't do that. The minister said this morning on television that you can't do that. Well, we don't know exactly what the government is proposing. We wrote to them on Monday to request a briefing. We still have not received a briefing.
GILBERT: Sorry, the Minister for Home Affairs this morning said, you can't do it? But it's her portfolio under which this legislation will be introduced.
PATERSON: Exactly right Kieran. I really think something fundamental has broken down here within the government. And it's not clear where that fault lies, whether it's the Minister for Home Affairs, the Minister for Immigration, the Prime Minister, the Home Affairs Department. But someone has to explain why they've been saying it wouldn't be possible to legislate to fix this, but now they're saying that it'll rush legislation through the Parliament to fix it. I can't understand what has changed in that time and I'm not sure how we're to be expected to vote on this without being briefed on it. We still have not been briefed. Apparently, this is going to be introduced to the parliament tomorrow. I've got no idea what it says. No one in the Opposition has any idea what it says.
GILBERT: Do you suspect that given the timing of, and I know Michael Pezzullo has his own answers to give in terms of those reports by other media outlets? But he was very strong on these issues of non-citizens, and border protection, immigrants. He would have dealt or at least ensured the government had the right briefings to deal with this, wouldn't he?
PATERSON: Well, one thing that I'm going to be really keen to understand after this Kieran, is when and if the Home Affairs Department warned the government about this. And when and if they did, did they prepare responses to that? Because if the department failed to do that, then that is a failing which they will have to bear responsibility for. But if they did warn the government and if they did prepare options and the government didn't act on it, then that falls on the Minister and on the Prime Minister to take that responsibility. And we just don't know yet where that has fallen down. I would be very surprised if Home Affairs wasn't looking at this in advance because that's standard practice when there's a High Court decision pending on a crucial matter of border protection and community safety, they always prepare options in advance.
GILBERT: Well, this is a debacle. Heaven forbid something happens with one of the individuals concerned. The counterargument has been, and I've seen this in various platforms, that these individuals have all served their time. What would you say to that? Is that true?
PATERSON: Well, If they were Australian citizens and they had served their time, there's of course, nothing that can be done about that. They're released in the community and hopefully rehabilitated. These people are not Australian citizens. They do not have a right to be here and they have violated the character provisions of the Migration Act by virtue of the crimes that they've committed. And ordinarily they would be removed, and they should be removed. But the High Court has found they can't be removed because there's no prospect of that for them due to their unique circumstances. But the answer to that question can't be. okay, off you go. Just out into the community, out to a motel in Western Australia. Get up to whatever you want, no restrictions at all. That is totally unacceptable.
GILBERT: And the counterargument that that when I've seen these points made is we don't know the jurisdictions under which the crimes were made and that the penalties that were handed down, it's not an Australian jurisdiction. So do we how do we judge another country's laws in that sense?
PATERSON: Well, many of them were convicted in Australia and jailed for their crimes in Australia and were only detained in immigration detention after their sentences expired pending their deportation. Some of them are under charges or convictions in overseas jurisdictions. And you're right, there is some uncertainty about that, but there is no uncertainty about the people who've been charged for murder, child sexual abuse and rape in Australia, convicted in Australia, and should have either been removed or now that we know they can't be removed, other protective measures put in place for the community.
GILBERT: Because they weren't that they had no right to be here in the first place. On the cyber threat You are the shadow minister for cyber security as well. Clearly, the threat is growing, according to this annual report. Are you comfortable with our capacity, both private sector and government? Is it growing sufficiently in responding?
PATERSON: I'm comfortable as long as the investments that the former government made in REDSPICE, which doubles the ASD in size and capability, as long as that continues and is not cut back. I'm comfortable as long as the government lives up to its rhetoric when it says it's going to introduce things like mandatory reporting for ransomware attacks, which they could have done in the 18 months they were in office. I'm comfortable as long as they introduce the safe harbour provisions that the ASD and I have been calling for publicly for months and months and months. They've got to live up to the commitments they've made and deliver on that very big promise they've made, to make us the most cyber secure country by 2030.
GILBERT: And the safe harbor provisions seem like an absolute no brainer because it means that companies are more willing to hand over information relevant to a breach which our intelligence agencies need. We can't have a situation where you've got the private sector holding back or being guarded when our agencies are trying to respond.
PATERSON: Kieran, the very disturbing thing about the annual report of ASD today is that they say there's been a crash in the amount of reporting from the private sector to government when cyber incidents occurred, and that they're doing it through lawyers instead of at the technical and operational level. This could have solved that problem by giving them confidence that this wasn't going to be used against you. I've been calling for this since March. It's actually quite a simple change. And instead, we've had this year long process to do a new cybersecurity strategy. Maybe we'll get some legislation next year to do this. But in the meantime, ASD is struggling with far less reports and they should have to respond to serious cyber threats.
GILBERT: It's not where we need it, that's for sure. And on the departure of Air Marshal Goldie, he's the cyber security coordinator. Quite an abrupt decision announced today, I had him on the program earlier in the week. Now he's gone. Have you been briefed on the circumstances around that?
PATERSON: No, I haven't been and I'm very puzzled by this. And I think the government needs to be upfront about exactly what they're alluding to in the media statement that they issued today. I mean, he was being praised by the government as early as this week as being an exemplary person in this role. If they have information which has changed their judgement about that, I think they need to front up to the Australian people about why that's the case and why if there are issues that weren't identified in the very long recruitment process they had to appoint him to the role. They're not being transparent about this.
GILBERT: Finally, on the on the anti-Semitism we're seeing in the community at the moment, a school was denied service by a provider in Sydney. What's your reaction to that? And should there be laws preventing that sort of behaviour? Or is that is that free choice within the business community to serve whoever you see fit? It does seem like another case of anti-Semitism.
PATERSON: I think it's a very clear case of anti-Semitism. I mean, what kind of person runs a business that rents out jumping castles and decides that it doesn't want to rent them to Jewish children simply because they're Jewish? I mean, that is absolutely abhorrent and disgusting behaviour and I think an apology is warranted. There are laws against this though Kieran, anti-discrimination legislation does prevent this kind of discrimination based on race and religion. Frankly, during this conflict so far, I don't think the laws we already have on the books have been enforced sufficiently. We have lots of laws against incitement to violence and racial hatred. No one's been prosecuted for any of that behaviour yet, and I think that's a real failing.
GILBERT: The New South Wales and Victoria Police Associations are calling for the Federal Government to pay the costs of the policing around the many, many protests we're seeing around the nation. Is that a fair call because you're taking those police off the duties that are otherwise beyond.
PATERSON: Well, I mean, I think it's the job of police to protect the community and whatever the threats of the community are, it's the police's job to do that. I don't think we should have buck passing on who pays the financial costs for that. State's run the police services. The federal police has their responsibilities, but the state police have theirs. And I don’t think anyone should be quibbling about a dollar here when the priority is protecting the community from violence.
GILBERT: And so they shouldn't be sort of differentiating between whether they're out there protecting one community or the general day to day jobs. This is their day to day job. Is that your argument?
PATERSON: Well, last time I checked, as a Victorian and my fellow Victorians are all supposed to be protected by Victoria Police, they don't protect them because we're federal citizens or state citizens. They protect us from all threats of communal violence and other things. And I'm disappointed to say that they're trying to shift the buck there.
GILBERT: Senator Paterson, appreciate your time.
ENDS
