September 30, 2024
LAURA JAYES: Okay. Joining me now is the shadow Home Affairs and Cyber Security minister, James Paterson. James good to see you. Those first comments there from the Prime Minister about the events in Sydney, in Melbourne over the weekend. Is that enough?
JAMES PATERSON: Well they are fine sentiments, Laura. But on his watch the law has been failed to be enforced. We've seen repeated instances of breaches of the law, whether it's incitement to violence against groups on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, or the public display of terrorism symbols like the Hezbollah flag, but also Hamas logos, logos of the Al-Qassam Brigades, which is the militant wing of Hamas. And this Prime Minister has done nothing to ensure that the laws of the land of this country are enforced. And, unsurprisingly, people have been emboldened by that. Their behaviour is escalating. It is getting worse, and it will continue to flourish until the Prime Minister actually does something about it.
JAYES: So what should be done here? Because you need to have police do their job first.
PATERSON: That would be a good start. There are at least three potential federal crimes that were committed yesterday in Melbourne and Sydney. The first is the public display of a symbol of at listed terrorist organisation. The Parliament unanimously outlawed that in December with the hate symbols legislation. The second is incitement to violence against other groups on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. And the third is engaging in glorification, praising and the encouraging of terrorism, which could potentially lead to terrorism being fostered in Australia. All three of those federal crimes should be investigated, and anyone who has breached those laws should be charged. It's also important if any of the people involved in these activities are non-citizens, they are visitors in our country, then their visas should be cancelled. And Tony Burke has raised that as a prospect today. But in the last 12 months, I'm not aware of a single instance of someone's visa being cancelled on character grounds because of their involvement in protests like this.
JAYES: So if they're not citizens, if they're dual citizens even, or as you say, not citizens at all, what should happen? Should it be one breach and that's it? Or are you more worried about individuals in those circumstance who could be fomenting unrest over a long period of time?
PATERSON: Laura, there are a couple of provisions in the Migration Act which give the power to the minister for Home Affairs and Immigration to cancel people's visas. One of those is the character provisions, they are very broad. Anyone basically who's judged to be of not good character can have their visa cancelled. And in my view, if you're waving a terrorist flag, you're not a person of good character. We don't want you in our country. Your visa should be cancelled, and you should be deported. But the other, more specific provisions of the Migration Act that the Home Affairs Minister has alluded to, including fostering of hatred and incitement of contempt of other communities that allow extremely wide latitude to the Minister to cancel visas. I don't think there should be any hesitation. If any of the people on the weekend can be identified as visa holders, their visas should be immediately cancelled by the Minister and they should be deported.
JAYES: And how long would you expect that process to take? Because we know these things can often be drawn out.
PATERSON: Well, as soon as a positive identification can be made, a brief can be provided by the department to the Minister, and the Minister shouldn't take too much time considering it. That should be something that can happen in a matter of days, if not weeks. If it is a more complicated case of identifying someone, that's harder. And the truth is, Laura, there were people at these rallies yesterday who covered their faces, who deliberately obscured their identity. I think that speaks volumes about their motivations. And I think that's exactly why you need police on the ground to be interviewing people, to be positively identifying them, to be collecting evidence so that the law can be enforced.
JAYES: From what you saw, either personally or on TV cameras, are you satisfied that this was a small cohort at these protests in Sydney and Melbourne? Or are you worried about the flavour of these protests as a whole?
PATERSON: People are perfectly entitled to protest peacefully in Australia for any cause that they care about, including what's happening in the Middle East. And we should all be distressed by the civilian casualties that have occurred since the 7th of October, whether they are Israeli civilian casualties or Palestinian civilian casualties or Lebanese civilian casualties. And if you want a protest on the weekend about that and if you want to take a national flag like the Palestinian flag or the Lebanese flag, you're perfectly entitled to do so. But there appeared to be a sizeable minority of people who turned up on the weekend with the flags of listed terrorist organisations with portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, and that is not acceptable. That is against the law and the police must enforce it. Otherwise we're going to only see more of it. People are becoming emboldened, and that's a very dangerous thing.
JAYES: James, just before I let you go, I got to ask you about the Misinformation Bill, submissions close today. Tony Abbott made a really good point that Labor could be, caught up in its own laws here, particularly when it comes to the $275 off your electricity bill. For example, you know, some of those Covid era claims from scientists who then, you know, that science changed. I understand your concerns with the bill, but will you be offering alternatives?
PATERSON: We will be opposing Labor's Bill because it's a threat to freedom of speech. And that's a core value of not just the Liberal Party, or the National Party, but of all Australians. We have offered alternatives, because I do think that foreign state originated disinformation is a real problem. I chaired a Senate Select Committee inquiry into this last year. We made 17 recommendations in a bipartisan report, and the principle of those recommendations was we should have transparency, not censorship. So instead of censoring people's legitimately held political beliefs, you should instead label the foreign state actors who are active on these portfolios as foreign state actors so that people can be informed. You should require the platforms themselves, whether it's Twitter or WeChat or TikTok, to be transparent about their relationship with foreign governments and any editorial imposition on those platforms from those foreign governments, so that Australians can be informed both about the content on the platforms and the platforms themselves. And that is why of addressing these serious issues without censoring anyone's opinions.
JAYES: Okay, James, look forward to more detail on that. Good to talk to you. Thanks so much.
PATERSON: Thanks Laura.
ENDS
