April 21, 2025
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ANDREW BOLT:
Joining me is the Coalition's Home Affairs spokesman, now campaign spokesman as well, James Paterson. Senator Paterson, great to see you again. You have asked for a briefing on the Russian request for an air base in Indonesia. What right do you have to one of them, and what reason is the government given for saying no?
JAMES PATERSON:
Andrew, those clips that you played from the Prime Minister and Murray Watt in your editorial show we have a deeply unserious Prime Minister comparing a proposal for a Russian air force base in our region to a fake moon landing and the Loch Ness monster at the most serious time for our country since the end of World War II. We've asked for a briefing because it's the normal thing that oppositions are provided in circumstances like these. In fact, in the last election campaign, we provided a briefing to the then opposition about a Chinese Navy vessel off the West Australian coast. In the lead-up to the last election, we provided the opposition with a briefing about the Solomon Islands agreement. It is utterly routine, even setting aside the caretaker conventions, for oppositions to be briefed on this matter. But given Murray Watts' missteps on this, I wonder whether he has even been briefed about this, or what basis he had for making his statement that not even a proposal had been made from the Russian government, which is contradicted by the Janes military publication and seemingly by public comments made by the Russian Ambassador. In serious times, we need serious leaders, and we don't have that right now.
ANDREW BOLT:
Well, let's not forget that before the spin came in, the Defense Minister, Richard Marles, implied that a request had been made by Russia to Indonesia. He said, the request has been denied. So that was before the spinning came in. There was a request. I think it's pretty obvious. And the government is lying and won't let other people know about it. I think is just disgraceful. But listen, just quickly, crime. Crime is basically a state issue. But the polls show, of course, as you know, that voters have it around a third on their list of concerns now, ahead of global warming in the polls I've seen. And no wonder, of, course, in Victoria, for instance, every day, on average, 20 homes are now broken into, often with the residents inside. That's a crime that was once unheard of. Today, the Herald Sun in Melbourne reports that gangs of youths are even stealing cigarettes for crime gangs that pay them $5 a packet to... Well, they're robbing service stations, about five a week now. You've just announced a $750 million crime plan. Why have you done that, and what is it?
JAMES PATERSON:
Andrew, the Prime Minister might think that crime is not his job, but Peter Dutton thinks it is the Federal government's responsibility, and we have a critical role to play. Many of the crime networks operating in our country are operating not just across state borders, but also internationally, and the Federal government has a critical role to play in disrupting them to protect Australians. We have a role at the border, which we will be boosting, particularly to have inspections of incoming mail where a lot of drugs and other contraband, including date-rape drugs, are coming into our country. We have a role in busting those criminal networks and bikie gangs who operate across state borders. And we will fund the Federal police to stand up a new strike team to tackle that. We've also got a role protecting children all around this country by introducing a sex offender disclosure scheme which allows parents and guardians to request information of police about people who have access to their children and whether or not they're on the sex offenders list. And shockingly, today the Prime Minister downplayed the merit of that idea and said he wouldn't be implementing that idea, and Murray Watt again was out there saying that it was a cynical exercise. I don't think the protection of children is cynical. I think it's really important, and I'm disappointed the Prime Minister couldn't rise to the moment and back this in a bipartisan way.
ANDREW BOLT:
And you are, of course, proposing post and boast laws, which would make it illegal to post social media content, glamorising involvement in criminal activity. I actually thought that social media outlets were already cracking down on that.
JAMES PATERSON:
It's a real problem, Andrew. In fact, today we met with some social workers in the seat of Dunkley, who were working to disrupt these crime gangs and take young people off these bad pathways and put them on better pathways. And they said a significant element of the motivation of young people is to gain notoriety among their friends. And one of the ways they do that is by stealing cars, breaking into people's homes, filming themselves, and then posting it on social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok. The platforms are not doing enough to deal with this problem. And the people who are doing this don't fear the consequences of it.
That's why we'll bring in new laws to criminalise posting and boasting so that people fear the consequences of this behaviour.
ANDREW BOLT:
Senator Paterson, thank you so much.
ENDS