October 2, 2024
PETA CREDLIN: Anti-Israel protesters vow to continue this weekend, right as we are set to mark one year since the October 7th terror attacks. You have to seriously ask yourself how we've reached this point. Even today, one protester who proudly waved the Hezbollah flag has told The Australian newspaper, I'm not scared of the cops. Joining me to discuss what needs to happen to go after this issue, shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson. Well, we had this legislation passed in December last year that we are going to outlaw all these hate symbols. We're certainly getting movement out of New South Wales, although they're are going to have to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. But we're not getting much movement in Victoria. Is the issue the lack of backbone with authorities, or do you think that the laws need fixing.
JAMES PATERSON: Overwhelmingly Peta, I think the problem is a lack of willingness on the part of our federal and state governments and in some sections of the police, I'm afraid, to enforce the law. There may be some deficiency in our law, but let's find that out by charging people, by testing the law and if it falls in the courts, we can amend the law. But if the government wants to bring to us the case that the laws need to change before that, I will fly to Canberra tomorrow. We will let the Parliament sit tomorrow. We will pass whatever legislation is necessary to stop this ahead of the rallies on Sunday and the rallies on Monday because they should not go ahead and it is not good enough for the Prime Minister just to throw his hands up and say it's all too hard, I can't do anything about it.
CREDLIN: Are you getting the briefings you need from agencies and authorities about the terror risk in Australia and what we're seeing? You know, I made the point tonight about the Sydney mosques eulogising a terror mastermind. Are you getting what you need in the interests of bipartisanship?
PATERSON: Yes, both through the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I'm still a member and through briefings that the Opposition is offered on an ad hoc basis that Peter Dutton has requested, we have been briefed on the security situation both in Australia and the regional environment, so I can't complain about that. Our criticism of the government is not of the agencies who are very professional and focused on the task. It's the political leadership that's been lacking in our country since the 7th of October. I mean the Prime Minister has confronted this crisis of anti-Semitism and looked the other way. He can't bear to take it head on. He can't bear to show moral authority and moral courage in confronting this threat.
CREDLIN: I noted comments today in relation to the appointment of this envoy in relation to Islamophobia. The Muslim associations are wanting him to focus not just on the issue of Islamophobia, but also on greater protections for the pro-Palestinian protesters. Now that's got to be a concern.
PATERSON: Well, it's not the purpose of an Islamophobia commissioner to go organising rallies or helping to protect rallies or the pro-Palestinian cause, they are separate issues. He's supposed to be dealing with racism. All forms of racism are morally abhorrent. And we've got no quarrel with there being an anti-Islamophobia commissioner, although I think it's very telling that the government has taken this long to find someone who would accept the appointment, who was qualified for the appointment. It's my understanding that the Jewish community proposed the anti-Semitism Commissioner last year in December, and the candidate that was subsequently appointed. But the government sat that for six months because they couldn't find an equivalent Islamophobia Commissioner. And this just shows the false moral equivalence that's been drawn here by the government, that on the one hand this, on the one hand that, as though they can't call out anti-Semitism without also calling out Islamophobia. And it's no wonder that we've got the crisis that we have today.
CREDLIN: I know you've got close links to the Jewish community, but those I've spoken to feel very fragile at the moment.
PATERSON: I've never seen them as distressed as they are today. And you talk to Holocaust survivors who've been in this country for close to 100 years who say that they just cannot fathom that unsafe experiences that they're having in Australia, that they never thought our country would be like this. And I even talk to members of the Jewish community who have or are contemplating moving to Israel, they think they'll be safer in Israel under attack from three terrorist organisations than they are in Melbourne or Sydney. I mean, that is a travesty.
CREDLIN: I remember Islamic State very clearly. I remember the siege at Martin Place. There was a flag put on the window. It looked like an ISIS flag. I don't think it was in the in the end, the Arabic writing was a little different. But we didn't see that in the middle of the Islamic State conflict, flags on the street. We certainly didn't see it in relation to Al-Qaeda. I made the point with Greg Sheridan before, I can't remember mosques holding services to eulogise Osama bin Laden. That's only 13 years ago. How did we get here.
PATERSON: Things have got a lot worse in the last decade, Peta and it's tempting to think that this is just an imported problem and we can solve this by deporting people. Of course, we should deport anyone who violates the character provisions of the Migration Act. But the uncomfortable truth is I think we've got a home-grown extremism problem. A lot of those people protesting on the weekend were Australian citizens. Some of them would even have been born and raised here, educated here.
CREDLIN: So this is this coming out of the mosques', is this coming out of radical imagery and videos online? Where's it coming from?
PATERSON: I think it's coming in schools and not just in Muslim schools, but even in public schools as well. I think it must be coming in some religious communities and some families, and it's certainly online in social media and where really horrific content is being pumped into teenagers and radicalising them quickly. So we actually need a whole of government and whole of society response to this. And I just don't see that coming from our Prime Minister or this government.
CREDLIN: The Revolutionary Guard, Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Do they need to be listed as a terror organisation? I understand, it's been looked at before but they were not listed because they were an organ of a national government. Do you have a different view?
PATERSON: I think it should be listed for the most important reason that it is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East. None of these proxies, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, would be able to do what they do if they didn't have Iran's backing. If there are changes to the laws that are necessary, we've already offered the government bipartisan support to make that happen. But I actually think there's an arguable case that there isn't a legal change needed here, just a change of courage from on part of the Prime Minister.
CREDLIN: Tony Burke, was pretty visible at the start of the week saying, you know, if any of these protesters have a visa and they've been found to be supporting Hezbollah, we will deport them. He's basically disappeared from the media, though, since Monday. He's got a high Muslim population in his seat. I see that as pretty politically motivated. Have we got any follow up about visa cancellations?
PATERSON: No, none whatsoever. And I wouldn't hold my breath. Apparently what he has been doing, though, is meeting one by one with the Palestinians here on tourist visas in order to grant them humanitarian visas.
CREDLIN: Hang on, say that again?
PATERSON: He's been meeting individually with Palestinians here on tourist visas.
CREDLIN: Those from Gaza?
PATERSON: In order to grant them humanitarian visas to stay here, personally. He said this on ABC Radio earlier this week, I have never heard of an Immigration minister personally meeting with applicants for permanent visas to grant them. He was asked by Patricia Karvelas, are you going to meet with all 3000? And he basically said, we'll see how we go. I mean, this is extraordinary and in my view, quite inappropriate. When we said we wanted the government to conduct face to face interviews, we didn't mean that the Minister would be doing it here in Australia. We mean that our agencies would be doing that overseas. It is a bizarre situation and hard to fathom why.
CREDLIN: You wonder if they're going to get a sign up to the Labor Party form as they walk out the door.
PATERSON: Yeah, a cynical person might say that.
CREDLIN: James, thank you.
ENDS
