July 16, 2024
CHRIS KENNY: Lets now go to the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson, whose only days ago returned from the US. Thanks for joining us again, James. I've got to ask you about your take on American politics while you were there. Obviously you left before the assassination attempt, but did you sense the polarisation and the toxicity of the debate was the worst you've seen up until this time?
JAMES PATERSON: Good evening, Chris. In fact, when I landed at Melbourne Airport on Sunday morning and I opened up the phone, the first news I saw was what had happened at that rally in Pennsylvania. Yes, America is divided. There's no question about that. And the tone of the public debate is more fraught than it has ever been and it is in some ways unsurprising, although obviously deeply concerning to see someone has, you know, taken that to the ultimate and most extreme end of attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate. It's actually not something that we've seen for 40 years. The last time a president or presidential candidate was shot was Ronald Reagan in 1981. And you have to go back to 1968 with Bobby Kennedy for the last time an assassination of a presidential candidate was successful. So it's a deeply worrying moment. It is an absolute blessing that those bullets missed and we are not dealing with a far more serious aftermath than we otherwise would be.
KENNY: Yeah look, as I keep saying, of course, the ultimate responsibility and blame for this lies with the shooter. But all political players and the media have to be mindful of this environment of hatred and polarisation that surround this. It staggered me, now I'm no apologist for the Trump camp. We know that Donald Trump and his supporters at some stages have done the wrong thing and used inflammatory language, but we seem to have enormous difficulty in getting anyone from the left media or the Democratic side to admit that they've been part of this process, that their constant demonisation of Trump portraying him as Hitler and an outright threat to democracy only inflames the situation, rather than offers any sort of broad contest of political ideas.
PATERSON: Chris, I guess where I'm most qualified to comment is on the Australian context and the similar rhetoric that we have seen here, I think particularly since the 7th of October in the last nine months of dehumanising Israel, but not just Israel, the Jewish community and supporters of Israel as well. And that has led to very distressing harassment of members of Parliament and their staff and their offices. I mean, we have had a federal member of parliament's office firebombed in this country, a Jewish MP, supposedly because of his position on the Middle East, in Josh Burns. That is an outrage. Just as is the picketing and harassment of Peter Khalil's office in Melbourne and the harassment of his staff. And the protest we saw outside a Labor party fundraiser in Brisbane on the weekend, or indeed their state conference a few months ago. There is an extremism on the left in this country which is emerging. It is very worrying. It is intimidating people who are participating in the democratic process. And in a free and liberal democracy like Australia, all of us should say that's completely unacceptable. And the party that has a particular responsibility to do so is the Greens and its leader, Adam Bandt, because they have fanned these flames, stoked these flames and they are contributing to this tension.
KENNY: Well, yes. And I drew this connection last night because this is where we see hate speech in this country, we need to stamp it out. Surely the governing parties, especially in the states of New South Wales and Victoria and federally, need to accept more responsibility. We've had people chanting Death to Jews or Where's the Jews. Celebrating the death of innocent people on October the 7th and the like and preaching hatred. Yet there's been no action, no prosecutions. Surely we've got to take a stand against this stuff.
PATERSON: That's absolutely right, Chris. It is astonishing to me that nine months on, despite all that we have seen and heard on our streets and in our communities, that not one person has been charged at the federal level under the very significant anti incitement legislation that we have, or the harassment legislation that we have that allows you to charge someone for using a carriage service like the internet to engage in this kind of hate speech. There's been no action on that and it's deeply concerning. And on the political level, the Prime Minister used Question Time a few weeks ago to attack the Greens for fanning the flames of this. But what's he actually doing about it? Is he going to give the Greens his preferences, as he has done at every other election, including in a seat like Macnamara, the heart of Melbourne's Jewish community? Is he going to preference the Greens here, as he did last time? Well, sadly, I suspect he will.
KENNY: Yeah, actions speak louder than words, that's for sure. Thanks so much for joining us, James, I appreciate it.
ENDS
