October 9, 2024
.png)
KIERAN GILBERT: Let's bring in Senator James Patterson, the Shadow Home Affairs Minister. Thanks for your time. You heard the Prime Minister reiterating that the security agencies are across all of those that have been granted visas, including the individual, Fayez Elhasani who I asked the Prime Minister about someone who had hosted political members from Hamas at his art institute in Gaza. The Prime Minister rejected the notion that the fact that he's got a visa shows the process was rushed. He says the agencies are across everything they need to be. Does that give you any comfort?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, it's very hard to reconcile what we know about this person based on media reports today and the test that Mike Burgess set out for whether someone poses a security risk for Australia or not. He said on 7.30 with Sarah Ferguson that simply liking a tweet in support of Hamas or calling for the destruction of Israel was enough to constitute a security risk for Australia. So if someone like that constitutes a security risk, why doesn't someone who has family members who are members of listed terrorist organisations and who he himself has met with and held events with listed terrorist organisations, not meet that test? And how did he come to our country?
GILBERT: Can I just ask you to pause there for one moment. I want to go live to Senator Payman who is announcing this new party and then we'll come back for your reaction.
[Cut to Senator Payman press conference]
GILBERT: No, policy platform. But there is a name, Australia's Voice, that's Senator Payman announcing her new party. Senator Paterson joins me. The shadow Home Affairs Minister. We're talking about security matters. We'll get to those in a moment, but your reaction to that this Australia's Voice party, but no policies.
PATERSON: Well, best wishes to Senator Payman on her new party. I think probably most parliamentarians would think that they are voices for Australia. It's probably not a unique selling proposition to say that she is uniquely a voice for Australia. We're all here to be voices for Australians in the Parliament and our constituents that we represent. Seems pretty high level so far as you say Kieran, not a lot of detail, but I guess we'll see what come of it.
GILBERT: We will see what comes of it, quoting of the Gough Whitlam end and Menzies there in the opening spray. So that was interesting. Let's go back to the visa for Fayez Elhasani. Given this individual who hosted political members from Hamas in Gaza. I just wonder given how ubiquitous Hamas was in Gaza and how small a territory can the security agencies look beyond, say, the presence of a political representative of a party that was basically everywhere?
PATERSON: It's a really good question, Kieran, but in fact we don't have to look any further because in Australia we've made a decision that there is no distinction between a so-called political or civilian wing of Hamas and the terrorist wing of Hamas. We made a decision to list Hamas as a terrorist organisation in its entirety a few years ago. I chaired the intelligence committee inquiry that recommended that to the government that they adopted. So any associations with any member of Hamas is a problem.
GILBERT: But it would be hard for anyone not to have associations is the point given how small the area is?
PATERSON: Sure, even if we concede that, this press conference has been reported in the Daily Telegraph today, which he held with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and another terrorist organisation, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. At that press conference, he is supposed to have said that we need to keep all options on the table for resolving the issue with Israel. We need to wage resistance by all means necessary. Now, that sounds to me, frankly, like advocacy of terrorism and certainly toleration of terrorism.
GILBERT: Should he be booted?
PATERSON: Someone like this, I think doesn't even clear the bar for character, let alone security. I mean, if you are associating with terrorist organisations, if you're publishing and exhibiting artwork which is anti-Semitic in nature, which glorifies terrorism, that's enough grounds, let alone that apparently immediate members of his family were senior leaders in terrorist organisation.
GILBERT: Do you welcome the fact the Prime Minister has ruled out emphatically any relationship with the Greens in the next Parliament if there is a minority government situation?
PATERSON: No, I take no comfort from that at all, because prior to the 2010 election the Labor Party, of which she was a senior minister, made exactly the same commitment and yet after the election in 2010, in the Gillard minority parliament, they entered into an arrangement with the Greens. We all know if there was anything standing between Albanese and another term of Parliament, even doing a deal with the Greens, he would be the first person to rush to do a deal with the Greens.
GILBERT: Would you like to do a preference situation though? As the two Jewish groups have said, they would like the Liberals and Labor to say we will preference each other above the Greens.
PATERSON: Well, this is a classic example of the Prime Minister not taking responsibility. I mean, he said to you, he tried to run the argument with you, that he's not responsible for preferences of the Labor Party. I mean, really, he's the head of the Labor Party, he is the Prime Minister. He can have a view on preferences and I'm sure the Labor Party will follow it. My view is, yes, there is a very good argument for the parties of government to come together and say the extremism and the anti-Semitism we've seen from the Greens over the last 12 months is disqualifying and none of us should be preferencing them. But unless the Labor party is willing to have that conversation with us, we're not going to give them a free kick and let them do a deal with the Greens while we put them last.
GILBERT: On the situation with Hezbollah in Lebanon. And the State Department has said it supports Israel's incursions into southern Lebanon to degrade Hezbollah's capability. I put that to the Prime Minister a number of times, and he reiterated that he supports Israel's right to defend itself. Do you support that? You're welcome that?
PATERSON: Based on what I saw in that interview, I'm not sure the Prime Minister is across the detail. Or maybe he's just trying to skate across the surface here, because there now is a gulf between what the Biden administration is saying and what the Albanese government is saying. No one from the Albanese government has been willing to say that Israel has a right to dismantle Hezbollah, that they support Israel dismantling Hezbollah. Only a couple of ministers, notably the Health Minister, have said they have a right to respond. The Prime Minister has not repeated that phrase, nor has the Foreign Minister. Why won't they say that Israel has a right to respond?
GILBERT: If they've got a right to defend itself? Implicit in that is the right to dismantle a terrorist group on your border, isn't it?
PATERSON: You would think so, Kieran. But the Prime Minister has had these dueling, competing positions of “we should have a ceasefire” and “Israel has a right to defend itself.” They are incompatible. You can't defend yourself in a ceasefire. You have to take offensive action against your opponents. That's what Israel is doing. Australia should support them as the Biden administration does.
GILBERT: Senator Paterson, thanks.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS
