March 26, 2024
TOM CONNELL: Joining us live now, the shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson, thanks for your time. So let's cut to the chase as it stands with what you know about it, will you be supporting this?
JAMES PATERSON: I wish I could give you a clear and straight answer on that now, Tom, but we really have to wait and see until we have this hearing tonight. The Senate is voting right now to agree to hold a public hearing for a couple of hours this evening, which will give us a basic opportunity to ask some questions and have answers put on the public record about what this bill does, why it's necessary, what the risks are, and is it constitutionally sound. And without having answers to those questions, I can't tell you what we'll say.
CONNELL: So you want to clarify those particular questions? What are red flags here? What answers would you hear tonight that would mean you would not support this bill.
PATERSON: Probably the biggest concern, other than the rushed and botched process, is the possibility for unintended consequences that could cause more people, as they have already done under this government, to try and get on a boat and come here and make that dangerous journey. We've had 12 or 13 boats already, two that have made it to the Australian mainland, drop people off and return without detection.
CONNELL: Dan Tehan mentioned this, but doesn't making something tougher, how would that mean people would come here?
PATERSON: We'll just before I get to that, and those shocking reports last week, of a capsize of a boat carrying Rohingya refugees with potentially dozens of people drowning. We cannot go back to those bad old days under the previous Labor government. We don't want to see that people smuggling trade started again, but there's some signs it has. How would this exacerbate it? Well, for example, if the minister designates Iran as a relevant country of concern, that means that no one in Iran can apply lawfully for a visa to come to Australia unless they qualify for an exception. And that may mean someone from Iran seeking to come to Australia may instead choose to come via boat, and we don't want to inadvertently encourage that behaviour.
ANDREW CLENNELL: We reported this morning the two countries they're looking at are Iraq and Iran. Do you have a view on those countries being singled out in relation to saying you can't have any visa holder come here, other than close family of people already here? I've it seems a bit extreme in a way. And what's to say, I guess that governments they will go, oh no. Now Iranians or Iraqis can come to Australia. We better take the detainees back.
PATERSON: Well, I don't have a preliminary view on that, and we'll be asking about it tonight, except to observe that, yes, there is certainly are people from both those countries who have refused to cooperate, who have not been able to be sent home, who have been found not to have a genuine reason to be here. So this is a serious public policy question, one that would be good to solve. But we want to make sure the government has got the detail right before we sign off on it. And we're not going to grant them a blank check based on a briefing at 7:30 am this morning on a bill that we know they finished drafting last week and didn't even bother to tell us about.
CLENNELL: Surely politically, though, you end up just saying tough measures on criminal detainees, etc. we've got to go with it.
PATERSON: But let's make sure they're tough measures that actually work. Some of the other measures that the government has rushed through the parliament right now facing constitutional challenges in the court, we don't want them to fall over. That doesn't help anyone.
KIERAN GILBERT: Do you believe that the government's introduced this now 48 hours to go before the Easter break, not because they hadn't had it planned already, but because they didn't want to give you enough time, two weeks to drill over this and, and prosecute the case on this, whereas they've given you a short period of time, a short inquiry tonight and then they're going to put the heat on you.
PATERSON: I suspect it is political, Kieran, that it's not a genuine policy problem. I mean, Murray Watt said eight days ago that they were going to be bringing forward legislation. This drafting was finalised on Friday afternoon. They could have informed us then. They could have briefed us at least on the principles or shared the legislation that waited until Tuesday morning I think knowing that they have cancelled a sitting day on Thursday. That's a very short window of opportunity to consider this. We want to do the right thing in the national interest. We don't want to expose the community to any more danger than they already have been by the government's totally botched handling of this crisis.
GILBERT: It sounds to me, from what you're saying, what Dan Tehan is saying that there's no guarantee at all that you're going to back this.
PATERSON: We can't give that guarantee based on what we've seen so far.
GILBERT: You think it stinks already?
PATERSON: Well, we just don't know, because we haven't had the opportunity to inquire into this. Even if we do get this hearing for two hours tonight here, and there's going to be no independent witnesses, no independent experts, there's just going to be the department giving their answers to our questions. I mean, it's going to be a very limited inquiry. So we have to really make the most of that opportunity to get to the bottom of this.
CLENNELL: But if you don't pass it, they'll belt you for six weeks, won't they? And they'll say you're soft and that you're allowing detainees to be released. It's a classic wedge.
PATERSON: Well, it's a government that's released 152 detainees now, 18 of whom have re-offend against the community, ten of whom broke their visa conditions and cannot be charged for that because the government botched up the issuing of their visas the first time. So while we want to solve these problems, we don't want to do it in an incompetent and rushed way, as the government showed they will do in the past.
OLIVIA CAISLEY: The US media is reporting that some of this Chinese malware targeting of critical infrastructure in the US has been designed specifically to be switched on if the US ever goes to Taiwan's aid. This is extraordinary. Are you confident that Australia has enough protections in place when it comes to our own critical infrastructure? Protecting for example, submarine cables?
PATERSON: There is no innocent purpose to have a dormant presence on a critical infrastructure or civilian infrastructure network, like an electricity network or a water network or a gas network. The only purpose is for that to be activated at the time of choosing of the actor to do sabotage and malign damage to our society. So if it is on there, and I think we need a lot more work to make sure that it's not, then we've got a lot more work to do to get it off and protect ourselves. Because it is a major national security threat. We've invested a lot in this. We brought in REDSPICE, we initiated the critical infrastructure reforms. But there's more to do.
CLENNELL: What about this attack on the New Zealand Parliament? Could that be a retaliation for Winston Peters pushing back with the Chinese Foreign Minister for AUKUS? Of a view on this?
PATERSON: As I understand it, this occurred in 2021. And the truth is that Chinese intelligence agencies have an insatiable appetite for intelligence and information about Western democracies, particularly Five Eyes democracies, New Zealand, Australia and others included. And they have been looking for vulnerabilities, whether it's MPs or electoral systems, to get that insight.
CONNELL: Just to wrap up on the detainee issue, when you're talking about the incentive maybe for people to travel here, are you saying broadly that if something's too tough or too harsh, that somehow create some sort of incentive?
PATERSON: We're saying if it's not well designed, it might leave gaps open that can be exploited by people smugglers. And this government has watered down Operation Sovereign Borders, for example, by abolishing temporary protection visas, which were very important in upholding Kevin Rudd's promise that if you come here by boat, you'll never get to stay. And we now know that's not true. People who came here by boat are going to stay because they've abolished that protection. That sends a terrible message to the region, to people smugglers and to wannabe asylum seekers that maybe if you get here under the right circumstances, this government might cave to you.
CLENNELL: And what about the mandatory minimums? One year if you refuse to go home, what's your view on that? Could you, for example, support that element but not the, you know, designating countries element?
PATERSON: Well I note Andrew, that's another violation of Labor's national platform when it comes to mandatory minimums. I wonder if anyone in the caucus committee spoke up about that last night or today. We're not opposed to that in principle, we think it is necessary. We don't want to see a situation where judges give tokenistic slaps on the wrist for what are serious issues. So in principle, we're not opposed to that. Again, we are going to look at the detail.
CLENNELL: What about the effect on children? Because you know you've got Zali Steggall and a few others sort of mentioning that what about children in detention, how they can be swept up by this? Do you think there should be a protection there, in the legislation related to that?
PATERSON: Well, we're happy to look at any good faith measures, but we don't want unintended consequences here. I wouldn't want people to use children as a bargaining chip to keep themselves in the country, which would be a potential consequence of carving them out from this.
CONNELL: James Paterson got to leave it there, thank you for your time as always.
ENDS
