January 28, 2025
SHARRI MARKSON: Well, joining me now is Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson. James, thank you so much for your time. Look, I want to get to all the other topics, but I just want to get your reaction to that first of all. You know, we see the hostages being paraded around by Hamas terrorists in Gaza every time there's a release, you know, the crowds come out like it's some tourist day out, they are taking photographs. I mean, and what we have here is an innocent family, if these reports are true, a mother and her two beautiful children. Israel has said publicly grave fears for their safety. James, what's your reaction to what we're seeing publicly unfold?
JAMES PATERSON: Sharri, this is yet more evidence of the total moral depravity of Hamas and why they can never be a partner for peace for Israel. As long as Hamas remains intact and as long as they remain in charge of the Gaza Strip and the people who live there, then peace is going to elude that region and all of us. And it highlights exactly why Israel has had to make the very difficult decisions that it has to first prosecute this war against Hamas in Gaza to try and eliminate Hamas and its leadership. And now to engage in the most extraordinary and difficult moral dilemmas in negotiating with a terrorist organisation to free the remaining hostages who may still be alive. It's remarkable any of them are alive, given the conditions that they've endured now for over a year. And it is tragic but unsurprising that babies who are kidnapped by Hamas on the 7th of October have not been able to survive that ordeal, if indeed these reports are correct.
MARKSON: Yeah, it's just terrible. I can't imagine what a nine-month-old baby and his four-year-old brother 's life were like in those dark tunnels. It's absolutely disgusting. And I can't believe we haven't heard more of a global outcry over this. That silence is unforgivable from all of those international organisations that claim to be humanitarian. James, just back to Benjamin Netanyahu. We're hearing reports that he is expected to meet with Donald Trump early next week. He could, in fact, be the first foreign leader to
meet with Trump since his inauguration after overturning the ban on weapons that was imposed by Joe Biden; this meeting is yet another strong signal that under the Trump administration, Israel will have a firm friend in America.
PATERSON: You're right, Sharri. It would be an enormously significant development if President Trump does make his first leader post his inauguration to meet with, Benjamin Netanyahu. It will be yet another signal from the Trump administration about how strongly they support the state of Israel and how they will back them in their fight against terrorists and those who sponsor those terrorists, including the Islamic Republic of Iran. And it will demonstrate, if you look across the nominations that the Trump administration has made in the national security space, they may disagree on some issues, but the one thing they are united on is Israel. And I do worry about relations between Australia and the United States, given that the Albanese government, and particularly under Foreign Minister Penny Wong, wasn't even able to line up with the Biden administration on questions of Middle East policy and foreign policy. How on earth are they going to line up with the Trump administration and what consequences will that have for our bilateral relationship with our most important ally?
MARKSON: Exactly. I mean, the Australia-U.S. relationship would be much better served when there are like-minded leaders, and that would happen under Peter Dutton. Now you just watched my report on the police handling of the antisemitism crisis in New South Wales, different to Victoria. The Assistant Commissioner, Mark Walton, defended the fact that no one has been arrested for hate speech, including none of the hate preachers. Now James, we just marked Holocaust Remembrance Day and isn't the lesson that the Holocaust didn't start with gas chambers? It started with racism, with words, with exclusion of Jews. So do you think there needs to be a different approach from law enforcement?
PATERSON: Sharri, there very clearly does need to be a different approach from law enforcement at the state and federal level. I give New South Wales Police credit for some things. It is clear that they are now starting to put significant resources behind Operation Pearl. It's clear that they are now starting to make some arrests. And it is clear that they now realise that their initial response after the Sydney Opera House and other incidents was inadequate. And frankly, I give them some credit for that because when I put similar questions to the Federal Police that you put to New South Wales police, they were unwilling to concede any errors at all, let alone Victoria Police, who have dismally failed in achieving any arrests. But really, the burden rests not with the police, who do the best they can within the laws that they have. The burden rests with political leaders. It is up to us to make our laws appropriate to capture this conduct, and it's up to us to make our expectations clear to police about what should and should not be a priority and where resources should be put. And it is very clear, particularly at the federal level, but also at the state level, that political leadership has been totally absent for the last 15 months. And from our Prime Minister down, weakness and equivocation have been the order of the day rather than strength and moral clarity. And that is why we're in the mess that we're in today.
MARKSON: 100% and if police are saying, as they appear to be saying in the interview I did, that they need stronger laws to make arrests, to have convictions stick, then the politicians have to give that to them. Now, James, Sarah Schwartz, this is the woman at the centre of that awful, highly offensive Dutton's Jew rant at QUT. Well, she's today had an article published in the Guardian where she writes nonsense that the Coalition has- I don't even want to read out to you what she's said because it's just more of her nonsense. But James, my question to you is firstly, how can the Guardian publish more rubbish from someone who has broadcast already such highly offensive material about Jews and who clearly doesn't represent the vast majority of the Jewish population?
PATERSON: Well, Sharri, if we outlawed news publications publishing bad Op-Eds, there'd be more than just the Guardian going out of business in Australia, I'm afraid. But when it comes to combating antisemitism, Sarah Schwartz and the Jewish Council of Australia are the last people that the Coalition will be going to for public policy advice. Because Sarah Schwartz thought it was appropriate in the middle of an anti-Semitic terror crisis when cars and homes and shops and synagogues were being firebombed to stand up in front of an audience and mock her fellow Jews because of their political beliefs or supposed political beliefs. You're right, this is an unrepresentative, self-appointed organisation. Even many progressive Jews have told me that they don't feel represented by the Jewish Council of Australia or Sarah Schwartz. And so the Coalition will be relying on the mainstream representative Jewish community organisations who have the authority and the mandate to speak for their community and have done so for decades rather than these self-appointed leaders. I think the ABC does need to reflect on why they have given the Jewish Council of Australia and Sarah Schwartz such a platform over the last few months when, as you say, it's very difficult to find anyone who believes that they actually represent the Jewish community in Australia.
MARKSON: 100%, James Paterson, You are always spot on. Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
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