September 18, 2024
CHRIS KENNY: Let's now go on to the Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson, also joins us from the nation's capital. Let's start on immigration with you, James, given we're just talking about it with Pauline and stunning revelations earlier this week that surprise, surprise, most of the people who have come into this country from Gaza, the Palestinians who have been given special quick visas, tourist visas, to come into Australia, it seems like most of them are claiming asylum here.
JAMES PATERSON: That's right, Chris. Of the 1300 or so Palestinian document holders who have entered Australia since the 7th of October, about 900 of them have now applied for refugee status. As you say, these are people who first entered our country on tourist visas and a condition of being granted a tourist visa is you only intend to visit temporarily, and you intend to return home to your place of origin after the end of your stay. Clearly, none of these people ever had the intention of only visiting Australia temporarily. As the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke himself has admitted, none of these people are going back. And it just highlights why they should never have been given tourist visas in the first place. If they are genuine refugees and asylum seekers, they should have been assessed for that visa and carefully checked on security grounds before they were given visas and before they were brought into our country. But under the Albanese government we've had a rushed and risky process, and I fear that the national security of our country is at stake as a result.
KENNY: And just on the Middle East, this astonishing attack by Israel against Hezbollah operatives. Thousands of them. What do you expect the repercussions to be?
PATERSON: I have no doubt that Hezbollah will want to strike back and Iran may wish to as well. But a pretty devastating blow has been brought to Hezbollah's feet, probably by Israel, although they're not confirming it. Because Hezbollah had already abandoned using mobile phones to communicate because Israel had been targeting them on that basis. That's why they were using pagers. Now that their pager communication system has been taken out they will not have any confidence in any form of communication between each other and their ability to respond to Israel will be seriously impacted by those lack of communications. And the fact it appears that hundreds, if not thousands of their operatives have been injured and some were killed in this attack. So it is a pretty devastating blow for Hezbollah. It doesn't mean they're defeated. I'm sure they'll seek to strike back and they'll have people in the field already who'll be able to do so. But it is a very sophisticated and devastating attack.
KENNY: And just in Australia, the ongoing problem of non-citizens, criminal non-citizens in our community. You've been on this for many, many months, but there's a new development in that when it comes to Direction 63. Tell us about Direction 63 and why scrapping it is going to endanger Australians.
PATERSON: This was an astonishing and almost accidental revelation, Chris. Ten years ago, when Scott Morrison was Immigration minister, he issued Ministerial Direction 63. And in simple terms, what it required the Department of Home Affairs and ultimately the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to do, which is to cancel the visa of anyone on a bridging visa if they commit a crime while they're in Australia. It was a process put in place to protect the Australian community. But what we've discovered is that in January the Albanese government secretly overturned direction 63. They removed it altogether in a secret direction that was never publicised. There was no media release, there was no press conference. They didn't even put a note on the home affairs website. And the question is why on earth would you repeal a direction that required decision makers to cancel visas of people who committed crimes in our country? The effect of doing so now makes it easier for criminal non-citizens to stay in our country and to stay out of immigration detention, even when they're facing very serious charges. So Tony Burke needs to come clean. Why was this cancelled? Why was it repealed? What was the motivation? And why on earth would you think that this was a good idea at a time of heightened social cohesion tensions and diminished community safety?
KENNY: On the face of it, just an extraordinary decision and such a bad decision. And you're right. We need to find out why and no doubt, you'll keep pursuing it as we will. Thanks for joining us, James. I appreciate it.
ENDS
