TRANSCRIPT - ABC RADIO NATIONAL INTERVIEW WITH SALLY SARA - TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2025

E&OE Transcript

Tuesday, 11 March 2025

ABC Radio National - Sally Sara interview

SUBJECTS: Caravan explosives investigation, antisemitism in the Australian community, and backlog of citizenship ceremonies.

SALLY SARA: The Australian Jewish community is this morning still processing the revelation that a caravan laden with explosives found in outer Sydney's northwest in January was part of a fake terrorism plot organised by… put together by organised crime figures.

According to anti-terror police it was not planned for any mass casualty attack on Jewish Australians but instead was a con job by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit. The government has used the police findings to call for Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, to apologise to the wider community, for what the government says was recklessly making untrue claims about national security for political gain.

Tony Burke is the Minister for Home Affairs and joins me in the studio this morning, Minister, welcome.

TONY BURKE: Hi, Sally.

SARA: Have you spoken to any Jewish community leaders since these revelations by police late yesterday?

BURKE: Oh, not overnight. Obviously for a number of these attacks, you know, when the Woollahra attack happened, I was out there in the street that night, Dover Heights similarly, so I've been engaging as these different issues have come through with the Jewish community, but not overnight.

SARA: You said yesterday that Peter Dutton, the Opposition Leader, had asserted that it was a large scale planned terrorist attack, and he was one of the people who was conned. The Prime Minister also classified it as a terrorist attack at the time saying it was the very definition of a terrorist attack. Was the Prime Minister conned as well?

BURKE: Well, what we had was the police working through, and this was explained in the police statement yesterday, which was after a reasonably short time, they had started to review it and realise that what they were dealing with was something quite different. At that point we continued to say publicly that Peter Dutton should be briefed, we continued to remind him that he was able to be briefed by the Australian Federal Police. He deliberately chose to not find out. And so what we had was a situation, where quite deliberately, Peter Dutton made a decision to not find out the facts from the Australian Federal Police, to ignore the advice from ASIO in lowering the temperature, simply because it suited his self-promotion ambitions. Now that is the very definition of being reckless with national security, but it's precisely, precisely what he did.

SARA: So, let's walk this back. You're saying that he could have received a briefing. At that time though did the government receive a briefing suggesting that this might not be a genuine terrorist attack?

BURKE: We've continued to be briefed as this has gone along. So as the police view developed, certainly our briefings and our understanding of the situation developed as well.

SARA: But right at the very beginning   

BURKE: And by the time   

SARA: Sorry, Minister.

BURKE: No, no   

SARA: When Peter Dutton was making these remarks initially, had the government been briefed with any suggestion that this may not be a genuine attack?

BURKE: The comments from Peter Dutton that I've been taking exception to are the comments that were made subsequently, not the comments on the day. I mean on the day and right at the start, I don't think anyone has any objection to people drawing the conclusions that they drew. What then happened was, the view of the police, as they made public yesterday, developed, and Peter Dutton continued along this line while the government was saying, "get a briefing"; while the government was reminding him and reminding him publicly that he had not yet taken a briefing. Had he done so, he would have been given the information about the way this had developed and what the police by that stage were investigating and where they thought it was going. Instead, the script that Peter Dutton was running was exactly what organised crime wanted the narrative to be. They may as well have written Peter Dutton's words for him. That is the definition of recklessness, and to simply take a briefing and to listen to the advice that ASIO had given publicly about lowering the temperature would have resulted in very different behaviour and behaviour that did not suit the narrative of organised crime.

SARA: So what you're saying is at the time that Peter Dutton was making these remarks, there were briefings available from Federal Police and others suggesting that there were some questions about this attack and that at the time that Peter Dutton was making these comments the government already knew that there were some concerns about this attack not being genuine; is that correct?

BURKE: That's completely correct.

SARA: That's your view? 

BURKE: Well, I know we were being briefed at that time, I know when Peter Dutton was standing up in the Parliament…one day in the Parliament he made the assertion that we were dealing with a planned mass casualty attack four times in less than an hour. Like he was just off on something that for all the…where the investigation was up to at that point was entirely untrue, and we continued to remind him that he had not yet sought a briefing. If he'd had a briefing maybe he wouldn't have cared, and you know, he's been willing to disregard ASIO advice, maybe he would have been willing to disregard the advice of the Australian Federal Police as well. Maybe he is that determined for self-promotion, I don't know. But certainly what he was saying was not where the investigation was going, and a briefing would have borne that out.

SARA: You've said that the effect of this fake plot was to cause fear in the Jewish community and meant that other communities including the Muslim community had received a level of blame and suspicion that they did not deserve. Who had blamed the Muslim community?

BURKE: I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever, and you know, the Australian Federal Police referred to this in their statement yesterday about communities receiving blame, and there is no doubt that throughout this, and you only have to look at the combination of what was said on radio at the time, what was said on social media, the blaming and the suspicion of the Muslim community throughout those attacks is something that was well and truly part of the public narrative.

SARA: So you're not thinking of any names as to who blamed the Muslim community at that time?

BURKE: Oh, with that, that's not my attack on Peter Dutton.

SARA: I don't mean that, you're saying that they were receiving a level of blame. But there's not any organisation or individuals that you're naming that…   

BURKE: No, no, I'm not there, but I… because of my role with social cohesion and obviously also because of the part of Sydney that I represent, I know exactly the backlash that the community was receiving, and similarly, I know from my engagement with the Jewish community that the fear has been very deeply held. And can I say, the fact that these highly publicised examples of antisemitism have turned out to be organised crime for a completely different motive does not change the fact that bigotry is unacceptable, and antisemitism is still a real strain that needs to be stamped out and is still debilitating in its own way.

SARA: Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson, says that the Prime Minister still has questions to answer over when he first learned about the caravan with explosives inside. Does he?

BURKE: I saw that. It's a straight "look over there" moment, "please don't look at me" from the Liberal Party with that comment.

SARA: But you're saying briefings are important, and the timeline of briefings is important.

BURKE: They are. And as I've said to you already in the interview, we've continued to be briefed as the investigation has developed, and certainly when we were publicly reminding Peter Dutton that he had not received a briefing, it's because there was more information to be able to get. We knew what he was saying was not where the investigation was going, we knew what he was saying was the exact narrative that organised crime were wanting to be out there and in the face of that, the response from Mr Dutton was to just dig in harder. Now that's not how you behave responsibly with national security. There are really issues at stake, there are real consequences if you're not responsible with national security, and if he had to make a choice between self-promotion and national security, I'm pretty disappointed in the path that he chose.

SARA: Where does this leave the discussions about social cohesion? The police are suggesting that this fake terrorism plot involved a number of incidents where lower level alleged criminals were commissioned to carry out acts. Do we need to revise down our understanding the number of genuine antisemitic attacks that have taken place, or when these kind of attacks generate fear anyway, how do you balance all of that?

BURKE: Well, in terms of the impact on the community, the impact on the community and the fear from the community is similar. If there's a chance of graffiti or fire-bombing, or whatever threat there might be coming from, you know, to cause fear coming from organised crime or coming from people who are motivated by antisemitism and hatred, then an individual will receive it the same way. And so there's nothing in this that, you know, you can't say, and I've seen Alex Ryvchin for example, in the media making this point, which is to say it doesn't undo… it will take a bit of processing, but it doesn't undo the fear and the concern that people have.

SARA: Minister, on the recent citizenship ceremonies you presided over, you've said it was about getting through a backlog that had built up, but when the ABC asked your department for evidence of a backlog, they were unable to provide any. Why is that?

BURKE: Well, how could there be more than 12,000 people awaiting a ceremony unless there was a backlog? But the only way they were…  we just had Australia Day when people say that's the big moment to be able to get through a whole lot of citizenships, straight after that, we still had 12,000 people completely entitled to be Australian citizens under Australian law, having gone through all the checks and not being assigned to a ceremony. So, we held extra ceremonies. Can I say, the previous government did the same thing after COVID; after COVID they had big ceremonies too.

SARA: Did the department come to you raising a concern about a backlog, and if so when did that occur? 

BURKE: Oh, I've been tracking with the department how we were going with citizenships for as long as I've had the portfolio.

SARA: Just finally, is Australia going to have an empty pavilion at the Venice Biennale?

BURKE: Those decisions are taken by Creative Australia. I have seen what happens when ministers try to intervene on arm's length decisions by that body. I remember what happened… 

SARA: Didn't you intervene?  

BURKE:  No, of course, I didn't, of course I did not, I've passionately opposed the intervention by ministers ever since George Brandis took half their money away so that he could make personal decisions. The last thing an Arts Minister should be is Australia's arts critic determining funding.

SARA: Minister, we'll need to leave it there. Thank you for your time this morning.