TRANSCRIPT - ABC NEWS RADIO WITH THOMAS ORITI - THURSDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2023
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS RADIO WITH THOMAS ORITI
THURSDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2023
Subjects: New visa legislation to be introduced to Parliament, Peter Dutton’s politicisation and weaponisation of bigotry.
THOMAS ORITI, HOST: First, this half hour with political arguing intensifying, as you might have just heard in the opener over the High Court's ruling that more than 80 people must be released from immigration detention, the Federal Government will this morning introduce a bill to Parliament trying to get on top of the situation. Those 80 odd immigrants have been described by the Opposition as hardened criminals, but there's been no clarification as to how many of them have committed a crime. Joining us now to discuss the legislation is the Leader of the House, Minister for Industrial Relations as well, of course, Tony Burke. Minister, good morning. Thanks for your time.
TONY BURKE, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS, MINISTER FOR THE ARTS, LEADER OF THE HOUSE: Good morning, Thomas.
ORITI: A lot of ground to cover here, but let's just cut to the chase. First of all, what is in this legislation the Government will be introducing today? What exactly will it allow the Government to do?
BURKE: The legislation today will allow new visa conditions for what's now 84 people, none of whom we wanted to release. But where the High Court decision has ordered that to take place, the new visa conditions will allow for things that up until now we're not allowed to do. It'll be things like electronic monitoring, ankle bracelets, to impose a curfew, to be able to have control over where these individuals live, where they work, who they associate with. And importantly, if any of those visa conditions are breached instead of what law would currently say, which is the penalty, is the cancellation of the visa, it would carry criminal penalties for those conditions to be breached. That will allow us to put much tougher restrictions on these individuals than the laws that we inherited allowed, and the situation when the High Court decision came down.
ORITI: Okay. So, important to note, though, it will not allow the Government to keep some of these people in detention. It's about monitoring, controlling their movements when they're out in the community.
BURKE: You can't out-legislate the High Court. We have a High Court decision where the decision has been made. The reasons haven't been given. The reasons will be given. The Court does this from time to time, but obviously that creates a challenge in the legislative response. What we're doing very specifically is to allow additional restrictions that otherwise would not be there on these visas, and importantly, the penalty, if breached, is a criminal penalty rather than simple cancellation of the visa.
ORITI: That's interesting, though, just to pick up on something there. Is there a possibility then, because as you just pointed out, rightfully we don't have the reasons for the High Court there. When we do get that, is there a possibility there might be further legislation at the time?
BURKE: Absolutely.
ORITI: Okay.
BURKE: We don’t rule that out at all. But the thing with today's legislation is without the decision, we're going to the limits of making sure we do everything we can to deliver on public safety. For that reason, we're wanting to see that legislation go quickly through both Houses today.
ORITI: Right. Can I just ask you, speaking of what's going on in the Houses at the moment, a lot of talk and some tough talk – a very heated Question Time yesterday about these people. One phrase used yesterday by the Opposition, hardcore criminals. I'll talk about the political rhetoric in a moment, but just taking that away from a minute, can you just clarify how many of these 80 are actually convicted criminals? Can you just give us some clarity on that?
BURKE: You'd have to go to Clare O’Neil or Andrew Giles on that. Suffice to say, within this group, well, for the entire group, the whole of the group, are people where we argued that they should remain in detention, we argued for all of them to be detained without exception. That was the position that the Commonwealth, that the Labor Government took to the High Court. The High Court made a different decision, and so we are putting the maximum restrictions with criminal penalties attached in ways that are not legal yesterday. This law goes through both Houses today, then those new restrictions will start to be brought in.
ORITI: Are you confident it will?
BURKE: It would be the height of hypocrisy for the Opposition to do anything at all to delay this. We're not seeking to have this delayed, amended. We will be putting it to the House. We want it to go through the House quickly. It'll then go to the Senate. It would be extraordinary and beyond belief, I have to say, for the Opposition to do anything that in any way would effectively block this legislation.
ORITI: The Opposition has made the point, though, that, and sure, it might support it now, but it might also say this was rushed. Why wasn't there legislation prepared for that eventuality that this High Court decision was made? It was always going to be a binary proposition. Didn't go in the Government's way. Is it being rushed now? Why wasn't something prepared ready to go?
BURKE: You need to work on the basis that we had a decision that came down with immediate effect, without reason.
ORITI: But you could have preempted that. What I'm saying is you could have preempted that. I know it came down with immediate effect, but we were expecting that decision to be made. It was going to go one way or another. Why wouldn't legislation have been ready to go rather than quickly formed and rushed through now, in the wake of all this political heat?
BURKE: Work had been commenced prior to the High Court, but you couldn't finalise it until you had a decision, and presuming that you would have a decision with reasons -
ORITI: But you don't have those reasons.
BURKE: We've ended up without a decision with reasons. We've used the maximum power of the law as it was. But that will change today with the passage of this going through both Houses.
ORITI: Okay. Can you give me a sense of what the future legislation could entail though? It sounds like the Government is planning to go even harder on this when you do have those reasons?
BURKE: It’s sort of a hypothetical on a hypothetical. You're talking about what we do with reasons that we don't yet have.
ORITI: Okay, I guess we'll wait and see what happens there. Now, I do want to ask. You mentioned setting aside the rhetoric for a moment, but there were fiery scenes in Parliament yesterday, fairly strong words in a press conference yesterday morning, Peter Dutton saying, you know there are divisions within Labor government and this link to anti-Semitism and that those divisions are allowing anti-Semitism to rise. Also this correlation between what's happened in the High Court and what's happening in the Israel-Gaza conflict, really. What's your response to the language that was used there?
BURKE: Yesterday was one of the darkest moments I've seen in the House in my nearly 20 years here. The way to respond to a High Court decision is what the Government's doing today. That's how you respond to a High Court decision. The way you respond to division in the Australian community is by seeking to unite the community. What we saw yesterday was the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, seeing anti-Semitism, witnessing anti-Semitism and viewing it as a political opportunity to score points.
I found that breathtaking in the level of offence that that caused. He said nothing of Islamophobia. We have all forms of bigotry in Australia at the moment where people, with both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, are experiencing levels of bigotry beyond anything that has been seen prior to October of this year. It is something where the role of leaders is to bring people together and to call out all forms of bigotry.
What Peter Dutton did yesterday was try to score points off the back of anti-Semitism, link it to a High Court decision and then go to whether or not Australia should be represented at the Leaders' Summit at APEC, which every Prime Minister has attended – with the exception of when Julia Gillard's father died – in the history of the Leaders’ Summits.
It was the most low rent attempt to score points off the back of horrific anti-Semitism that people are experiencing. I thought what we saw from the Leader of the Opposition, in Peter Dutton, yesterday was one of the worst performances of his career. And I thought what we saw from the Prime Minister yesterday was just straight-out integrity, bringing the community together and things that needed to be said in response.
ORITI: Is part of your concern – okay, part of it's the correlation between anti-Semitism and the High Court decision. You mentioned the APEC Summit there, whether the Prime Minister should go. Is part of your concern here – you mentioned a moment ago, Islamophobia not mentioned at all. Is part of your concern here, at a time like this, where we start talking about one form of racism, being anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, as perhaps being worse than the other?
BURKE: You need to call out fearlessly all forms of bigotry. This is not a case of competition between communities. If you listen to what's being said at synagogues, you've got rabbis calling out the need to fight against anti-Semitism and to fight against Islamophobia. Since October 7, prayer rooms and mosques around Australia – in their sermons called khutbahs – they have been urging everybody against Islamophobia and against anti-Semitism. The communities both most affected are calling out both forms of bigotry. Political leaders should be able to do the same.
ORITI: Do you feel as though. Sorry to interrupt, but do you feel as though, at a political level, your Government is doing enough to combat both all forms of racism?
BURKE: Absolutely. In the resolution that was carried by the Parliament, in the speech by the Prime Minister yesterday, in speeches by Members of Parliament, whether they have a large Jewish community, whether they have a large Islamic or Palestinian community, Members of Parliament across the board have been calling out both.
This is something very specific about the approach of Peter Dutton yesterday, where he's wanting to be selective in who is a victim and who is not. The multicultural nature of Australia is better than that, and as a country, we should be better than that.
Yesterday we had a resolution in the Parliament that was cheap, that was offensive, and that played to the worst instincts at a time when leadership should be rising above that.
I'm Leader of the House, I'll often be critical of Peter Dutton – people get that. What happened yesterday was of a different order. Anti-Semitism should never be weaponised in that way. Absolutely should never be weaponised. It should simply be called out and opposed, and every member of Parliament should have the courage and just the decency. It doesn't really take much courage to call out every form of bigotry.
At the moment, both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are on the rise in Australia, and we need – as leaders – to be bringing people together and opposing all forms of bigotry.
ORITI: We'll be following those proceedings in Parliament today, closely, of course. Tony Burke, thank you very much for joining us.
BURKE: Thanks, Thomas.
ORITI: Tony Burke, joining us there, Leader of the House.
ENDS