THE HON PETER DUTTON MP
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR DICKSON
TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID PENBERTHY AND WILL GOODINGS,
BREAKFAST, RADIO FIVEaa
1 May 2024
Subjects: Visit to Adelaide; Liberal Party candidates for Boothby, Adelaide and Makin: Nicolle Flint, Amy Grantham and Irena Zagladov; Labor’s immigration detention shambles; women’s safety.
E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………
HOST:
It’s 10 minutes to eight. If you’re on the Foodland’s Facebook and YouTube live stream you can watch live with the Leader of the Liberal Party in Australia, Peter Dutton, in the FIVEaa Breakfast studio with us.
Leader, good morning to you.
PETER DUTTON:
‘Morning, gents.
HOST:
It’s some local political news that you’ve come to announce today?
PETER DUTTON:
Yeah look, we’ve got some great news and it’s in the Advertiser today, but we’ve got three fantastic candidates who have been preselected for us. We obviously want to get more women into the Parliament. Nicolle Flint has been pre-selected for Boothby, and obviously was a very effective local member. She left under difficult circumstances because the harassment and the bullying that was taking place – I don’t think it was fair on anyone, and I think she felt that acutely – but I think she’s now determined to come back in, to make a big difference again, to stare down all of that. I think we need a local, effective member. She’s a great contributor to the Liberal Party, and I think she’ll be a fantastic local member again for us.
We also selected two other women: Irena Zagladov, who is, again, a fighter for the local community. She has a great track record fighting for different causes, I think stands up for values that people can relate to in the local community, and I think will be a big contributor to the public debate.
Amy Grantham as well. I think Amy, again, is known to the local community here in Adelaide, but our members have spoken pretty conclusively. They want strong, effective local members based on merit. They want women who can come into the Parliament and make a significant difference.
I think we should be very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve, and about 12 months away from the federal election, I think it demonstrates to people that we are taking very seriously our efforts to get back in the game in Adelaide and win more seats back.
HOST:
Peter Dutton, how important is Boothby for the Liberals in terms of a path back to government? I mean obviously, Makin and Adelaide are very safe Labor seats, but Boothby is still relatively marginal. Is that now on you must win list?
PETER DUTTON:
It’s on the must win list. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is, we need broader Liberal representation at a federal level here in Adelaide. I think that’s important for the contribution being made in the Federal Parliament. I don’t think most people could tell you who some of the local Labor members are. I think they take the local community for granted, and I think they’re frankly, swinging off the coattails of Premier Malinauskas. In the end you need good, effective members, and Nicolle’s demonstrated that she has that capacity, and I think she’ll again work very hard for the local community.
HOST:
Peter Dutton, we had just a staggering number of texts yesterday about the shocking violence that was visited upon poor Ninette Simmons in Western Australia. Overwhelmingly, the questions that our listeners have about it were, ‘did these people absolutely have to be let out of detention?’, and now that they have been let out of detention, ‘what more can be done to keep the community safe?’, or indeed, ‘is this still, and would a Dutton Government consider just saying, well, ‘the High Court can say what it likes, we actually think these people – regardless of the confusion around their citizenship – should actually be in detention, full stop.’?’
PETER DUTTON:
Well Penbo, just strip it back to the facts, and there’s a lot of spin that the PM’s put out about this, but the fact is that every Migration Minister gets tested in the High Court. As Migration Minister, as was the case for Ministers in the Rudd and Gillard period, and in the Liberal Government since then, every Minister is heavily litigated. It’s just, it’s that sort of portfolio. So, people take actions to court, they review decisions made by the Minister, or by the delegates in the immigration department about visa outcomes and cancellations on a daily basis. The Migration Minister is the most litigated Minister in the Commonwealth. So that’s the first point. You’re tested on these matters all the time.
You can make a decision as a Minister to contest a matter, or to go soft on a matter, and Minister Giles took a decision in relation to this particular case, not to offer up the evidence that the High Court was seeking, to say, ‘are you still trying to find an outcome for this individual, or is it a case of indefinite detention that there are no options available?’. Again, I dealt with these matters all the time where we were able to say, hand on heart, ‘we’re negotiating with third countries for the settlement of this person, and therefore, they’re not indefinitely detained’. Once the Minister gave up that position, the High Court did find in that case that the person had to be released. The Government then…
HOST:
Because there was nowhere else for them to go.
PETER DUTTON:
That’s right. But again, I think Minister Giles was happy with that outcome, because remember, he was a former migration lawyer right back to the Howard years. I mean he’s fought against border protection, Operation Sovereign Borders in the courts for a long time. So philosophically, he’s like Anthony Albanese on the left of the Labor Party, they don’t believe in our border protection policies, that’s the reality.
I think he was happy to say, ‘look, good stuff. The High Court’s found I need to release this person. I’ve just got to comply with the High Court’. They then extrapolated that out to 150 other cases the High Court made no mention of. The Minister decided, ‘well, I think there are some similar facts and therefore we should release these other 150 into the community’. But you’re talking about seven murderers, 37 people who have committed sexual offences, 72 violent offenders, and again, it was on the front page, splashed on the front page of the Tiser a few months ago when this happened. These are serious criminals, and they’re non-citizens. They should be on a plane back to their country of origin. Instead, they’re out committing more crimes against Australian citizens, and I think the PM’s got a huge problem of his own making.
HOST:
So, do you reject the assertion that there’s no where for these people to go?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, I do, because there are arrangements that can be made all the time. Australia has arrangements with other countries for witness protection programmes, as we do for witnesses here that might need to be moved offshore. There’s leverage that we have in relationships otherwise that can lead to a country saying, ‘Okay. Well, we’ll take five people or two people’, and in some cases, you need to try harder with the source country where the persons come from and there needs to be a resolve. In the end, if the Minister is happy for the court to release these people – which is the case in this circumstance – then unfortunately the social experiment goes wrong.
This is exactly what Labor’s done at a state level and why we’ve got a law and order crisis in many of the states across the country. They want to believe that they’re bigger hearted, and Labor’s fairer, and we’ll just let these kids continue to run rampant, let these criminals out and they’ll do the right thing and they won’t offend against people. Well, as this woman sadly has found out, tragically, in Western Australia, that’s just not the reality.
HOST:
It would appear to me there were two opportunities, instances to intervene, to keep Australians safe in this case. One was in the direct – well, there’s probably another before this all unfolded, but after the High Court made the decision, there’s the immediate aftermath. Now there’s been this process and period of monitoring – ankle bracelets, and so much and so forth. How satisfied have you been with the manner in which these people have been watched, monitored, to keep Australian safe? Because that’s where we’re at now, the High Court [inaudible], we’re some way removed from that.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Will, I just think it’s a giant con by the PM, if I’m being honest. I mean the ankle bracelets, in many cases, unless they’re monitored in real time and GPS tracked – which they’re not – then all it does is lead you to the scene of the crime, and it’s too late then.
The Minister gave the Parliament an assurance that these people were being tracked 24/7 and that they were being surveilled, which we knew wasn’t true at the time, but that was part of the spin that the Government put out there. How can they be committing offences, on multiple occasions in some of these instances, if they’re being properly monitored and surveilled?
In the case of this individual, the allegation is that the Commonwealth didn’t object to bail, and the judge at the time made a comment, as is reported today in The Australian, to say that she thought it was very generous of the Commonwealth, and had the Commonwealth opposed bail, she wouldn’t have granted bail in the circumstances and what she knew about that individual. I think that is an outrage, to be honest. Had that bloke been kept in custody, would this woman have been assaulted, this elderly lady been assaulted in the terrible way that she has? Most likely not, and I think that tells you a lot.
HOST:
Just finally, Mr Dutton, we’re up against it for time, but just quickly – I know the Opposition obviously won’t be at it today, but the big National Cabinet meeting about domestic violence. What would the Opposition want to see come out of that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well mate, we’ll support the PM and the Premiers in any sensible moves that they’re going to make. It’s a national tragedy. Nobody wants to see any violence of any description, but particularly against women and in a domestic setting where people should feel safe.
It’s been a long time since I was a police officer, but I can tell you, if I close my eyes I can still see the images of some of the scenes I went to – of bloody scenes, kids screaming, grabbing onto legs of their mother, or their father; women refusing to leave a household because they financially just can’t afford to, in circumstances where drugs are involved, and alcohol and, you know, there are so many elements to it. Some of the programmes, I think, are working quite effectively, others are not, and we need to fund more the ones that are working, the interventions that are provided, and again, we’ll support the Government in any sensible move they’ve got.
HOST:
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, thanks for joining us and enjoy your day here in Adelaide.
PETER DUTTON:
Pleasure. Thank you.
[ends]