Subjects: Middle East tensions and the ramifications around Australia; Labor’s inaction on public safety and anti-Semitism allows Hezbollah hate symbols onto the streets of Melbourne and Sydney; the Prime Minister’s weak leadership.
E&OE.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well, a conflict in the Middle East is escalating both home and away. Overnight, hundreds gathering in Sydney to mourn one of the world’s most notorious terrorists. This, as the AFP threatens protesters who flew Hezbollah flags during pro-Palestinian rallies with jail time.
For more, we’re joined in the studio by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Pete, good morning to you.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Karl.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Firstly, mosques holding memorial services for the Hezbollah leader – it seems deliberately provocative.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s very much provocative and it’s unnecessary. Every Australian would want somebody with religious belief to be able to practice that belief and go to a mosque, go to a temple, go to a church, whatever it might be; but to go there to glorify somebody who has been responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of deaths, a terrorist leader, a leader of a listed terrorist organisation, is completely unacceptable in our country.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
What do you do about it? I mean, it’s potentially more worrying and potentially more explosive than protests because it does build hate.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Karl, I think you’ve got to go back to October 9 after the October 7 attacks and the protest that took place on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. It was never condemned and it was never properly dealt with by the authorities. I think it’s been allowed to escalate since that point.
So the police and the authorities at Home Affairs should be in deep discussions with the Imams and with other leaders within the community to make sure that they dial the temperature down here, because this is going to end in tragedy if we don’t see an enforcement of the law and people respecting our values and our laws in this country.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Okay. The AFP wasn’t sure there was anything or enough to investigate yesterday morning, right? The state authorities didn’t act at the time, but now they are. If law enforcement officers don’t have a clear idea on what to do in heated moments, or in moments of protest, then that only adds to the anxiety and tension.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it does, but it starts at the top though, Karl, and you’ve got the Prime Minister out yesterday, not condemning, not calling out Hezbollah, just saying, ‘oh, they’re worrying signs’.
Well, this is a huge moment for our country and the Prime Minister needs to give definite direction and an understanding to the authorities, the Police Commissioner, the Home Affairs authorities, ASIO, etc., that this type of protest, this glorification of a terrorist leader, has no place in our country whatsoever.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Given the confusion from frontline cops, do you have any concerns about any of this going to the courts at any level?
PETER DUTTON:
Well again, I believe that there are provisions within the existing law. If there’s not, the Prime Minister should recall Parliament and deal with whatever deficiency there is in the law. But we haven’t seen people arrested as we would have expected on university campuses, or on the steps of the Opera House and this level of anti-Semitism that’s built up in our country, I think is deeply worrying. We’ve got armed guards now at Jewish schools and people in the Jewish community particularly concerned about their own safety.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
The Prime Minister’s not going to do that, though, right?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, why Karl? I mean, why not show the strength of leadership that our nation requires? This is a very significant point for us. I don’t believe any of his predecessors, not Julia Gillard, not John Howard, not Bob Hawke would have acted with such weakness, and it permeates down.
The police aren’t there just to keep the peace, they’re there to enforce the law and to send a very clear message to people that we aren’t going to allow this sort of escalation and the glorification of a man who is a leader of a terrorist organisation. It’d be like people out there glorifying Adolf Hitler, or glorifying Osama bin Laden – it’s completely unacceptable.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
There are fears that we could see a ground invasion in Lebanon over the next few hours. It is escalating to that point and there are grave concerns for the Australians who are there – some 15,000. For the last week, or so, we’ve been talking about what we do to get Australians who want to get out. That’s getting harder and harder by the day. There’s almost a million people on the move now.
PETER DUTTON:
Well it is and to the Government’s credit, they’ve been issuing those notices, those warnings for people to get out, anticipating what has happened. I sought a briefing a couple of months ago from the Government to get an understanding of what plans they had in place to evacuate people in extremis. They’ve given us those assurances that the plans are existing because we need to make sure that we’re providing support obviously to Australian citizens, but we also need to make sure that people who we’re bringing out at the 11th hour in difficult circumstances, where bombs are dropping, that we’re not compromising on security checks of people that we’re bringing back to Australia as well.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
That’s a delicate balance, isn’t it…
PETER DUTTON:
It is.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
…With the humanitarian aspect?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it is, but we need to get it right because we’re able to do it in Kabul and we’re able to do it where we staged people in Al Minhad in the Middle East. I wanted to make sure that the Government had some of those plans in place.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Okay. You’ve been pretty vocal in your criticism of Penny Wong. There are many inside the Muslim community, including some of their leaders, who say Israel hasn’t been criticised enough due to the attacks on Lebanon itself. What do you propose to do with sections of the community who are vocal in that way?
PETER DUTTON:
Well again, Karl, if people have signed up to be an Australian citizen, or if they’re here on a tourist visa – the Government’s brought people in from this region on tourist visas, as we know, in the thousands – if people aren’t abiding by our laws, or they aren’t adhering to the values that they’ve signed up to, then there should be consequences for that.
I know Tony Burke talks about the prospect of ‘maybe we’ll cancel visas’. No, we have to be very definite about this. If people are acting outside of Australian law, if they’re acting in a way that’s inconsistent with the obligations that they’ve signed up to under their visa, that is to come here and to be peaceful, then their visas should be, must be cancelled.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Ahead of Monday, which is a significant day, it doesn’t feel like the tensions are being extracted here. It seems like it’s building?
PETER DUTTON:
I think there’s no doubt about that and this is why I think the Prime Minister needs to show the leadership that our country requires at the moment. Just being out there saying ‘there are worrying signs’ and trying to please both sides of this argument. He’s got one eye, obviously, very firmly on the domestic politics here, because what’s driving I think the Prime Minister’s weakness at the moment is that he’s really, I think, he’s spooked by the Greens and a lot of the policies, negative gearing and the position in relation to Gaza, etc., is all driven by what is going to stop the fracturing of a Labor vote going to the Greens Party. That’s not putting our national interest ahead of his own political interests.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Peter Dutton, thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Karl.
[ends]