Subjects: Labor’s immigration detention chaos; Christmas.
E&OE.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has demanded an apology from the Prime Minister after Labor Party Members accused him of ‘protecting paedophiles’. A criticism which comes after the Opposition voted against legislation for tougher laws on convicted paedophiles.
Peter Dutton joins us now live from Parliament. Peter, good morning to you. Some week for you, huh?
PETER DUTTON:
‘Morning Karl.
Look mate, I’ve got thick skin, I give as good as I can take, but I think the Labor Party and the Prime Minister crossed the line this week. The fact is it’s a complete opposite of the truth and you can say that’s the rough and tumble of politics, but I really think the wheels are falling off this Government. I think they’re becoming more and more desperate and they lash out like this, and the Prime Minister sent his Ministers out, he didn’t even have the guts to go out and make comments himself.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Have you got an apology yet? Do you expect one?
PETER DUTTON:
I haven’t got an apology yet. I would have thought if he’s man enough he’ll apologise, but I’m not expecting one, so that’s up to him.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
It’s pretty offensive. Will you take legal action?
PETER DUTTON:
I would wait to see whether there’s an apology forthcoming and then make a decision after that, but I think in the end what it is, is a distraction away from what’s been a debacle for this Government. They’ve now made a decision to release people that they didn’t need to release into the community. They’ve released some people without ankle bracelets on, they don’t know where some others are, and there are potentially hundreds of more criminals – because of the poor decision that they made – that will be released into the community. That’s what we’ve been pushing back and fighting against this week.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Why didn’t you just vote for the legislation on Monday? Save yourself all the heartache.
PETER DUTTON:
Because we wanted it to be tougher, and this is a point: we wanted a preventative detention regime in the legislation. The Government’s had months to be able to work this up, and our argument was that the best chance to get these people off the street and back into immigration detention, so that they couldn’t commit more crimes, was to toughen the laws up.
So it wasn’t we didn’t agree with the laws being proposed, it’s that we wanted them to be tougher. That was the legal advice that we got. The Government started to talk, you know, a bit of talk that they would do it and then they backed back and ended up forcing it through the Parliament in its weaker form with the support of the Greens.
Don’t forget the first legislation that I think last week we spoke about, or the week before, when Richard Marles was Acting Prime Minister, where we struck agreement, in the original bill there was no part of that bill which required paedophiles to stay away from schools. We moved that amendment, the Government was opposed to it.
There was a couple of other provisions in there that we got, that these people shouldn’t contact the victims of their crimes, there was about four other provisions that we put in there. So, the Government never had anything in place in relation to ankle bracelets. Their bill was so weak, we ended up amending that when Richard Marles was Acting Prime Minister and we got that through the Parliament, as you recall.
So, there’s so much bluff and bluster going on and Clare O’Neil is just over the top because she’s completely and utterly buggered this up.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
It was further revealed that Liberal Member Dean Smith pleaded with the Government to release a paedophile from immigration detention last year. Did you voice your disagreement with him?
PETER DUTTON:
Oh, I voiced it very strongly, don’t worry.
Look, when I was Immigration Minister I received pleadings from Labor Members, including Tony Burke, in relation to matters where they were advocating for people who had committed murder or people who were hate preachers or others.
Dean Smith’s expressed regret to me. I’ve spoken with him in very strong terms, and fortunately this person didn’t get out. Dean, I think had been influenced by a lot of the church leaders and others, including the father who had pleaded on behalf of their son who had been the offender, but he made a mistake, he’s admitted that, and in relation to that – in fact, I was a decision maker in relation to that case, that person was not released from custody.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Is he fit to be in the Party?
PETER DUTTON:
Of course he is. He’s a very decent person, but he’s made a mistake and importantly, he’s owed up to it, which is not what the Prime Minister’s done this week.
I think this Government is well and truly unravelling and – this important point Karl; as we find out from the High Court reasons, the Minister never needed to concede the point that NZYQ was going to be in detention indefinitely. This whole debacle is likely to unwind Operation Sovereign Borders because they’ve admitted to the people smugglers that they don’t have control of the system.
This is a huge, huge scandal and the Government’s trying to throw all these allegations and nonsense lines out there to cover up what has been a catastrophic mistake by the Albanese Government.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
So, you’re saying today that the High Court decision will ‘cascade’? Have you lost faith in the courts now?
PETER DUTTON:
No, I think again, if you strip it back, what’s happened here is the High Court has looked at this case, the Minister for Immigration erroneously has agreed that NZYQ was being held indefinitely. That wasn’t the case. His case was still under consideration. But by conceding that point, the High Court found rightly that the Government was trying to hold somebody indefinitely and that that person should be released. The Minister then went on to say that the other 141 that they’ve released will only released because the High Court said so, but as we now read in the judgement of the High Court, that was never, ever part of the judgement. So they’ve released 141 criminals when they didn’t need to, and there’s likely another 340 behind them to come out.
That’s why I say it is a catastrophic scandal, and as we called for yesterday, the Minister for Immigration should either be sacked or he should have the decency to resign.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
All right. It’s going to be a long week next week. Did you put that tree up behind you or did you get someone else to do it?
PETER DUTTON:
No, Peita is the tree expert here, and if we could pan around, you’d see her efforts otherwise. So she’s done a fantastic job.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
All the best. Thanks, Pete.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks guys.
[ends]