Subjects: Beef2024; Assistant Minister Kearney and Minister Clare’s offensive ‘River to the Sea’ frolics; Labor’s immigration detention shambles and border security failures; the provocative and dangerous interaction of the People’s Liberation Army – Air Force with a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) MH-60R helicopter in the Yellow Sea; the Prime Minister’s lack of leadership on national security; the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia; women’s safety.
E&OE.
RAY HADLEY:
We speak every Thursday to the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton. He’s in rural Queensland, on the way back from Rockhampton at the moment. Whereabouts are you, Mr Dutton?
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning, Mr Hadley. I’m in Childers, actually, at the moment. We’re just driving back from Beef2024 in Rockhampton, and yeah, it’s a great little town, Childers.
RAY HADLEY:
Look, just before I get to the main thrust of today’s discussion, and that’ll be about illegal detainees and what they do when they’re released by this Government. We’ve been talking all week and last week about ‘River to the Sea’ and ‘intifada’ and university students and some professors and other people coaching little kids to say all this. As we all know, it’s about removal of the Israeli people from Israel – the Jewish people. ‘River to the Sea’ is the Jordan back to the Mediterranean, and there was a chant that was initiated by Hamas to get rid of them all.
Finally, the Prime Minister’s woken to the fact that it is offensive, it is dangerous and should be stopped. However, this morning it’s been pointed out to me that the Assistant Health Minister, Ged Kearney, she thinks the ‘River to the Sea’ and the word ‘intifada’ could mean living in harmony. I suggest that Ged may be living on another planet?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I just don’t understand, Ray, how somebody like Ged Kearney or Jason Clare, who would have a clear understanding of history, how they distinguish a comment like ‘River to the Sea’ from what Hitler chanted in the 1930s. This is about elimination, annihilation, extermination of the race of people of the Jewish faith – it’s as simple as that.
As you point out, Israel’s in between the River and the Sea, and the idea is that you drive people off the land into the ocean, so that they drown and they’re exterminated. I don’t know what other interpretation there is. If they’re trying to make some sort of headroom for another interpretation that would be against what we know in the Western world for that dreadful chant to be, and I don’t know, I mean, are they doing it for political reasons? Are they willing to sacrifice the safety of the Jewish community and to try and encourage some of these lunatics that we’re seeing at university campuses at the moment? Are they worried about preselections within the Labor Party because they’ve got a high Muslim vote within some of those branches? I mean, what on earth is going on in the modern Labor Party? Bob Hawke would be turning in his grave.
RAY HADLEY:
Over the last week we’ve learnt a lot more about the released immigration detainee that allegedly bashed the Perth grandmother. We now know he trafficked significant quantities of the drug ice, we now know this morning he was kicked out of his government-supplied accommodation, we now know that the Prime Minister – and this is a problem for the Prime Minister – you’ll remember in opposition he kept getting things wrong when he wasn’t reading from the cheat sheet, from prepared notes. He tried to deflect the blame for this bloke not having an ankle monitor to the Community Protection Board, but then the Home Affairs Minister corrected him and said, ‘no, no, no, it’s not them, they’re not independent from us, we actually take advice and we make the decision’. And he keeps making blues about this. He’s not informed. He doesn’t know what role the Immigration Minister, if any, Andrew Giles is playing. What role, if any, Clare O’Neil is playing. And he’s blaming people who have nothing to do with the decision.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, again, I just don’t understand the Prime Minister’s judgement on this. I think Australians, at the moment, are worried about what they’re seeing in the community with these dreadful knife attacks, people are worried about youth crime in different parts of the country, people are worried about the threat posed by 151 criminals who have been unnecessarily released by the Albanese Government, as it turns out. The High Court didn’t direct 151 people to be released into the community, yet the Prime Minister continues to repeat that. I don’t think the Prime Minister is a bad person, I just think he’s hapless and increasingly hopeless.
Honestly, I can’t understand how the Prime Minister can sort of just – I don’t want to say he’s lying, but how can he sit there and tell somebody something he knows not to be true? He knows that the Board that makes these decisions is made up, for example, of, or certainly includes, people from the Home Affairs Department – senior public servants. The Prime Minister is in charge of every public servant in our country. The Minister has the ability to give direction and to make the public servants understand the will of the Government. I don’t know, it’s a dangerous period because these people will go on to commit more crimes. You’re talking about seven murderers and 37 sex offenders and over 70 people who have committed serious crimes. The Government’s ramping down the number of visa cancellations, so that means these criminals are staying here for longer, and we’ll end up with more Australian citizen victims, and the first job of the Prime Minister is to keep our country and our people safe, and the Prime Minister is failing that. He tries to create this narrative, which we know is not true, it’s not sustainable, so why would he say it?
RAY HADLEY:
Now, speaking of the High Court, they’ll make another decision on ASF17, which could have even wider ramifications for more detainees to be released. That is out tomorrow from the High Court, and I guess as was the case with the previous High Court decision, what has Clare O’Neil, Andrew Giles, or Anthony Albanese put in place in case it goes one way as opposed to the other?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, it’s a very good question, and as we sort of demonstrated all along, we’ll support tightening of laws. In fact, we proposed tightening up the Government’s weak laws to start with. They were dragged kicking and screaming, and we’ve put forward some sensible suggestions. So, let’s see what the Court says. On the legal advice that I’ve seen, I think the Government will win this case, and let’s hope that’s the case. If they don’t, as you say, it would be completely reckless if they haven’t provided options and got in place contingency plans. That’s exactly what we did in government. As Home Affairs Minister, you’re dealing with these court cases all the time. You need to have in place an operation ready to roll if you’ve got a likely outcome or the prospects of failure in one of these cases in the Federal Court or the High Court.
RAY HADLEY:
Last weekend there was another close call between China and our military personnel. A Chinese warplane fired flares that narrowly missed one of our Navy choppers. The Prime Minister’s reaction is probably as weak as a wet lettuce leaf. He called them, at worst, ‘unprofessional’, and now Andrew Clennell on Sky News yesterday reported that his information was that no one in government had spoken to their counterparts – the Defence Minister, the Prime Minister, or anyone else – it was left to the Navy to talk to their counterparts, or our Army Chiefs to talk to their counterparts in China, and no intervention politically.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, you and I have discussed, over the years, many national security and Defence matters. I always believe that wherever possible, there should be unity between the Government and the Opposition. But on this issue, I just think the Prime Minister has let down the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, and, therefore, the Australian public.
It comes off the back of what we saw as a very reckless act by the Chinese, only a few months ago, where the Navy divers came close to death through the sonar attacks that were conducted by the Chinese. Now, the Chinese came up with a story about, you know, it wasn’t them. It must have been another ship in the region’ and all of this propaganda. They’ve done the same in relation to this.
The fact is that our helicopter was in international waters, which they now acknowledge. They’ve changed their story. It was a reckless act, and it was a dangerous act. The Prime Minister initially said, ‘well, you know, we’re just not to say anything’. Then his position was, ‘well, we’re going to raise this at every level of engagement’, but, as you point out, and Andrew Clennell has noted, that hasn’t happened. Then the Prime Minister changed his position in Perth yesterday to say he was going to raise it with President Xi, after we called for him to do that. Now his position is that he’s going to raise it with President Xi, but not until later in the year.
The great risk, here, is that we end up with a catastrophic incident where there’s a miscalculation by the Chinese jet pilot or the PLA-Navy. They’re bumping into Japanese and Philippines vessels all the time in the South China and East China Sea. If there is a miscalculation and the helicopter goes into the water or those sailors or Navy divers end up with a crippling effect because of the actions of the Chinese, or somebody dies, then I just think there will be outrage – and rightly so.
I think that we have to stand up for the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, and the Prime Minister should be on the phone today to the Chinese President to say this is completely and utterly unacceptable and we won’t tolerate it. You can’t treat our soldiers and sailors and airmen and women like this.
RAY HADLEY:
Now, going back to the Palestinian problem, and we’ve spoken about the chants of the ‘River to Sea’, ‘intifada’ and the like. But now it becomes a little more serious, if it can be – violence. We’ve had a protester urinate in the office of a Jewish lecturer at the University of Queensland. We’ve had two security guards assaulted at the same university. Then we’ve got the radical activists infiltrating these campuses and spewing more vile anti-Semitism. And again, the university Vice Chancellors seem incapable, along with Jason Clare, of condemning it or doing too much about it.
PETER DUTTON:
We’re seeing the scenes in the United States as well, and at least there, many of the state Governors and, frankly, even President Biden has got the strength of leadership to clamp down and say that ‘enough is enough’. I think a lot of these protesters have been taken over, obviously, by very hardcore radicals. The Prime Minister needs to do the same here. He needs to pick the phone up to the Premiers to say, ‘we’re going to work with you to stamp this out. We have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism’.
As we’re seeing on the campuses that the anti-Semitic conduct is escalating. We’ve got armed guards outside Jewish schools, they’re worried about attacks, and somehow the Vice Chancellors and the Chancellors at universities can facilitate this sort of protest behaviour – which is not free speech, it’s hate speech. Again, I can’t imagine another segment of society that would be treated like this and that there would be tolerance for it. The treatment of a segment of our population simply because of their religion or because of their heritage – it’s a disgrace – and it needs to come to a stop immediately. The police do need to go on to these campuses to stop what is blatantly anti-Semitic conduct. It is going to escalate and I worry very much that we’re going to see students or academics injured or assaulted.
RAY HADLEY:
Just one final thing – put on your old police officer’s cap for a moment – domestic violence. Now, you and I have spoken about the weak judiciary in relation to, mainly in our discussions over the years, paedophilia and child sexual assaults. There’s a new avenue of the judiciary failing the public, and it’s domestic violence. Again, I documented cases today with another woman allegedly stabbed by a former partner in Sydney yesterday, who’s now in custody. We’ve had a murder of Molly Ticehurst, we’ve had women over the years subjected to the most vile behaviour by partners, either on an intensive corrections order or on bail for offences against the same women. Now, we can wear white ribbons, as I constantly say. We can chant from the rooftops, ‘stop it!’, but until the judiciary starts slotting these people, it’ll continue to happen. No one’s going to argue that point, I don’t think, except the Premiers who have the power to do something about it.
PETER DUTTON:
The Premiers do have the power to do something about it, and if the bail laws are inadequate or the sentencing options aren’t there for the courts, then the Parliament can change that. The Premiers can introduce that bill tomorrow. That’s what should happen.
The bail experiment, the social experiment that we’ve seen in relation to youth crime, we’re seeing it, with equally tragic consequences in the domestic violence space. Because, as we know, the presumption of bail is in favour of the accused in many of these cases. We’ve seen cases where kids have been released back out onto the street, or young adults, and people have been murdered. Assaults and knife attacks have taken place, in circumstances where they shouldn’t, because that person should still have been in custody.
Similarly, in relation to these matters, Ray, I think it’s worth having a deep look at – Royal Commission, if it’s required – at each of these cases to understand how on earth it could be tolerated for these people to be out on the street when the violence was obvious, when the threat was immediate. It’s heartbreaking to see these circumstances, but I hope the Premiers can start to enforce the laws and demand of the courts that they reflect community attitude.
RAY HADLEY:
We’ll talk next week. Thanks, as always, for your time.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you, Ray. See you, mate.
[ends]