Subjects: Australian Government support to Australians in Israel-Palestine territories, Australia’s terror threat level, repatriation flights.
LISA MILLAR: Minister, good morning to you.
CLARE O’NEIL: Good morning, Lisa. Great to be with you.
LISA MILLAR: Can we just talk about some of the numbers and the Australians that you are still concerned about. First of all, perhaps the repatriation flights - can you bring us up to speed where we are on those?
CLARE O’NEIL: Thanks, Lisa. We had a flight arrive in Sydney early this morning, 252 people on board, about half of whom were Australian citizens. A flight left Tel Aviv very early this morning with 59 people on board, most of whom were Australians, and there is one more flight that is leaving Tel Aviv - subject to security conditions today. I just want to take a moment today to say I'm at Border Operations Command here in Canberra, where the very hardworking people around me are those who have done the hard yakka, working through nights and weekends to make sure we're able to provide safe travel for people back into the country. A lot of your viewers probably don't realise this is an enormous logistical effort that it takes for the Australian Government to repatriate people from what is effectively becoming a war zone, and I'm very proud of their efforts. And I just want Australians to be aware of that.
LISA MILLAR: Yeah, good to definitely give them a shout-out. Minister, we've got two, kind of, separate groups of people. We've got those in Israel and those in Gaza, who are unable to leave at the moment. Is it still 46, the numbers of those in Gaza? And where are they? Do you even know where they're placed?
CLARE O’NEIL: Lisa, just before I come to Gaza, can I just say about Israel - we have this one flight that's leaving today from Tel Aviv. This is the last planned flight that the Australian Government is supporting out of Israel. It doesn't mean that absolutely there will be no more flights, but what I would say to anyone who is in Israel, if you are planning to leave, please get on this plane. Don't assume that there will be continuous options to leave. If you want to leave, there is a flight leaving today, please get on it. With regard to Gaza, we're aware of 46 Australians who have contacted us who are seeking information about leaving. We're working incredibly hard to try to get more information about those people and to provide them some semblance of a plan to get them out. What we need to understand here is that Gaza is effectively locked off, there is 2 million people living in a tiny plot of land with only one entry and exit point that is currently not open. So, citizens of the UK, of the US, and Australia - like other countries around the world - are effectively not able to leave. We are working very hard diplomatically to provide a way for people to leave that region, working with the US and the UK, in particular, and it's a big focus of government. Unfortunately, the situation there is just incredibly difficult and I hope we'll have good news on that front at some stage, but no progress to report back today.
LISA MILLAR: Yeah, and the situation deteriorating every day. Has the Australian Government been shared, or given, any information about the bombing of the hospital? And who might be responsible?
CLARE O’NEIL: Lisa, I'm not going to get into who is responsible because I think your viewers can see that this situation is unfolding. What we do know about this is that hundreds of innocent people, who were at a hospital evidently already incredibly unwell and vulnerable, have lost their lives. And this was set off by these violent and inhumane, barbaric attacks by Hamas. What we now see is loss of innocent lives, of men, women and children in Gaza, and I want Australians to know that, for any innocent loss of life, we stand with Australian communities who experience this pain very deeply, whether they are Jewish Australians who are mourning the loss of life in the Middle East, or whether they are Palestinian or Muslim Australians who are mourning the loss there. This really affects communities in our country and I want you to know that the Australian Government shares your grief with you. No innocent lives should be lost here. This violence will achieve absolutely nothing except war violence, and it is just extraordinarily sad what’s going on in the region at the moment.
LISA MILLAR: And I do want to talk to you about the security situation in Australia, but first I just want to stay with the situation in Gaza. Because the Government's been under pressure from the Greens to change some of the language that's being used, and this motion, you know, that the Government recognises Israel's inherent right to defend itself and oppose a ground invasion. One of your colleagues, Ed Husic, has this morning said that basically Israel is engaging in a collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza. Does he have a point?
CLARE O’NEIL: Look, Lisa, I'm not going to get into, you know, different comments that are made and what different political parties may have to say about this at this time. And I just don't think that's really helpful to be turning this into a party political matter. Because what really matters here is that we've got Australian communities that are grieving the loss of innocent lives. People's family members are dying here in the region and I don't think it's particularly helpful for me to express a view about, you know, any sense of the responsibility particularly. What matters here is that people in our community are seeing friends, family, neighbours, and people from their faith community who are dying, who are innocent, who have nothing to do with this conflict, and we grieve the loss of innocent life, whatever part of this conflict it comes from. And I want Australian communities to understand that we stand with them. Now, our focus has got to be on the cohesion of our country. We have an incredibly beautiful, multicultural, peaceful country here, and that comes from us being respectful of the emotions that are high in the community right now...
LISA MILLAR: Ed Husic is one of your colleagues...
CLARE O’NEIL: Part of my job is to acknowledge that...
LISA MILLAR: He's a ministerial colleague and these are the comments he's made this morning.
CLARE O’NEIL: He's a ministerial colleague of Muslim faith. Ed Husic is the first Muslim Australian ever to sit around a cabinet table. I'm proud to have him sitting next to me in Cabinet, I'm proud to have him as my friend. Like many other Muslim Australians around our country, he is feeling what is going on in this region incredibly deeply. How could he not? With hundreds of people who have just lost their lives in Gaza, sitting in a hospital? It is absolutely, categorically something that should never happen. And so, of course, Minister Husic feels that very deeply, as do many of his community, and I stand with them in their grief and their loss.
LISA MILLAR: Does it mean, though, that the Government should be rethinking the words it uses when it talks about Israel's right to defend itself, when we're on the brink of a possible ground invasion of Gaza?
CLARE O’NEIL: Look, Lisa, Israel does have a right to defend itself. It has just suffered a heinous and barbaric terrorist attack including young people massacred at a music event. These things are also not possible to justify. What I would say is that we've gotta be really careful with our language here and think about our community here in Australia and the fact that we've got lots of people on different sides of this conflict who are feeling it really deeply, and I just want them to know that the Australian Government griefs all loss of innocent life, whether it's a Jewish Israeli who has died or a Palestinian Muslim.
LISA MILLAR: Minister, we've only got a minute left. I want to talk about the security situation here. Are you worried, as Michael Burgess and others have said, there could be spontaneous bursts of violence. Are you looking at changing the current threat level?
CLARE O’NEIL: So, it's obvious that there are people in our community who are feeling deeply what's going on in the Middle East and what Mike Burgess has also said is that we're not seeing indication that is we need to change our terror threat level in Australia. Our terror threat level was "possible" before these attacks in the Middle East. It remains "possible" today. What I do see is people are feeling anxious. We've got Jewish Australian communities who feel deeply vulnerable right now. We've got Muslim and Palestinian Australian communities who also feel under additional threats than normal, and that's why the Australian Government is monitoring this so closely. We announced yesterday an additional $50 million in supports for religious institutions of different kinds to make sure that they can upgrade their security. What I would just say to Australians is that this is a really important time for us to come together as a country. Lots of people in our nation right now are feeling deeply and emotionally the events of what's happening in the Middle East. The best thing about our country is that we've got this beautiful, multicultural experiment which is so successful because we respect each other and we respect people's right to feel things. I just say, finally, let's just focus a little bit on the positives here too. Yes, there are some outliers in the Australian community, but in vast majority what I see is people being respectful, cohesive, and loving towards each other, and that's the way I'd like it to remain.
LISA MILLAR: Clare O'Neil, thanks for joining us this morning.
CLARE O’NEIL: Thank you.
[END]
