Subjects: Iranian women’s soccer team
MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, TONY BURKE: Last night I was able to tell five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team that they are welcome to stay in Australia, that they are safe here, and they should feel at home here.
There has been a lot of work that's been going on in recent days to make sure that we had the maximum number of opportunities for these women to know that they could seek assistance if they wanted to, and to have the maximum number of opportunities to directly seek that assistance.
This is my second night here in Brisbane. I was here the night before as well and at that point, we had conversations happening with some of the women, but we didn't know whether any would seek assistance.
In the very early hours of yesterday morning, the conversations started in earnest. Once that happened during the course of yesterday, it was made clear that there were five women who wanted to be able to stay in Australia. They were moved to a safe location by the Australian Federal Police, and last night, I met with them at that location. I signed off last night for their applications to go onto Humanitarian Visas, and a little bit after 1:30am this morning, the processing was completed by the Department of Home Affairs.
I say to the other members of the team, the same opportunity is there. Australia has taken the Iranian women’s soccer team into our hearts. These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realise they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they're making. But the opportunity will continue to be there for them to talk to Australian officials if they wish to.
Can I just finally as well thank the Australian media. There have been many times during this period where we have had to ask the Australian media for restraint, where reporting different stories could have had an impact on the capacity of the women to be able to make requests. The Australian media has been incredibly responsible. I'm similarly grateful to my Caucus colleagues, and I also want to acknowledge the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Duniam, for making sure that we were keeping the handling of this issue in a way that preserved the best interests of these women.
Once everything had been signed off last night, there were lots of photos, lots of celebrating, and then a spontaneous outcry of ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi’. These women are great athletes, great people, and they're going to feel very much at home in Australia.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: It was such a privilege to be able to meet with them. When you walk into a room where people have been making this sort of decision, you're not sure what you'll be confronting in terms of the emotions of the room. When I walked in, it was an expression of joy. One of the women mentioned that everybody she talks to, she just keeps saying ‘thank you’, she’s so grateful.
I should also say, the women have asked me to convey that they are happy for their names to be reported, they are happy for their faces to be reported. But they have asked that they be reported for who they are, and they wanted to make clear they are not political activists. They're athletes who want to be safe and are very grateful that Australia is making that opportunity for them.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: Yes, we have the names of the five women. I'll make sure that that's provided, some of that has already been reported on social media.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: These women have been weighing up an incredibly difficult decision. I respect that even though the offer continues to be there for other members of the team, it is quite possible and indeed likely, that not every woman on the team will make a decision to take up the opportunity that Australia would offer to them.
What matters here is that they have the best agency they can over those decisions. So, we're making sure that the opportunities to seek assistance are there. But I don't want to begin to imagine how difficult that decision is for each of the individual women. But certainly, last night, it was joy, it was relief, and people were very excited about embarking on a life in Australia.
JOURNALIST: Did Australian authorities help the women escape the hotel?
BURKE: They were moved from the hotel to a safe location by the Australian Federal Police. I should add, in terms of that, before I went to a hotel last night, I made final confirmation with the Director General of ASIO, Mike Burgess, to make sure that he was completely comfortable in terms of security clearances for the people who I was about to make the offer to, and then a call to the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, to reconfirm that all the security plans were in place for the safety of these women.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: The remainder of the squad remain at the location for the team. Obviously, we are making sure there are further opportunities where if people want to make a request to Australian officials, they will get that opportunity.
This is one of the areas where I've just been grateful to the media for their restraint because there've been different points where people have wanted to speculate on this, and obviously it's not only Australian’s who are listening. We've had to make sure that stories don't run that could actually create challenges in making sure the women had an opportunity to come forward.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: In terms of the main people I've been working with, obviously, my Department of Home Affairs officials have been extraordinary during this, as have the Australian Federal Police and ASIO. I've been talking to my colleagues who you'd expect, obviously, the Prime Minister and I've been in constant contact over this, as well as the Security Ministers, and of course Anika Wells as Sports Minister, who has an obvious interest in all of this. But we've been keeping everything tight.
There's been an understandable wish from Australians to know what was happening, and I just am so proud of everybody involved, whenever we've had a conversation and we've said, talking about things publicly in a particular way, could have an impact on these women's safety, everybody has just said, the safety of these individuals is going to come first.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: The Prime Minister will be able to confirm all the details of that, I think he’s up shortly after I finish. I do know that the President called the Prime Minister and the views that the President put on this, I think, reflected what all good people have been thinking. Everybody's been looking at this situation and saying, surely, is there something we can do? We've been in the situation of not being able to talk publicly about what we were doing. I understand completely, and I think lots of people would have looked at that sense from President Trump of wanting to help these women and would have seen feelings that they shared.
But I think now people can have a great level of relief and confidence in knowing that the whole way through, Australia's been making sure that a chance for a request for assistance could be made. Once the request was made, I came up personally, I met with the women, they said they wanted to stay in Australia - and Australia, we're a good country - and we've responded to the request by saying, you're safe here, you're welcome here, you're at home here.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: Certainly, no one's put the view to me in the terms that you have. We've been making sure that women have the opportunity to come forward. There's been a good police presence at different points and we just made sure that opportunity was there.
But can I say, the first conversation didn't have an immediate case of the women saying that they’d decided. This was a difficult decision for them, and I think we all understand exactly why. But now, as a nation, we can be really welcoming to those women and make clear that for the remaining members of the team, if they want to make a similar decision, Australia has already opened its hearts to this team.
[INAUDIBLE QUESTION]
BURKE: The concept of them doing anything publicly is very much in their hands. I want to make sure that we can show them that this is a country where women are able to make those decisions themselves as to whether they want to go out into the media, comment or anything like that. As I say, they wanted me to communicate that they're okay for their names and the photos to be out there. They want to be described as who they are. Again, they're not activists, they're athletes who want to be safe, but they'll make their own decisions about further comment.
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