The Hon Alan Tudge MP is currently acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs

Subjects: High Court decision, coronavirus

LEON BYNER: The High Court, very controversially, has made a ruling a few days ago that Aboriginal Australians are not aliens under the Constitution and can't be deported.

Now the thing that made this subject very controversial is that there were two cases. One was a man born in New Guinea, as we understand, who has obviously not got an Australian passport and the other one born in- well, has got a New Zealand passport. So the question then is: how is a person with a passport of another country connected to our ethnic groups, who were here years and years before?

To answer that question, the Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge. Alan, what's the answer to that?

ALAN TUDGE: Good morning, Leon.

Well, the big decision of the High Court, and you are right in your explanation of it whereby there was two people involved in the court decision - one of whom was a Papua New Guinean citizen and the other a New Zealand citizen. Both had been in Australia on visas, but because they had been committing offences - in both cases, they've been committing quite serious assaults, in one case drugs, drug possession and trafficking as well. Then we did what we do with all people who have who have had serious offences, who are on visas, we kicked them out of the country. We've been doing this - we've kicked about 5000 people out of the country now on the basis of: if you're committing a serious offence, well, I'm sorry you can go back to your home country. The High Court said: no, no, you can't do that to these two individuals because they are Aboriginal.

LEON BYNER: But hang on. Hang on. An Aboriginal means that they are an Australian, doesn't it?

ALAN TUDGE: Well, these people aren't - the two of them are neither Australian citizens under our Citizenship Act but nor are they now, according to the High Court, non-citizens or foreigners. So effectively, the High Court has said there's actually a new class of people now in Australia, which are Aboriginal non-citizens. Because they're Aboriginal you therefore are not able to evict them from the country if they are committing offences as they've done in this case.

LEON BYNER: Now, if you as a government wanted to change this, how would you be able to do it if you made that decision?

ALAN TUDGE: So, we're getting the legal advice in terms of the full implications of this High Court decision.

LEON BYNER: Because technically, any person can come here with an international passport, even be a citizen of any other country, but because of this, they claim some heritage connection to a group of Australians who were here many thousands of years and because of that, either they're accepted by an elder or elders or they identify or both, all of a sudden their passports and residency elsewhere doesn't matter.

ALAN TUDGE: Effectively, that is correct. There's a three-part test that's proving your Aboriginality. That is that one, you have to have a biological connection to Aboriginal people in Australia…

LEON BYNER: Yeah.

ALAN TUDGE: …two, you must self-identify as Aboriginal and three, you must be accepted by the elders of the particular clan which you say that you belong to. And that three-part test has been around since Mabo, for a couple of decades now.

LEON BYNER: So, what about the biological test then for this decision?

ALAN TUDGE: That is not defined in terms of the biological test. Typically, as you probably know, Leon, I mean, within Aboriginal communities, people know who's related to other people…

LEON BYNER: Sure.

ALAN TUDGE: …and they'll know that oh Jimmy there, he's the great-grandson of Frank, and that's just known and understood. This, I think, will put pressure on that definition of Aboriginality. We'll have to make decisions within the Immigration Department if someone makes a claim that they're Aboriginal, we'll have to be able to make that assessment ourselves as well under this High Court ruling. So it does have quite significant implications for how we operate our migration system. So we're getting the legal advice, going back to your question, Leon, to assess what are the options here. Because it has quite big implications, this, as we’ve discussed.

LEON BYNER: All right. I want to hit another matter, and that is that the Chinese Embassy have announced their very extreme displeasure with the fact that the Government have announced that we're going to suspend flights, particularly to and out of China, because of the danger of the coronavirus. And one of the things they've cited - and some other people support this - is that Canada and the UK have not done this. Can you shed some light on why we made that decision and some of our close partners have not?

ALAN TUDGE: I can't comment on why the United Kingdom and Canada took different decisions. I mean, the decision which we made followed the United States decision and was based on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer at the federal level, as well as chief medical officers from each state and territory. We put that in place as a precautionary measure. Now obviously, we're closer to China. We have a lot of interactions with China, and typically most people who come into the country are keen to go to Melbourne or Sydney predominantly. So there's a concentration as well. Now, we are reviewing this, and in fact we just reviewed this last night in the National Security Committee and on the advice of the chief medical officers extended the ban for another week and then it'll be reassessed again. At the end of the day, you know, our priority has to be to keep Australians safe. That will be our priority on an ongoing basis, but obviously, we don't want to have the travel ban for as- for any longer than necessary.

LEON BYNER: Look, we have seen in the last few hours, it's been on the wires, that a World Health doctor has suggested that this coronavirus could be much worse than what we think. Has this come up in discussions or are we really saying, well, until this becomes the prevailing view, we might just put that aside?

ALAN TUDGE: We take into account the very best medical evidence from around the world, which is compiled by the Chief Medical Officer. The Chief Medical Officer also consults with the state chief medical officers. So we have as good an expert as anybody, but then we're constantly consulting also with the World Health Organisation and other authorities as to exactly what is going on, how much has it spread, what's the extent of it, in terms of how serious the threat is, is it a mild virus versus a severe one. We know that many people have died as a result of it and the death rate, I think, is still higher than a normal flu death rate would be. So we're still being cautious here and listening to the experts, and as I said, extended that travel ban for a further week.

LEON BYNER: All right. Now I just want to run past you some of the things that have been said even this morning to get your response. Now, there are those who say if we continue to apply these bans and our competitor countries like UK, Canada do not, we will then lose the advantage and we may well lose the student business, which of course in Australia and in SA is big dollars. And of course, there's a multiplier effect too. What do you say to that?

ALAN TUDGE: Well, we want international students to come to Australia. I've been in discussions with Steven Marshall about how do we get more international students into South Australia. We've put in some additional incentives for that to occur because they do spend money on their education and of course when they're here, they're spending money in the community as well.

LEON BYNER: But if you're saying well at the moment, sorry, but if you come from China, we can't do it because of coronavirus.

ALAN TUDGE: So this is the balance. On the one hand, we want international students, we want international visitors. We get thousands of Chinese who come here as well. At the same time, the overriding priority must be to keep Australians safe. That's the balance that needs to be made. So we've made that decision again last night, taking into account the advice of the chief medical officers.

LEON BYNER: Alan Tudge, thank you. That's the Acting Immigration Minister with two very important subjects, and I wanted you to hear it from him. Alan Tudge, and we thank his time to come on and explain these things.

[ENDS]