Subjects: United States resettlement of refugees from Nauru and PNG; Judicial decisions; contrived marriages; visa applications.
E&EO…………………………………………………………………………………………..
RAY HADLEY:
Minister good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Now, I need to sort out what's happening between Julie Bishop – her view of what's going on and your view. Where are we up too with the swap deal with the Americans?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, the most important thing here and frankly I think it's a bit of a storm in a teacup – I said on Andrew Bolt's programme the other day that it wasn't a people swap. I think Labor are desperate to try and scuttle this deal.
In the end, people can use whatever language they want which is the point that I was making. I am not going to get bogged down in nuance and discussion. I am a pretty frank speaker and I have been clear that it's not a people swap. They are two separate arrangements.
But in the end what's most important to us is to get people off Nauru and Manus and make sure that the boats don't restart. Labor can play their word games as much as they want. From my perspective, you know, Labor put people on Manus and Nauru, my responsibly is to get them off, to keep our borders secure and to make sure that we don't have new boat arrivals.
RAY HADLEY:
But at the end of the day, you know, we're sort of being mealy-mouthed here because if they don't take those people, we won't take the others, will we?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, I have been very clear that my job is to act in our national interest and to make sure that – as I say, our priority is to get people off Nauru and Manus who have been there for a long period of time now.
They were there because Labor allowed 50,000 people to come on 800 boats.
It's been well over 900 days since we have had a successful people smuggling venture and the people smugglers are still out there. People who think that this problem has gone away only need to look at their television sets of a nighttime to see what's happening in Europe and people would quickly be lining up again in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, or wherever it might be, to get onto boats if they thought the way was open again.
So look Labor can play these silly games.
In the end, what Julie's concentrating on, what I'm concentrating on, the Prime Minister is concentrating on, is cleaning up Labors mess and I think we have been successful by anyone's test in terms of stopping the boats and we now need to get people of Manus and Nauru. I have got every child out of detention and closed 17 detention centres on the mainland so we just need to continue that success, but the threat hasn't gone away.
And again, Labor and some parts of the left wing media in this country are determined to scuttle this deal because they want these people to come to Australia.
Well that is a recipe for boats restarting and I'm just not going to get into even contemplating that.
RAY HADLEY:
We are talking to the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton from Brisbane.
I have got a story from our newsroom; fire crews are currently battling a blaze of a block of units in Brisbane's South West. Firefighters called to a unit complex Oxford Terrace at Taringa. They arrived to find the complex well alright. Five crews are there at the moment, paramedics on standby, but all residents have been accounted for; all residents have been accounted for our listeners on 4BC.
Now, just on this issue, we did speak last week about the US officials arriving on Manus Island to conduct interviews. Have they now cleared the decks in terms of those interviews? Have they gone back?
PETER DUTTON:
They are still doing interviews and there is a lot of work obviously being done in the background. The teams have been up on Nauru and will have more teams going up there.
So we deal with two departments – the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security – and I have got a good relationship with my counterpart in the US and at an officials level they are working day and night to go through each of the individual cases and that's the way it works.
But as I say Ray, I mean people can concentrate on you know where a full stop or a comma was and in my mind I just don't care how people want to categorise it – that's an issue for them.
The priority that I've got is to get these people off Manus and Nauru and that's what the teams are doing and that's what we are working towards as quickly as possible.
RAY HADLEY:
Now, I spoke to you last week and it's got worse, about the Magistrate Trevor Morgan. He's the man who during the sentencing of protestors climbing on your electorate roof said that he'd be proud if his daughter had done the same thing. He was admonished by the Chief Magistrate for being a bit too political.
I also spoke to you regarding a matter and we often talk about law and order particularly in your home state where a bloke appeared before the same Magistrate over domestic violence charges – nine of them. I then had a phone call after I spoke to you from the mother of the victim who's very distressed and very scared along with her husband and her daughter obviously.
Now, the man was also charged with one count of evading police and one count of break and enter. I believe he is a New Zealand national and if he's not he's some sort of Pacific Islander and that's why I'm talking to you. The police vehemently opposed bail sighting concerns about his escalating behaviour, but Minister it gets worse.
Now he was given bail by this Magistrate Mr Morgan last Wednesday week, so a week ago this Wednesday. Last Friday, two days after getting bail, he breached his bail charged with one count of serious assault of police that is, one count of obstructing assaulting police.
He then again appeared before the same Magistrate Trevor Morgan on Friday and we thought hello he's woken up to himself good old Trev, he's locked the bloke up over the weekend. But then we hear Magistrate Morgan obtained legal advice on whether he could deal with the matter because he knew the case well.
Well you wouldn't believe it – on Tuesday this week what does he do? He gives the man bail again and the bloke is out free as a bird until March 22.
We've asked the Queensland DPP via the police prosecutions to look at it, but this is where it really annoys me. The mother rang and identified the bloke by name. Now I have been told by the Queensland Attorney-General that I'm in breach of a law because the only time I can name this bloke is when he allegedly kills the woman who's terrified of him.
So I can't name him – I have got his name here in front of me. The person he is threatening allegedly, her mother phoned me and named him, but I can't name him now because I would be in breach of the law. Now repeating, he's not the one that's being threatened allegedly, or being bashed allegedly, that's a woman, but the only time I can name him in Queensland is when he kills her, allegedly.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, you've got to get Annastacia Palaszczuk on or Yvette D'Ath…
RAY HADLEY:
…they won't talk to me mate. They won't talk to me.
PETER DUTTON:
This drives people crazy and it drives, you know, us crazy rightly. I mean the protection of women and children in our society is absolutely paramount to who we are us as people, to a civilized society and if these Magistrates are failing then the Attorney-General has to deal with it.
There needs to be a separation of powers, all of that, we respect the courts, all of that, but where Magistrates or Judges are failing community standard, particularly where women and children are involved and especially for Queenslanders off the back of that mother who was murdered in front of her children on the Gold Coast only in recent weeks…
RAY HADLEY:
…having been released by a domestic violence Magistrate shortly before he killed her then killed himself.
PETER DUTTON:
It needs to be Yvette D'Ath, who must be – and this is a big statement given her predecessors – she must be the weakest Labor Attorney-General I've ever seen.
Law and order in this state under the Palaszczuk Government has gone to a rock bottom because the police have one hand tied behind their back in relation to bikies – the bikies are back in town, distributing drugs and all the rest of it – these people who want to perpetrate violence against women, it seems to me, are either getting a slap on the wrist, are taking advantage of the court system or the weakness of some of the Magistrates who are presiding over these matters and the Attorney-General or the Premier needs to deal with this because Queenslanders won't tolerate these sorts of crimes being committed against innocent women and children and particularly in the cases of domestic violence.
Annastacia Palaszczuk talks a big game, but in the end she doesn't deliver anything. On this talk about reversing onus; how long does it take and how many deaths will we see and suffer, how many kids will suffer in these circumstances until Premier Palaszczuk does something about it? And if she can't come onto your show and explain to people the basics of what has gone wrong and how they're going to immediately address it, then I don't know how she looks at herself in the mirror each day.
RAY HADLEY:
Now we go from that to this; and you've probably heard it from last night's Sky News Andrew Bolt programme, Keysar Trad.
[plays recording]
KEYSAR TRAD:
Violence is the last resort before you even consider using your hand, before you consider any act of violence, have you checked box number one which is counselling? Have you checked box number two? What does counselling entail? Well maybe next time you should bring her a bunch of flowers. Maybe next time you should bring her a box of chocolates. Maybe next time you should take her hand….
ANDREW BOLT:
….and beat her if she still don't see sense, beat her, that's what this says…beat them, I'm reading the Quran.
KEYSAR TRAD:
I understand what you're saying, but what I'm saying to you is; you never….a good person would never get to that step because the first step would eliminate the problem.
[end of recording]
RAY HADLEY:
But if you do get to that step, if the chocolates fail, the flowers fail, quick backhander to put her back in her place. This is Keysar Trad an Islamic leader in this country.
PETER DUTTON:
Well where are the feminists? Where is the ABC on this Ray? I mean the ABC presumably are running this at the head of their bulletins, this will be on the seven o'clock news, it will be on the 730 Report tonight, I mean the ABC and Fairfax will be outraged by this, but you know what? I suspect they will have nothing to say about it because they're hypocrites.
If it was you or me or you know somebody else who made such an outrageous statement, they'd be calling for us to be, you know, taken into the town square and dealt with. The fact is; this guy is mad. I mean this is not his first stupid public comment.
RAY HADLEY:
No, polygamy is another one, you know you can have two, three, four, five wives, you know and probably live in public housing with most of them if you can pull the rort off, all the rest of it.
I mean it is just madness and you're right, I mean I'm expecting this to be headline news through the day, it is just madness, it is crazy, he's representing – and he's probably the best named spokesman on behalf of the Islamic community in Australia – and there he is on The Bolt Report last night saying… well Andrew questioned him and says now about the Quran, about the Quran, okay, well, an angry man can hit his wife, but only as a last resort.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, this is Australia and if you come to our country you abide by our laws and one of the things that sets us apart from many other nations is our respect of women.
We all want our daughters to succeed, to be in loving relationships, get a good education, get a good job and be the equal of any man in this country and it is unacceptable and I'm sure it is unacceptable frankly for the vast majority of the Islamic community as well.
RAY HADLEY:
See this is the damage that is done Minister, this is the damage that's done because every poor Muslim, Australian Muslim out there doing his best with one wife who he doesn't hit, has to put up with this crap because of this lunatic.
PETER DUTTON:
Well I just think more people need to come out and call him out and as I say the feminists who, you know, screamed about Julia Gillard's treatment and defend Gillian Triggs on all sorts of things that she might be on about, I mean they need to come out today and deal with this, otherwise they are complete hypocrites.
Why on earth this man is allowed near a microphone is beyond me. He puts himself forward as some sort of representative and spokesperson, but his views are dangerous, particularly in relation to women, and I think he should be roundly condemned.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. One final one from The Courier Mail; a man and woman convicted of swindling more than $100,000 from desperate Indian men through a wedding visa scam have been jailed.
Chetan Mashru, a former migration officer and celebrant Divya Gowda arranged the bogus marriages of 16 Indian men to young Australian women.
Judge Terry Martin called the offending 'brazen and persistent.' He sentenced the pair on 66 charges. They're going to jail.
During a hearing last week Mashru claimed imprisonment would cause him undue hardship as a vegan. Mashru was sentenced to a minimum of two years and three months. Gowda will spend 18 months in prison before being released on a three year good behaviour bond. So they've been dealt with.
Where are we up to with the 16 blokes who came here to marry young Australian women at a cost? Are they still in the place? Or have they been sent packing as well?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray there are 50 cases, I'm told, that are under investigation at the moment and it is a good opportunity actually to say to people who are thinking about entering into any of these arrangements that the reality is you lose your money, your visa will be cancelled, you will go back to the country of origin, if you're not a legitimate applicant then we will find it out and we've got investigators; the Australian Border Force officers are working with AFP and intelligence agencies and state police forces and what not to go through and look at these individual cases.
The Partner visa category is a popular one because people meet someone they love overseas etc, but if people are seeking to exploit it; well you know I think they can expect a knock on their door from the Australian Border Force officers and they're going to lose their money. So don't enter into the arrangement in the first place.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay, just one quick one based on that; I remember now I got an email from a listener, whom I won't identify, but in Toowoomba, a Justice of the Peace. Something interesting happened today, this is Monday this week – and he's witnessing and signing off on a number of other items – it is Orientation Week at the local uni in the Darling Downs. He has four foreign students come in sign off on Protection visa applications providing an ID with their student cards.
Upon inquiry it seems that these four get into Australia as students, once enrolled then apply immediately for Protection visa in order to seek citizenship. Is this a scam that you are aware of? Is it widespread?
PETER DUTTON:
There would be a number of applications that are received onshore on that basis, but it would be very hard for….I don't know the individual cases but….
RAY HADLEY:
….no obviously and neither do I….
PETER DUTTON:
…it would be very hard for people to make that case out and there would be a lot of people who are deported once their claim has been found not to be legitimate and if their purpose for coming here is bogus then we cancel visas all the time on that basis.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright talk next week, thanks.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Ray.
[ends]
