Subjects: Phelps Bill; border security.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
DAVID SPEERS:
Let's bring in right now the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Very good afternoon to you. Thank you for joining us here at the Press Club.
PETER DUTTON:
Gentlemen.
DAVID SPEERS:
Chris Bowen we just heard saying it; Shayne Neumann the Shadow Minister was quoted in the papers this morning as well. They do want to give the Immigration Minister, well, Bowen's words were: make the Minister the final abattoir on transfers. Do you welcome that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well that's not what Anthony Albanese was saying this morning on the ABC. This is quite a remarkable circumstance at the moment David. So I think there is beneath the surface a lot happening within the Labor Party. So what amendments Bill Shorten could get agreed by Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek, it's unknown. There's obviously a lot of internal ruction as you point out. People aren't happy with what Bill Shorten has done here. He's made a mistake. He hasn't yet owned up to it. Let's wait and see what he has to say.
DAVID SPEERS:
If they move an amendment to this bill, right, and say well the Minister would have the final say on all transfers, would that be okay?
PETER DUTTON:
But David let's just wind back a bit. If you're making a decision as momentous as the one was that Bill Shorten took last year to unwind a very successful policy which has stopped people downing at sea; it's got all of the kids out of detention; it's got control back of our borders; wouldn't you have sought the advice of the agencies before you made that decision? This is a man that wants to be prime minister of the country and yet he's making decisions on the run – maybe for political purposes, I don't know…
DAVID SPEERS:
…well he's getting it now, so what if they do move such an amendment?
PETER DUTTON:
Well David I have, like Scott Morrison before me, been in this job and spoken to the agencies. I've not received any advice, to this very day, that this bill is necessary or that's it's anything other than counterproductive and the reality is that this removes the leg of offshore detention, which is a disaster. There's no other way to describe it. People would come here in their hundreds from Nauru and Manus on the say of two doctors and they'd come here overnight.
DAVID SPEERS:
But just explain it to me – and you guys jump in as well – but just explain it to me; a lot of people have been saying well, if doctors reckon hundreds should come, does that suggest something's wrong, that all these people are sick?
PETER DUTTON:
But under Labor's proposal, there doesn't need to be a medical condition. They can come for a consultation, right?
DAVID SPEERS:
But you'd have a panel of doctors appointed by the Minister deciding on that.
PETER DUTTON:
But David under Labor's proposal – I'm not saying that this is anything other than Bill Shorten's proposal – what he's saying is that under legislation that they voted for in the Senate, wanted to vote for in the House before Parliament rose last year, people can come here for a consultation. It's a joke. It makes a mockery of the system that we've got and I think it speaks to the way in which the thought process operates within the Labor Party. They are not strong on borders. They've opened up the issue of border security now as a key election issue and if people have not believed that Labor got the message at the last election, or in 2013, or before that, right back to when John Howard was elected, Labor needs to get the message again at this election on border protection.
KIERAN GILBERT:
What do you say to the criticism that it's your Government and your performance as well as Minister that's left a thousand-odd individuals still in offshore detention…
PETER DUTTON:
…it's a joke Kieran, it's a joke, right? I've never put a child into detention on Nauru. I have closed the regional processing centre down on Manus Island. We've closed 19 detention centres. I got all the kids out of detention domestically, which was a key priority of mine. We've done it in a way that hasn't seen new arrivals start. So there's no sense in being big-hearted, getting people out of detention, including children on Nauru, only to find that a boat turns up the next day to refill the places with new arrivals; and that's what Labor can't answer. We've sent now almost 500 people to the United States. That was never a deal that Labor could strike. Remember Labor struck the Malaysia deal. We ended up taking all of the people from Malaysia. Not one person has departed from Australia to go to Malaysia.
CHRIS KENNY:
The issue though is that you still have people in Nauru and Manus Island. Are there people there who can never be resettled by third countries, particularly on Manus? Are there people there who on security grounds you just cannot resettle, that could be on Manus indefinitely?
PETER DUTTON:
Well Chris, we don't want people to be there indefinitely and we've said, as we've seen with people that have settled in PNG already, that we can help settle those people into PNG, which was the original Rudd deal with Peter O'Neill. But we've been very clear: there are no countries that we've engaged with – and we have engaged with many – that are willing to take people off Manus or Nauru. The United States was a deal struck, to his credit, by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and President Obama and ultimately honoured by President Trump as well, but no European nation is saying to us – and we've been in negotiations and discussions with many of them over a long period of time…
DAVID SPEERS:
…what about New Zealand?
PETER DUTTON:
New Zealand is a different case, David. New Zealand is the only country in the world where you can get a visa on arrival into Australia; and we know at the moment there are ventures that are being marketed to go to New Zealand.
DAVID SPEERS:
You could shut that back door.
PETER DUTTON:
You can't. I mean if you can get that nuance…
DAVID SPEERS:
Can't…
PETER DUTTON:
If you can get that nuance across to people smugglers and have that little asterisk on the form that people sign when they pay their money to the people smuggler to hop onto the boat, if you can get that detail across, then good luck.
KIERAN GILBERT:
But the intelligence you're receiving shows that there is movement right now in terms of people smuggling activity?
PETER DUTTON:
We've got 14,000 people in Indonesia ready to hop on boats now. The situation in Sri Lanka is fluid. We've got the prospect of ventures, as we've spoken about for a long period of time out of India, out of Vietnam, and as you're seeing David, people are crossing the Channel now from France into England. You've got people still drowning on the Mediterranean. People smugglers will find a way to move people and if they think the doors are open, they will move and that's exactly what they did when Rudd came in after John Howard lost the election in 2007.
CHRIS KENNY:
Peter Dutton, Kerryn Phelps and others keep saying there is a medical crisis here, there is a medical problem. They don't seem to be backing that up with hard evidence. Are you concerned at all about the level of medical services provided to people on Nauru, but in particular those on Manus?
PETER DUTTON:
No Chris. Look, I would prefer to see nobody there at all. I've done my level best to stop the boats…
CHRIS KENNY:
…but those who are there, are they getting adequate medical services?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes they are and the Australian taxpayer has put literally hundreds of millions of dollars into medical services, into new medical facilities. Having doctors and nurses and allied health professionals up there. On a per-capita basis, it's much better than we would see in any Indigenous community; that I saw in Afghanistan with our troops there. We've come to arrangements with the hospital in Port Moresby, hospitals otherwise, to try and elevate, depending on the level of acuity, but the reality is that we have provided support.
There's a lot of propaganda that's gone on in this space and it might suit some of the advocates, but in the end, when the history is written on this, there are many people who are living in false hope on Manus and Nauru now because they've been promised for a long time by advocates that they would come to Australia one day when they are not going to.
DAVID SPEERS:
Just a final one on this and we'll let you go because I know you've got to get to the lunch downstairs. You did take a priority to getting the kids off and they were resettled in the US; some were brought here on medical grounds. Can there be a similar priority for the adults?
PETER DUTTON:
Well David, where we've got people that have been found not to be refugees, they need to go back to their country of origin – and many people have. Don't forget that many people have gone back with resettlement packages, so we've provided financial support for people to repatriate back to their country of origin. There are many people up there who just say: look, I've been reading Tweets from advocates, from Labor members, who say bring them here, all the rest of it for years, and I'm not going to move. I'm coming to Australia, that's what I paid my money for and they are living in false hope and it's regrettable. I want to see them all off tomorrow, but we need to be sensible about it.
Under Bill Shorten's bill, the one that he's supporting with Kerryn Phelps, hundreds of people come from Manus and Nauru literally overnight. The boats will restart in that circumstance and that's the biggest concern that all Australians should have.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Can I just thrown one in, just quickly, give you a right of reply after Mr Pyne, Christopher Pyne said that he'd fought against you becoming leader because you're unpopular outside of Queensland? You're popular there, but nowhere else; what did you make of his intervention?
PETER DUTTON:
Kieran, I made comments in relation to those matters at Christmas time. I don't intend to add to them today.
DAVID SPEERS:
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, thanks for joining us.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks gentlemen. Thank you.
[ends]
