Subjects: Temporary Exclusion Orders scheme; people smuggling venture.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
LAURA JAYES:
Joining me now is the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Thanks so much for your time Minister.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Laura.
LAURA JAYES:
Who will these laws apply to and where are they?
PETER DUTTON:
They'll apply to the people that we think pose the most significant risk to our country. So we're worried about people coming back that have been fighting in Iraq, in Syria, in the name of ISIL and we're worried about those people coming back to cause a terrorist attack here. We'll work with those people, given that they're Australian citizens and they have right to come back – my preference of course would be to make sure that they never came home – but we can exclude them for up to two years under our arrangement; they can apply for a permit to return and importantly, we can manage their return so that we can have the [inaudible] in place, we can make sure that we've got as much security in place to deal with that threat.
I don't think we should be complacent in our country about the threat that we face like any western democracy and as we've seen overseas, returning foreign fighters can pose a very significant threat to their home country.
LAURA JAYES:
Where are they and what risk do they actually pose? Is it more about influencing perhaps you know, sleeper cells here in Australia or is it the act of them actually coming back and living amongst us?
PETER DUTTON:
Well it can be both and to answer your question, we've got people within camps at the moment. Obviously we've got people that have left our shores that we're not even aware of – so people that might have when they filled out their departure card said that they're going to Indonesia or Malaysia or Kuala Lumpur, wherever it might be; Jordan etc , and ultimately they've gone on to fight in Syria or Iraq – so its very difficult, as you would appreciate, to gather all of the evidence that we would need that would be admissible in an Australian court to bring a prosecution against someone. It's not easy to collect that forensic evidence for example in the theatre of war. So we need to look at each case individually and there are many ways in which we can deal with individuals to try and mitigate the threat, but the threat is real and if we think we're immune from a terrorist attack in this country, we're just not; but we're doing everything possible to keep Australians safe.
LAURA JAYES:
How many are we talking about here and how many are in jails overseas or in some of those camps that you mention?
PETER DUTTON:
Very few people in jails. We have a number of people in camps so we know that about 100 people have been killed in the theatre of war. Those that have left our shores to go off to fight in the name of ISIL.
We are looking at about 80 cases at the moment where we have concerns, but some of those will include children – parents who have made terrible decisions to take their children into the theatre of war or indeed the children have been born in Syria or Iraq to perhaps an Australian citizen mother – so these are very complex cases and we just need to work through them individually.
LAURA JAYES:
Of those 80, how many are children?
PETER DUTTON:
Well we're not going into a breakdown, but as I say we've got people beyond the 80 that we have suspicions about, but we don't know the location of and there's no sense in those people turning up asking for travel documents at an embassy and we're obliged to send those people back to Australia. We need to manage the return and we need to deal with the very real threat that many of these people pose.
LAURA JAYES:
Why are you reluctant to say how many children there are? Because there are a lot of very young children aren't there?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, and obviously we've got enormous sympathy for those children and we want a humane outcome for those children; they are living in circumstances where their parents have made dreadful decisions and in some cases destroyed the lives of those young people, but by the time you start to get up to children of 14 years of age for example, and if they've been in Syria or Iraq for the last six years, then they pose a very significant threat potentially to us. We can't just take those children back, plonk them into school, expect that everything's going to be okay.
LAURA JAYES:
But what is the risk a five year old, for example, poses?
PETER DUTTON:
Well it may pose no threat at all, but the mother may pose a very significant security threat to us and if you've got a case where the mother won't give up the child or it's in the best interests for the family unit to stay together, we don't want to bring that mother in because as we've seen in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, women can pose a very significant threat where they've been radicalised by ISIL.
So that's why we need to look at each individual case and even if this legislation applied to one case where we stop one person from coming back, that otherwise would have strapped on a suicide vest and blown up 100 Australians, then that is obviously worth the effort, but we're talking about many cases of significant concern.
LAURA JAYES:
So what's this legislation actually about? Because it sounds like it's not so much about excluding these people and stopping them coming back, but instead giving you the control of bringing these people back and dealing with our problem in a more manageable way.
PETER DUTTON:
Laura, obviously I take the advice of ASIO and the Federal Police, ASIS, the other authorities that have the intelligence – so it's the AFP that will manage the return along with the state authorities, including children services etc; there are many people within the Islamic community that we'll work with very closely to manage the return of particularly young children, trying to get them back on a pathway to de-radicalise in some cases, and to deal with the threat – so it is about a managed return.
It's about people not just turning up at airports or at an embassy asking for travel documents to return to our country – because if people are Australian citizens, they have a right to return and I need to deal with the realities of the way in which our laws and constitution work – so it's the authorities here who have all of the intelligence that make decisions about the individual cases.
The decisions that I make as Minister, or whoever my successors will be, each individual case where the Minister makes a decision for an exclusion order to be put in place, that decision is reviewable automatically by a retired judge or a senior member of the AAT.
LAURA JAYES:
Are there warrants out for some of these individuals' arrest?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes. Yes, that's the case and again we'll work with…
LAURA JAYES:
…how many?
PETER DUTTON:
…I'm not going into the number, but in some cases the police can gather evidence and where we can prosecute, we do, but as I said before you need to be realistic about how difficult it is to gather up that evidence in a crime scene in the middle of Syria.
LAURA JAYES:
Well, why do you need the Temporary Exclusion Order as well as those arrest warrants?
PETER DUTTON:
I think just because of the individual nature of the cases. As I say in some cases we can arrest somebody, they can be prosecuted and hopefully jailed for the crimes that they've committed. In other cases we'll have intelligence holdings if that person has been involved in terrorist plots, in terrorist events, people have died as a result of the decisions that individual has made, but we can't introduce that evidence and get to a level of proof that would be required by an Australian court.
LAURA JAYES:
Now Anthony Albanese sat in that very chair yesterday and accused the Government of leaking information about a third boat arrival since the election. Is there some truth to that?
PETER DUTTON:
No there's not and I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I think Labor, frankly, needs to sit in this chair – whether it's Anthony Albanese or Bill Shorten, Mark Dreyfus, whoever it is – needs to sit in this chair and apologise, frankly, for the policy that they took to the last election because it got people smugglers excited again. It got people; desperate people, men, women and children willing to pay money again and we are dealing with the mess of cleaning that up.
I've got all of the children out of detention that Labor put there. We've closed 17 detention centres. We've not had a death at sea and I'm not going to allow us to get back into those terrible days where Labor lost control of our borders.
LAURA JAYES:
Well someone has leaked sensitive operational material, haven't they? Will you launch an investigation?
PETER DUTTON:
Look Laura, in this case where you're moving people, there are literally dozens of people who are involved in logistics, facilitating vessels, or planes, or movements of people, so that's the reality. Christmas Island is a very small place and I think that's the reality of dealing in that environment.
LAURA JAYES:
Okay. Just one final thing, the Ombudsman Report has dropped into the metadata laws and it has detailed instances of police illegally accessing metadata multiple times and using invalid warrants, sometimes against journalists. Is this proof that the protections your Government promised when this metadata legislation was promised are simply not working?
PETER DUTTON:
No, it's not. There are many cases now where ASIO and the AFP have relied on those laws, particularly in relation to serious matters, including counter-terrorism matters, to keep Australians safe.
Now there are mechanisms in place, safe checks, and they should be adhered to, and if not there are consequences for that. So take the protections very seriously, but in the end the vast majority of cases – 99 per cent of the use of these laws – will be appropriate and they'll be used in a way that will result in protecting Australians and that's the reality.
I want to be very clear about this point Laura; I think Australians feel immune from a Christchurch-type attack, or what's happened in Sri Lanka, what we've seen on London Bridge, or in the United States, or in Europe. The fact is that we are dealing with now seven attacks that have taken place. We've thwarted 16, but the threat of an attack in our country is very real and we need to be very cognisant of the fact that these people – either in our own country or those that would seek to return to our country – pose a very serious threat to the security of our nation and we're dealing with that threat through all of these laws
LAURA JAYES:
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Laura.
[ends]
