Subjects: US resettlement of refugees from Nauru and PNG

E&EO…………………………………………………………………………………………..

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Minister, can I just ask, this looks like a great breakthrough for Australia potentially ending the Manus and Nauru Island uncertainty for asylum seekers, but what's in it for the United States Minister?

PETER DUTTON: 

The relationship we've got with the United States, particularly in the military sense, but also exchange of information as one of our Five Eyes partners I think demonstrates to people that the relationship's pretty deep, its long standing and it's very respectful. So the transactional basis that you might have with some other countries where X is traded for Y is quite different to our relationship with the US. So the US has settled people for a long period of time in their humanitarian programme and we've been able to negotiate this outcome, which as you point out is a very good outcome for our country.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Are you glad that it's happened while negotiations were going on with the Obama administration? Do you think you would have had any chance with a Trump administration?

PETER DUTTON: 

Look I don't think there's any difference in our approach to either. We'll have a good relationship with the Trump administration as we did with the Obama administration.

And the purpose for us now is to make sure that we don't see the boats restart.

We've got a Bill before the Parliament, which Labor voted down last week, which was destined to send a very strong message to people smugglers that people on boats won't settle in Australia. I'm hoping now that they can see the sense in supporting this Bill through the Senate because if we can get the Bill through it does make our message much clearer and stronger to people smugglers because the worst outcome Gary would be getting people off Manus and Nauru and then finding vacancies filled by new arrivals. We don't want that.

We've had 841 days since we've had a successful boat, so we're in a position of strength to negotiate and make this announcement. But the people who think this problem's gone away need only to look at the Mediterranean or what's happening in other parts of the world where people in their millions are still seeking to move around and this problem for us has not gone away. So there's a lot to this announcement and there's plenty of planning that's gone on for many, many months.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

So they do go hand in hand you say, this piece of legislation which would stop anyone ever coming to Australia, regardless of whether they're citizens of another country and want to come here on holiday...

PETER DUTTON: 

…there's no question about it.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

…and this US deal, it's all linked?

PETER DUTTON: 

Well, there's no question about it. We've been very strategic in putting the legislation before the Parliament. There are a couple of reasons, so where people have been found not to be refugees, they aren't affected by this programme and it's important to point out that this deal with the US won’t have any application to new arrivals, so if people decide to hop on a boat and come tomorrow then they will not be part of this programme.

So we do need to send a message to people smugglers because we know we've got 14,000 people in Indonesia now ready to get on boats, we've got people smugglers trying to put ventures together in Sri Lanka and Vietnam and elsewhere. So it is important that we have this Bill because it does say that you will not ever settle in our country and that strong message is what we need to have consistently heard by people smugglers.

It makes it difficult when Bill Shorten says that he's on a unity ticket with the Government, but then out of the other side of his mouth says that he's going to block these Bills and oppose these measures which will see people smugglers stopped from sending people on their rickety boats. And we don't want those 1,200 deaths at sea which happened under Labor's watch to ever be repeated again.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Yeah, but is it more important that you get that legislation through because at the moment you, you know, people smugglers might be saying, ‘go, get on a boat, go to Australia and you could end up in the US.’ That's the real reason, isn't it?

PETER DUTTON: 

Well that is a significant part of the reason there's no question about that. The people smugglers use, in a very sophisticated way – and I don't think people realise how sophisticated these people smugglers are, they're part of international criminal syndicates, organised crime syndicates.

So when there's a case before the High Court they message out on their social media that the law's about to change, hop on a boat, pay your money. Whenever the Premier says, ‘look we're going to provide more support to refugees,’ they message that out on their Facebook page. When I say, ‘we've closed 17 detention centres, we've got 2,000 children out of detention,’ they put up on their social media saying, ‘now's the time to send kids on the boats.’

They are evil people and they'll use anything at all as an opportunity, but we need to stare down that message and if we can best stare it down, then we give ourselves the best chance of stopping boats.

And if Mr Shorten would just stop being blackmailed by the Labor Left and supported the policy, the legislation that we've got before the Parliament, because at the moment Mr Shorten's weakening our message to people smugglers and we can't tolerate that.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

So you don't think that a lot of people might agree that it's a bit over the top to say to someone if you go to live in the United States and you've been there for 20 years and want to have a holiday to Australia you can never do it?

PETER DUTTON: 

Well look Gary I say to those people that Mr Shorten's out there saying that he wants to oppose the legislation because in 30 or 40 years’ time somebody might apply to come to our country and apply for a tourist visa or whatever it might be. Look if this problem's not here in four or five years’ time if Labor's in power then abolish the legislation, that's fine.

But I need to deal with the problem over the next three or four weeks, or three or four months. That's the problem I've got, that I need to deal with and if people smugglers can get boats through they will put more people on because at the moment people hesitate to pay their money because they don't think they can get here. If they decide that they want to put more ventures on the water and some of them get through then we will have the vacancies that we are creating now filled by new arrivals and that's why it has been months and months and months in the planning.

We've got extra Naval assets at sea, we've got extra planes in the air, we've put additional assets into our intelligence agencies both here and overseas. So this is a very complex operation, but our position is weakened by Mr Shorten when for political purposes he's kowtowing to the Left of his Party who are opposed to any border protection policies. This is what got Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard into trouble and unfortunately Mr Shorten is falling for the same mistake.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Can I just ask is it sort of contingent on the US as to how many will go from the two islands Manus and Nauru, is it all down to them, when they start their selection process?

PETER DUTTON: 

Well the short answer Gary is yes. They have their own health and security checks to conduct and like we always say we'll decide who comes to our country similarly for the United States. So they will run their checks. But bearing in mind that these people have received, people on Nauru for example the women and children that we're prioritising, they have received medical assistance that's really second to none. I mean this is a multi-million dollar investment that the Australian taxpayer has made in a new hospital, a new medical centre, $8m on new classrooms, there's all sorts of provision for education, housing and, as I say, the health services are very, very impressive indeed. So there will be all of those checks conducted by the US, but we don't think there will be much hesitation in that sense.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Alright. So the number of people is around 650, is that right?

PETER DUTTON: 

No, there are 650 people who have already returned back to their country of origin. So they've been found not to be refugees, they're economic refugees and they've taken packages to go back to their country.

We haven't defined a number that's the subject of this agreement. We're working with the US and we'll continue to try and remove people, either to go back to their country of origin if they're found not to be refugees or to the US.

And as I've said before we're still in discussion with other countries as well so there's a long way to go in cleaning up this mess that Labor created. They put these people on Nauru and Manus, but we're slowly cleaning it up.

As I say we've got all the children out of detention on the mainland and closed and 17 centres, but we don't want new arrivals that will fill the vacancies that we've created over the course of the last three years.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Alright. But just finally, are you saying that the US can take as many as they want as opposed to there's no set number already that's been decided?

PETER DUTTON: 

Well Gary we just haven't gone publicly into the detail of the arrangement and I won't. There are reasons for that, but our priority is to start with the women and children, with those family units, to get them off Nauru, but to do it in a way that doesn't start the boats. And frankly that's why we need Mr Shorten to put his words into action and to support the Government's Bill which will come back into the Parliament in the next sitting week.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

And you're confident that whatever deal you do strike can't be undone come January next year under a Trump administration?

PETER DUTTON: 

Well, obviously Gary the deal that we've done is with the Obama administration and you can only deal with one administration at a time, there's only one President at a time.

But we've got I think good links into and good relationships so far with the Trump administration. It's a respectful relationship, its long standing, it's enduring and we'll have those discussions with the Trump administration.

I'm confident that we can get people out and that we can do it in such a way that it won't allow the boats to start again because we don't want people smugglers back in business and we certainly don't want to return to those days when Labor lost control of our borders for too long. It took a lot of hard work over the last three years to restore integrity to our borders and I think that's what Australians support.

GARY ADSHEAD: 

Minister, thanks for joining us today.

PETER DUTTON: 

Pleasure Gary.