Subjects: COVID-19 response; Vaccine announcement; Bilal Khazaal; ALP divisions.
EO&E
RAY HADLEY:
Most Thursdays we try to speak with the Home Affairs Minister and Member for Dickson, Peter Dutton. He's on line right now. Minister, good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
I know that you're trying to catch up with all the COVID news, particularly in Queensland, which has been remarkably good, but we've now got a woman in her 70s testing positive at the Wacol Youth Detention Centre and this convoluted story about a person returning from Japan to visit an ill relative via Sydney, getting back to Japan early this week and testing positive now – which I guess sends scares right across Queensland.
PETER DUTTON:
It does and I think it's just a reminder that, you know, look, 99 per cent of people are doing the right thing and we just need to keep reminding ourselves that this is not going away anytime soon. I think the tracing – particularly as we've seen in New South Wales – I think they're really an exemplar at the moment of the way in which they are dealing with community spread and they're able to put in place effective tracing techniques. They can lock down a problem pretty quickly before the spread gets away. You look at these cases where people act irresponsibly and the consequences are dire. So we owe it to, you know, particularly older Australians who are more vulnerable to COVID to make sure that we can do all we can to keep them safe.
RAY HADLEY:
Well let's hope that is the case. Let's certainly hope it is the case. Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke about this really good news and it is good news about us securing the rights to manufacture millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine, but then he said: look, we're not going to make it mandatory to have the vaccine. No one is going to force anyone to do anything as a compulsory measure.
I'm a bit confused because in other instances, I mean we've had the no jab, no play rule when it comes to preschools and the like. Surely to goodness, you know, you'd want to think that everyone would want to COVID-19 vaccine, but there'll be a few dopes among the anti-vaxxers who won't. I guess it's a matter of making sure that's a minority; a very small minority, isn't it?
PETER DUTTON:
I think it's about herd immunity and I think that's the point the Prime Minister was making yesterday. We want to make sure that, like with most vaccines, you can get as broad a coverage as possible. There'll be different arguments that people put and some will be firmly held and that's their prerogative.
But from the Government's perspective, I just think we'll provide as much information and education as we can so that people can be properly informed about the benefits and when you're dealing with companies, reputable companies and research institutes and universities like Oxford etc and the University of Queensland; I mean these are world leading researchers many of them have been involved in discoveries of vaccines before.
So the efficacy and the, you know, the robust nature of their research is obvious. They're the best researchers in the world and you know we'll take that over President Putin's magic potion. So I think that's, you know, able to provide people with some level of reassurance.
RAY HADLEY:
Look, in the next 90 minutes, we'll get the figures in New South Wales and we're all keeping our fingers crossed that they remain in single figures, but the Premier and the Chief Health Officer in your home state have said until we have clear space, in other words, 28 days' virus clear, we won't contemplate opening the borders. Now, that's a really big ask given that Queensland is confronting its own problems with a couple of positives after having a really good run for a week or two.
It's going to be a tough ask to say: oh no, if you get one in 28 days, we go back to the start again. You're going to have another 28 days before we open the borders. We could not, you know, coming in to Queensland by Christmas the way that's shaping up.
PETER DUTTON:
Well look, if we pursue an elimination strategy, which it seems that Premier Palaszczuk and some others want to do, I think that's more about politics than it is about people and I think people are starting to see through that. So people are questioning the motivation which is unfortunate because we want to make sure that we all work together.
But in Queensland, some of the decisions that the Premier's making, really are quite odd and not based on medical advice and we've called for months for her to release the medical advice around the border closures, the date plucked out of the air of September etc, when July had been announced as the date when borders were opening. I think there's a lot going beneath the surface there, but I think people sense that out.
So if they're sticking to the medical advice, fair enough; but as New South Wales has demonstrated in contrast perhaps to Victoria, they're able to deal with the tracing, they've dealt with the hotel quarantine effectively and it means that you're not going to pursue an elimination zero case strategy because that will send the country broke and that's not in our country's best interests obviously.
So there just needs to be a common sense approach and the Prime Minister's providing the leadership that the country needs at the moment and I think people are reassured by that.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay. Back to your portfolio. This story's been bouncing around now this week Bilal Khazaal and people are a bit confused…and given that it's now a matter for the Australian Federal Police to try and keep tags on this terrorist when he was released at the end of the month after a 12-year sentence of relating to terrorist attacks.
Your Department did not apply to the court for a Continuing Detention Order. Your Department says you got legal advice that the threshold to hold Khazaal could not be met. Does that mean we need to change the legislation to make sure that you can legally detain people who need to be detained, beyond their sentence?
PETER DUTTON:
Yes, but there are constitutional limitations as well Ray. It's a very frustrating process and we've gone through – I don't want to talk about an individual case because there's still matters, avenues that we might be able to pursue in relation to some of these cases – but the reality is that we get the best legal advice that we can, and the very clear legal advice in some of these cases is that we don't have any prospects, there's no ability within the law, the way that it operates at the moment, to see people held beyond their period of incarceration.
So the police have got to be able to deal with that. It takes enormous resources, in many of the cases, to provide the security overlay that we need on individuals because again, we never want to be complacent about the threat these people pose. But we have got limitations about holding people indefinitely and we will do whatever we need to do, I can promise you, to change the law, to apply to the courts, to keep Australians safe and I think we've demonstrated that over a long period. It is frustrating on occasion when it's clear that some people should remain in jail because of the threat that they pose, but we've got to deal within the law.
RAY HADLEY:
Look, one of the things that concerns everyone; he's currently held at Supermax in Goulburn. Now that is the highest security prison anywhere in the Commonwealth. Yet it could be a case – depending on a court outcome which you can't talk about – that on August 30, he completes his 12 years and basically comes out of there free to go about his business without authorities able to basically put a bracelet on him, follow him, do anything about him. Is that the way it could turn out if the case goes the wrong way?
PETER DUTTON:
Well it's the case now Ray that Federal Police and ASIO have high value targets out in the community. They haven't committed an offence, but there's a great concern that they're preparing to or they have the capacity to commit a terrorist offence. But equally, we've got the best police and the best intelligence officers in the world. There's a lot of work that they do behind the scenes and there have been many instances, as we know, where they've been able to disrupt terrorist events. We just continue to work away on each of these cases and I hope that if there's a change in the legislation required, that we can get the support in the Senate, because that's always difficulty.
A lot of these laws have been watered down by Mark Dreyfus and Labor over a long period of time, which is an incredible frustration because we want the most effective laws in place, as you say, to keep people safe from these terrorists.
We haven't seen an attack overseas in a little while that Australians would be aware of, and I just think there's a level of complacency that sneaks in. But we are dealing with the threat of terrorism 24/7 and there are many cases where people are wanting to do us significant harm and we've got to be very realistic about that threat.
RAY HADLEY:
You know when things are getting a bit testy for the Labor Party federally, and I guess in Queensland – your home state – as well when you've got a prominent and senior Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, who's electorate is in the heart of coal mining territory in the Hunter Valley, who's now on the front page of The Australian saying now, we've got to be very careful, we'll split the party here. You know, we've got to be very careful.
He's obviously very, very nervous as is Anthony Albanese. You'll probably send him in to bat on this one, to try and make sure that the left don't seize power over those from the right in relation to mining, whether it's coal seam, gas or coal because what Joel Fitzgibbon knows is he got lapped as it – well not him personally – but his party got lapped in Queensland in the last federal election because of their opposing coal mining.
PETER DUTTON:
Well Ray, I'm not sure that Anthony Albanese sent Joel Fitzgibbon out. I think Joel's made some very good points in his public commentary today, and it's just a statement of common sense that if you're trying to please Green voters in inner city seats like Sydney or Grayndler, then you have no capacity to win over the support out in the suburbs. The Labor Party will go to election after election failing if they believe that people in seats like Dickson or other outer metropolitan seats across the country have anything in common with the hard left of the Green movement. People like Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese, they don't believe in tough border control measures. They watered down national security legislation. They make decisions that just aren't consistent with the values of people that will be listening to this radio program. So there is a huge disconnect.
People remember very well – and I think Bill Shorten would be at the top of the list – remembers very well that Anthony Albanese remains the leader of the left of the Labor Party. He's spoken up at the ALP caucus against strong border protection policies and so I think there is a war going on within the Labor Party. I think it's obvious that Joel Fitzgibbon is on the very opposite of the spectrum to Anthony Albanese and they're at war with themselves at the moment. I think that's obvious to dissidents in the Labor Party, particularly those that want to reconnect and are being stopped by Albanese at the moment.
I think the problems that they've got going into Central Queensland, telling those coal workers and their families that their jobs don't matter, that they can find something else to pay their mortgage with or put food on the table; well, no wonder they get a hiding.
RAY HADLEY:
Alright. Thanks for your time. We'll talk next week.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Ray. Take care mate. Thank you.
RAY HADLEY:
Peter Dutton, Minister for Home Affairs.
[ends]
