Subjects: State of Origin; Clive Palmer; Character Cancellations; AUSTRAC and CBA record penalty agreement; man refused entry to Singapore.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
RAY HADLEY:
Most Thursdays I speak to Immigration and Border Protection and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. He's on the line now from his home city of Brisbane. Minister, good morning.
PETER DUTTON:
Good morning Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Still licking the wounds from last night are we?
PETER DUTTON:
I'm trying to sound chirpy. Trying to sound chirpy. A little sad, but anyway, two games to go so 2-1 won't be a bad series. It'll be a good win for Queensland.
RAY HADLEY:
Spoken like a true Queenslander.
Look, I'm really concerned about this lunacy of Clive Palmer. First of all he tells us yesterday he's going to reopen the nickel plant in Townsville. How he does that I'm blowed if I know. And now he's telling everyone he's running candidates in the next Federal Election both for the Lower House and the Senate.
PETER DUTTON:
Well I don't understand his game. I think he needs to accept that he's created huge problems in Townsville and he needs to make amends up there. People are owed money and I think Clive needs to deal with the past before he starts splashing out money into the future. I mean obviously he's cashed up again and he's looking for causes and I don't understand it. I mean, is he after attention or...it's hard to comprehend what his game is.
RAY HADLEY:
You see I wouldn't think you'd find enough crazy people to throw their lot in with him in every seat.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, his nephew Clive Mensink I think use to be a perennial candidate and he's now in disguise in Europe somewhere so I don't know. I guess he's got other family members that might run, but hard to understand why somebody would run for him otherwise. He's a frustrated politician – Clive always has been.
Good luck to him, but I just think frankly there are other good causes that he could be supporting and plenty of philanthropic support that he could be providing to different groups. I'm sure he does some of that, but it would be great to see him throw lots of money behind good causes, kids with cancer, all sorts of things frankly, than involving himself in what I think is just sort of attention drawing activity.
RAY HADLEY:
I mentioned this story yesterday from your home state in the Sunshine Coast Daily. A New Zealand national has been threatened with deportation. So we've found a magistrate who shares our view over this bloke Nicholas Hugh Gapes. He's had a life of crime according to the Magistrate in Maroochydore. He sentenced him to a custodial sentence and suggested to him after he's finished you may wish to deal with him. Do you know anything about this bloke?
PETER DUTTON:
I've asked for some information about it and I'll have a look at it.
If people have been sentenced to 12 months or more, there is an automatic cancellation of their visa. If not then there are other circumstances where we can look at it and cancel the visa.
So I have asked to have a look at that case and I've been very clear – again without commenting on this specific case – very clear in the past that if people are committing offences then they can expect to have their visas cancelled.
And it should be a very clear message to people that are here and aren't Australian citizens; if you're committing crimes, then we are going to cancel visas and I'm really pleased that magistrates are starting to reflect in some of these cases the community views, community standards and Australians are very generous people, but we aren't going to tolerate criminals who commit offences against Australian citizens.
RAY HADLEY:
Well I commend the Magistrate Haydn Stjernqvist because he said he was warned there's no golden period of imprisonment that would see him deported, it's your character that's the criteria, he warned the bloke.
PETER DUTTON:
Well he would know all of the facts in the case Ray. He's looked at it and he's commented on this individual's behaviour.
And if you've got somebody who's come here – whether it's from New Zealand or anywhere else – and they involve themselves in one crime, let alone a life of crime, why – in some of these cases when you look back at them, their visas weren't cancelled years ago is beyond me. And had they been cancelled properly, you know, five years ago, well it may be that they wouldn't have been able to go on to commit further crimes and people wouldn't have suffered at their hands.
RAY HADLEY:
Most Australians are still scratching their head. I grew up in a period when every kid had a Commonwealth Bank passbook and you took 50 cents a week and put it in there and they've always been the Australian bank – firstly owned by the Commonwealth, then in private hands. But most can't come to terms with the 53,000 breaches and basically they say they inadvertently may have aided and abetted criminals and maybe some terrorists. It just is dreadful.
PETER DUTTON:
Well it is and it's a great job by AUSTRAC, so Nicole Rose and Peter Clark who run AUSTRAC. They've got a small agency of about 300 people and their within the Home Affairs portfolio. They really have done a great job here.
A $700 million fine is pretty staggering, but it reflects the severity of the breach of trust that the Commonwealth Banks' engaged in here and they have an enormous job ahead of them to rebuild that trust.
People depositing money into criminal syndicates, bank accounts or trying to wash money through the CBA is unacceptable and again it doesn't meet community standards. And if people knew that that money went into a drug syndicate or into a terrorist group and that money was used to conduct an attack against Australians then people would never forgive the CBA.
So these are breaches which are of a serious nature. CBA, to their credit, put their hand up and they've copped the fine. They're working with AUSTRAC to put in place a better scheme now. But we need to change the culture and we need to make sure that these companies accept their responsibility because it's not just a financial technical breach, some accounting standard, this is real life impact. If you don't follow this very carefully – as was the case here – the word gets around the criminal networks that you can deposit money into the CBA and it won't be recorded, your details won't be sent back to AUSTRAC and that's a crazy scenario.
RAY HADLEY:
I thought that I would never have to talk about the former terrorist suspect Zaky Mallah ever again, but he's now called the Seven newsroom in Sydney I believe to say that he's been detained in Singapore. He's been seen there as a security threat ahead of next week's summit between Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. I guess that tends to happen to people when they travel overseas given they've threatened to murder people and you go to either Turkey or Syria as part of your holiday.
PETER DUTTON:
He's another attention seeker Ray. He's, you know, this zealot and he's so principled and yet he runs around in Nike gear, he's always got trendy western gear on. He's a joke this guy and again he's an attention seeker so I hate even talking about him, but he'll be on a plane I suspect back to Australia very soon. The Singaporeans won't cop idiots like that.
RAY HADLEY:
He becomes our problem again. Okay we'll talk next week. Thanks for your time.
PETER DUTTON:
Thanks Ray. See you mate.
[ends]
