Subjects: Terror attacks in Indonesia; cyber security; airport security; Operation Sovereign Borders.

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

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

G'day Peter.

PETER DUTTON:

Morning Ed, morning Darce.

LUKE DARCY:

G'day Pete, how are you?

PETER DUTTON:

Very well thanks mate.

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

Peter, we've asked you to come in today because of bombings in Indonesia. Anytime that happens of course, it sends a chill down the backs of any Australians, particularly those who remember what happened in Bali. Can you take us through what's going on there at the moment?

PETER DUTTON:

Well it's worse than anyone's imagined. The involvement now of young kids, bombs strapped to them and going into any crowded place – it's pretty horrific to think about at every level. So now over 13 people killed, 40-plus injured.

Indonesia's got a particular problem because they've had returning foreign fighters from the Middle East, people being released from jail at the end of their terms of sentence as a result of former terrorist attacks.

Having said that, Indonesia's done a pretty good job. It's been about 10 years almost since the last major attack on the hotels in 2009. So they've done well, but it's a considerable issue for Australians because there are about a million Aussies a year who travel up in wider Bali or Indonesia for holidays each year. So people need to really pay attention to that in-country advice.

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

It's a place near and dear to Darce's heart and, as you said, a million Australians love going up there. What's your advice at the moment? Have we taken it up another level as far as security's concerned in Indonesia and particularly Bali?

PETER DUTTON:

People should have a look at the Department of Foreign Affairs website to the Smartraveller information, which is updated regularly. So it'll talk about if there's advice around specific spots that people should avoid. But generally, the advice is to be careful in places where you've got mass gatherings, but even now, restaurants, nightclubs, etc.

So all of that concern is there, but we do a lot of work with Indonesians since the Bali bombings. We've obviously done a lot to try and enhance their collection and analysis of the forensic evidence. We've done a lot to try and boost the hospital system up there so that there's a good response if there is an attack, particularly if Australians are involved. We've done a lot of work in trying to provide training and support to police and the intelligence agencies up there. So we work very closely with Indonesian authorities, but it could happen anywhere, anytime.

LUKE DARCY:

Extraordinarily devastating to look at a beautiful eight year old girl, you can't imagine a bomb strapped to that in a terrorist situation.

But I want to ask you about the expansion of powers for cyber security. It gets reported that you want to spy on every Australian and people get nervous about it, but can you tell us about how susceptible Australians are to cyber-attacks and what you're actually trying to achieve in expanding these powers?

PETER DUTTON:

Yeah I saw these reports the other day Darce. I mean, just complete nonsense.

But what we're worried about is if you had a state actor like Russia, for example, trying to hack into our banking system and the banking system went down for even a day, let alone a week, what could we do about that? And there's an agency called the Australian Signals Directorate that works within Defence, they do great work, but they have advanced capacity to try and, for example, disrupt a server offshore and the question is whether or not we could utilise their expertise to disrupt an effort if it started – if the attack, the cyber-attack – started onshore. So it's in that area of our critical infrastructure. So worried about dams, banking and our electricity networks obviously.

The second aspect is in relation to child protection. So there's a lot of work that we're doing in cancelling visas of paedophiles and sex offenders that have committed offences against kids, but also looking at ways in which we can disrupt some of that content that's flying online.

So at the moment, if there's a server that's operating out of the Philippines for example, we could have the capacity in certain circumstances to disrupt that server that was streaming information or content of kids being sexually abused and being viewed by Australians back here. But we couldn't disrupt that server if it was in Melbourne or Sydney for example.

So we've just got to realise that the threat from cyber now is as great as it's ever been. People want to use their devices, they want to use them safely, so it's a complete nonsense to suggest you're talking about spying on anyone. It's about how we can use that cyber capacity to attack and defeat people that want to try and attack us online.

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

Stick with us Peter. We're going to take a quick break and we'll come back. The Cameroon athletes who got away from the Commonwealth Games, they've turned up.

LUKE DARCY:

You tipped this I reckon, didn't you Pete? You…

PETER DUTTON:

…they're still running. If they had of competed, it might have been a different story.

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

…we'll put them over the jumps before you throw them out. See if they're any good, okay?

We'll take a break, come back with Peter Dutton. And also the people smugglers are back in town, we want to get to the bottom of that as well.

[Advertising Break]

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

It's always a fascinating discussion with Peter Dutton when he drops by, the Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration and Border Protection. Peter, we always appreciate you when you're in town dropping in to Triple M.

You're going out to the airport today, a Budget announcement of nearly $300 million worth of funding to upgrade airport security. So my question to you is why and what are we going to do?

PETER DUTTON:

Ed, people will remember last year there was an A380 Etihad flight going out of Sydney. It almost was the case that somebody got an IED explosive device onto the plane. Now, had that place blown up obviously it would have been 400 or 500 people dead which would have been horrific and tragic, there would have been a multi-billion dollar impact on the tourist economy, international students, etc. So it made us have a really close look at what's happening at security at our airports.

So what we are now requiring from the biggest airports is an upgrade to a CT X-ray, similar to what people would go through at the international airports. So we've got to still move people as quickly as we can through the security lines, but we've got to make sure that liquids, gels in the modern age, ceramic knives, all sort of devices that might get through the current technology of X-ray don't get through the next place.

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

So we're going to crank up the domestic airlines…

PETER DUTTON:

…we're going to crank it up and at regional airports as well. So we'll provide some capital, help them with the money to pay for that equipment and also we're going to ramp up the number of AFP counter-terrorism officers at the airports as well.

LUKE DARCY:

Hey Peter, it's a heavy portfolio that's under your charge. Border protection a big part of it and it elicits a lot of emotion about people being in immigration detention centres. But it's about people smuggling at one level and you've just managed to get a big boat that was on its way here I believe?

PETER DUTTON:

Yeah there was a boat out of Malaysia which had 131 people on it. So the biggest concern here was that it was a steel-hulled vessel, the biggest vessel that we've seen in recent years.

So under Operation Sovereign Borders, we've turned back 32 boats and we've disrupted a number before they've left. So we've worked pretty closely with the Malaysians on the intelligence side and we've got a good relationship with them.

But it just shows that (a) people are willing to pay their money – there are about 14,000 people in Indonesia at the moment that are willing to pay their money to get on to a vessel – and New Zealand now is being marketed as a destination, even if they don't intend getting to New Zealand, they'll run the boat up on to Christmas Island or on to the West Coast.

So it's a real problem Darce and there are women and children on board. Once the money's taken, the people smugglers don't care whether they make land or go to the bottom of the ocean. So it's good that we can stop it because we're still bringing people in the right way, the Yazidi women, people out of the 12,000 Syrian cohort.

We're a generous country, we bring lots of people in, but we bring them in the right way.

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

Peter, there's a few hot spots round at the moment, isn't there? I mean, we've got the Russians agitating, we've got Syria happening, we've got even the EU with Brexit that's got its own tensions, Malaysia's had a change of government out of nowhere in the last couple of weeks. All these things are sort of flaring up around the place.

The point that you made before, earlier in the first answer you gave when you said that now there's a lot of people who have done their jail sentences who are coming out from the bad old days from 10 and 15 years ago was the bit that sort of sent a shiver through me. What's the biggest – what's the thing that you lie awake at night thinking about?

PETER DUTTON:

Certainly an incident here. So we've, the police and the intelligence agencies have been able to stop 14 attempted attacks so far. Some of those have been as a result of excellent police work or gathering of intelligence, others have been just sheer luck, somebody's made a phone call to the terror hotline or there's a snippet of information that's been garnered from somewhere and it's just luck. So we worry about an attack obviously getting through here.

I worry about Australians travelling particularly across South East Asia, but into Europe now as well. So people need to be really mindful when they're travelling, of their own personal

safety, making sure that they've got that latest advice and information. So a number of areas.

But on the other side of the ledger, we've got some amazing police here, the counter-terrorism intelligence officers at ASIO and ASIS and the rest of it. So they work day and night to keep us safe. There's a lot that happens that people don't see. But we're a target because people don't like the fact that we can allow girls to be educated and people to walk freely down to the mall whatever it might be. So we're a target and we've just got to be prepared for an incident, our response and it's a real problem.

LUKE DARCY:

I just found out before that Peter Dutton's never had a coffee. He's a hard man…

PETER DUTTON:

…a social leper...

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

…welcome to Melbourne, you're going to have to get the [indistinct] into you mate.

LUKE DARCY:

That's right, we might have to do that here next time you come into the studio. We've got our own barista coming in very shortly.

PETER DUTTON:

…It's a pretty impressive setup here mate.

LUKE DARCY:

Yeah we tend to look after ourselves here.

PETER DUTTON:

You've trained Ed up here.

LUKE DARCY:

Haven't seen Ed make a coffee just yet Peter. But I know you've got to, you're on your way up to…

EDDIE MCGUIRE:

….make you the coffee [indistinct].

LUKE DARCY:

Ed provides the people and the people make the coffee. Peter, you've got a big day today, you're out to the airport with the Prime Minister and as always appreciate you dropping by on the Hot Breakfast this morning.

PETER DUTTON:

Thanks very much guys, cheers.