Minister for Defence - Transcript - Interview with Leigh Sales, 7.30 ABC

Re: Iraq.

LEIGH SALES:

And a short time ago, I was joined from Perth by the Defence Minister David Johnston. David Johnston, is Australia being goaded into war, as Christine Milne asserts?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, Leigh, it's very clear that right-thinking nations sitting back and doing nothing is going to mean a lot of innocent deaths in Iraq. And it's very, very clear that the terrorist atrocities being committed by ISIL call for action. Now, whether we're going goaded or not is completely beside the point. We must protect these people.

LEIGH SALES:

Christine Milne's point is that Islamic State will use the West's new mission as a recruitment drive and a motivator. We know that groups like al-Qaeda did that in the first decade after the start of the War on Terror. Isn't it logical that Islamic State will do the same this time?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and many other countries - France - have had a problem with foreign fighters being recruited into Syria and Iraq for more than 18 months. To say that this is something that's going to change things overnight, we have had this problem for some long time as a group of nations. Now, what we've seen recently is what happens when you don't do anything about it. And so we need to respond to it now.

LEIGH SALES:

Last week, President Obama said that the mission was to degrade and destroy Islamic State. Today, the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said it was to disrupt, degrade, and, if possible, destroy Islamic State. Are we already dampening expectations?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

No, we're not. We have not begun operations. We're some little distance from commencing any operations.

LEIGH SALES:

Is it possible to destroy Islamic State?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, I believe it is. I believe the end game is that we will disrupt and potentially destroy what is in the minds of the leadership of ISIL, and that is to set up a separate caliphate state that is ruled by sharia law and all of the things that go with that. Now, we have legitimate states in Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. We've seen how quickly these people move. We've seen the level of atrocities they deliver onto the ground to innocent people, and so, we must respond.

LEIGH SALES:

In repeated interviews today, the Prime Minister characterised this as an essentially humanitarian mission, a fundamentally humanitarian mission. The US Secretary of State John Kerry has described it as a war. How is it that we're calling it a humanitarian mission and they're calling it a war?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, because when we first commenced operations here, we were saving the lives - directly saving the lives of people in Sinjar and people in Amerli. Clearly, the enemy here has a very strong military capability.

LEIGH SALES:

So what is the mission now, to be clear? Is it a humanitarian mission or a war?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, I think broadly speaking, it is a response to atrocities, which mean we want to, as a priority, protect innocent Iraqi lives.

LEIGH SALES:

So it's a humanitarian mission?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

I think protection is the first thing. Now in protecting those lives, we want to build the security forces in Iraq, both the Peshmerga and the Iraqi security forces, so that they can provide security to their own citizens themselves. Clearly, they have fallen short of the mark to this point in time, although the Peshmerga have been very successful in some respects. The fact is, we cannot sit back and allow ISIL to reign across Iraq unfettered.

LEIGH SALES:

To be clear, is this a humanitarian mission or is it a mission to protect Australia's national security?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, I think there's a huge national security element to this. We've got more than 60 foreign fighters with this organisation. Now, they must either come home at some point or I don't know where we're going to go or what they're going to do, depending on how things play out here. But this is also a very significant domestic problem for us, one that we've been dealing with for some time, one that we are seeking to respond to with changes in legislation, and we've already said that we will beef up our security agencies in Australia and their capacity to deal with this foreign fighter scourge.

LEIGH SALES:

Minister, if it's a significant domestic problem, wouldn't the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on this mission and the resources attached to it be better directed to policing the tens of citizens living here in Australia who've already been radicalised abroad?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, Leigh, we're doing both things. We're trying to manage the domestic situation; we've put $600 million on the table to improve our capacity. We're changing the law so that we give authorities better capacity to deal with that. But we're also dealing with this issue in Iraq where there is a direct, clear, and present threat to innocent civilians.

LEIGH SALES:

What evidence is there that that threat extends to the Australian homeland?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, you on have to see the picture of an Australian in ISIL holding up the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

LEIGH SALES:

But that person currently is overseas to the best of our knowledge, and if he's in Australia, presumably he's under police and ASIO watch?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, that's right. He will want to come home at some point and we'll want to deal with them when he comes home. All of these foreign fighters are committing criminal acts whilst they're fighting for this terrorist organisation.

LEIGH SALES:

But if they're over there in Iraq and Syria then what is the threat that they pose to the Australian homeland?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well they'll want to come home, and they'll want to come home with skills in chemical weapons, small-arms fire, explosives management, and a whole host of other skills that we simply must deal with when they come home.

LEIGH SALES:

But then that returns to my point; why would we not be better offer spending $400 million policing those sorts of people back here and doing more to protect the homeland than fighting an essentially humanitarian mission in Iraq?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, because I think if you do one and not the other you don't cover the whole field and you don't do the job properly, fundamentally.

LEIGH SALES:

What evidence is there that Australia's involvement in this mission will reduce the threat of home-grown extremists mounting a terrorist attack here?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, as I've said, we've put a lot of money on the table to deal with this. We've seen Islamic leaders in Australia saying the right things in the last several days, but we do need to ensure that we delegitimise the ISIL threat and the image of ISIL. For this organisation to be using the Internet in the way that they are, with public broadcast beheadings, clearly there is a requirement that we take some action here. They have slaughtered and crucified, if I might say, a number of people: soldiers unarmed, local authority leaders, innocent people, selling women into slavery. All of these sorts of atrocities must be dealt with by right-thinking nations.

LEIGH SALES:

What evidence is there that Islamic State has the capability to mount a terrorist attack in Australia?

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Well, I don't want to take the risk because I can tell you now that prior to 9/11 I didn't think anybody believed that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan had much of a capability. Unfortunately, we're all a little the wiser looking back, and I think that Jemaah Islamiyah was perceived not to have a capable to carry out the Bali bombing.

LEIGH SALES:

People actually did think that al-Qaeda had that capability. Bill Clinton considered strikes on al-Qaeda in the late 1990s.

DAVID JOHNSTON:

Okay. Well, I think these people might have a similar capability and we need to deal with it. If we sit on our hands, I think we are not managing the risks appropriately.

LEIGH SALES:

Minister, thank you very much for your time tonight.