Interview with Ray Hadley, Radio 2GB-4BC

RAY HADLEY:

Every Thursday we speak with the Minister for Defence, Member for Dickson Peter Dutton. He's on the line right now, this time from Brisbane. Minister good morning.

PETER DUTTON:

Good morning Ray.

RAY HADLEY:

I've spoken about this the last three times we've spoken, but I think the Prime Minister and Cabinet made a sensible decision in relation to stopping, temporarily, the flights from India with maybe them coming back on May 15. I note also New Zealand now are pausing the button on Indians or New Zealand Indians coming back to New Zealand on April 11. They decided this week they'll reintroduce the flights, but on a very, very measured scale.

PETER DUTTON:

I think it's a prudent approach Ray, and at the same time we’re providing some support to India. They're a very dear friend and we have a lot that we align with India on in terms of our perspective of the world democracies and obviously a pretty amazing diaspora community here in our country as well. So, 300 000 cases a day, tragically, in India at the moment and we needed to make a decision based on the facts and the advice from the medical professionals, including the Chief Medical Officer, and the numbers of presentations of people coming off flights from India who were testing positive to COVID just made it too much to manage. We'll deal with this issue in an ongoing way. It will be reviewed every couple of weeks and hopefully they get into a better position soon.

RAY HADLEY:

Look, it's typified in many publications a day in relation to the decision you have taken as being heartbreaking for those people, but I think the last 14 months have been heartbreaking for people across the world, including us here – funerals, weddings, you know, family gatherings and not being able to do the things you wish to do with people in aged care and the like, and this is just another chapter in all of that – but at the end of the day, until they get it under control – and there are variants in India that we don't know too much about – there's not much else we can do, I wouldn't think.

PETER DUTTON:

Our first job obviously Ray is to keep Australia safe and secure, so we need to make sure that we make decisions that are in our country's best interests and we have done that. We did it over 12 months ago now when we decided to shut the border with Wuhan and Hubei Province and then the rest of the world and that has put Australia in a position that very few, if any other, countries are in right around the world.

You look at what's happening in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East now; Australia is in a very fortunate position. We've got an advanced health system and care system in our country, but we're blessed, frankly, by being surrounded by water and on this occasion it's served us well. We closed the borders early and that's, I think, made a big difference to the way we've been able to manage it.

RAY HADLEY:

The Chief Medical Officer in New South Wales Dr Chant has been on radio and television this morning saying they expect a record number of cases in quarantine in Sydney hotels today. Now, as far as I know the record’s 18. That was last Friday. She did say she couldn't tell us at this juncture where those people came from, but I'm prepared to wager I know where they did come from and I think Indian Australians have got to understand, and I am sure they do because all of them I know have made a wonderful contribution to this country, their country now, and they want to protect us as much as anyone else. The Indian people who come here to live and then be residents and then citizens, are doers, they are workers.

PETER DUTTON:

They are.

RAY HADLEY:

They are part of the fabric and they've embraced our society and we've embraced them because we've been allies for, you know, longer than we both care to remember, but it's very, very important. Now, one of your favourite topics; Admin Appeals Tribunal. Have you read the story today in The Daily Telegraph and The Courier Mail about decisions of AAT members?

PETER DUTTON:

I have Ray, yes. I'm thinking you would be a good appointment to the AAT.

RAY HADLEY:

Yeah well, they wouldn't be getting the result they got here. When I'm apportioning blame Minister, this was a thought bubble of the Whitlam Government in '75, but then legislated by the Malcolm Fraser Government beyond '75, and the worst decision I can see here comes from a former Liberal Party senator who was appointed by our very own Christian Porter. "Turkish man Amren Joskun will be allowed to stay here and apply for Australian citizenship despite running drugs in 2008 for a mafia boss who was shot dead in 2016. The AAT Senior Member Chris Puplick, who is a former Liberal Party senator from New South Wales, decided inexplicably Joskun was a person of good character and should be given a second chance."

I mean, what happens to these people who come from Liberal backgrounds, Labor backgrounds; do they go to the AAT and get indoctrinated? Do they get put under a spotlight and say, "You will not make a sensible decision no matter what"?

PETER DUTTON:

Well I think the safety net here Ray is the Minister can overturn these decisions and in many of these cases we do overturn them, they should be overturned and no doubt Karen Andrews as new Minister for Home Affairs will continue to do that and Alex Hawke I know has really, you know, stepped up in this area as well.

So I think we need to reflect community views and we've discussed it before; if you have committed a crime against an Australian citizen and you're here as a noncitizen, well, expect to be deported. The AAT should be upholding that and reflecting community standards and values and where they don't, then the Minister or Attorney-General will step in and overrule that decision and then you go to the rest of the court process.

We're a very generous country Ray. There's some constitutional reasons as to why you need to have those different steps in place, but I know Alex Hawke's talking about reforming this area of law and I hope he can continue that work.

RAY HADLEY:

Well the story today says the Federal Government plans to tighten the immigration rules, and it goes through the reasons why. Surely to goodness, given that it was enacted by a Labor government or rather promoted by a Labor government, enacted by a Liberal government, the best thing to do would be to tear it up. We've got in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and all the states and territories, we've got Local Courts, we have got District Court or a County Court in Victoria, we’ve got a Supreme Court, we’ve got a Federal Court, we've got a Full Bench of the Federal Court, and we've got a High Court. Why do we need the AAT?

PETER DUTTON:

Well you’ve got a situation where if there's a jurisdiction in a higher court then people have the ability under the constitution to go directly to that court; and the idea of a lower court or a quasi-judicial process like the AAT, is that people have the ability to have their claim that there's been a maladministration of their matter, and that matter can be heard in a lower court so it doesn't clog up the higher courts – otherwise people are waiting for years and years for a matter to be listed or a finding to be arrived at.

So there are good reasons why you want to try to deal with these matters as low down as possible, but as you say, everybody deserves their day in court, but when it goes on and on at huge expense to the taxpayers then taxpayers, you know, I think quite reasonably, taxpayers get very annoyed at that.

RAY HADLEY:

Officers from the Department of Immigration make a decision. They recommend it to the Minister. The Minister then passes on their decision without interfering and you keep used saying to me all the time, "I can't comment on this. I may be making a decision on it in the future." So it now goes back to Alex Hawke to make a decision. It will then go to the Full Bench of the Federal Court and eventually the High Court. We pay the lister for all that. We keep paying and paying and paying while people who run drugs, who kill people, who bash people – this other bloke, Habib Abdul Ali Azadaid, Uber driver, former family day care provider – that's another rort. Anyway, he pleaded guilty to beating his wife with a large stick. “The AAT member, unnamed, found him to be a person of good character.” Must have been a small stick! Fair dinkum. Peter, honestly.

PETER DUTTON:

No, you shake your head at that.

RAY HADLEY:

All right. Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo has been very clear this week outlining the threat to Australia from China. Now, he's spoken about coming with you I think – I know you have a great relationship with him and confidence in him – into Defence and then as result we have got $747 million to upgrade four key ADF training facilities in the Northern Territory. Should we be worried as a nation about the threat? And there's all the talk about Taiwan and all the rest of it at the moment. That’s been bubbling along for quite some time and they are starting to spread their military might, but I notice the British and Americans and others are circling around that area to make sure that things don't go astray.

PETER DUTTON:

I'll comment first on Mike Pezzullo. He was the Deputy Chief of Staff to Kim Beazley and he was obviously the Secretary during my time as Home Affairs Minister and I found him one of, I think, the most loyal patriot public servants that we have. He's obviously a deep thinker and he has a great sense of history and he, like everyone else is entitled to make a contribution to the debate.

The second point in relation to the three-quarters of a billion dollars we're spending up in the Northern Territory at the moment, Ray, we're upgrading four bases there. There's a big presence of US troops and we hope that number continues to increase and we'll work very closely and train very closely with the United States, our most important ally.

Third point, as you say, many countries around the world, like Australia, are watching what is going on at the moment with the amount of cyberattacks, with the militarisation of ports, and I think people are watching realistically what's happening. People obviously who were directly impacted out of the move in Hong Kong are now concerned about what's happening in relation to Taiwan. My job as Defence Minister is to keep our country safe and make sure that we are prepared for any eventuality and decisions that I make today about investing –and we're putting about $300 billion into defence acquisitions and new equipment etc over this decade –they're decisions that will impact on the ability of the Australian Defence Force in five or 10 or 15 years' time.

So, there are long lead times when you're building subs, or you're building frigates or whatever it might be. We need to have that vision about what could happen, not only tomorrow, but over the next decade or over this century. There's an enormous amount of capacity within the Australian Defence Force to protect our country, but also to step up and support our allies and I think Australians would expect that we'd have a strong fighting force in the Australian Defence Force and we have that.

RAY HADLEY:

Okay. Just finally, you've made good on your threat to take on these people, the social media warriors, with a legal action against a refugee advocate called Shane Bazzi. Now, I know because it's before the courts and it's pending at the moment, you probably can't say too much, but it hasn't stopped Mr Bazzi from continuing to say what he thinks in relation to that and as I said yesterday I think Mr Bazzi needs to retain counsel that tells him when you're in court you should shut up until you have your day in court.

PETER DUTTON:

Look, Ray, my approach has been the same law should apply online as it does in the real world and if it's illegal or against the law for you to defame somebody by publishing something in the newspaper or putting out a leaflet or a flyer, the same rule should apply online. I don't mind fair debate. I don't mind people criticising me or disagreeing with me or agreeing with me; whatever, but it need to be done in a civil way and where people are just making blatant attacks and where it's completely beyond the pale, I think we do need to step up and push back on that. People can have their say online, but do so in a civil way. I think we need to draw some lines and we need to push back on the extremes and that's what I've taken the decision to do in relation to this particular case.

RAY HADLEY:

Okay. We'll talk next week. Thanks as always for your time.

PETER DUTTON:

Thanks Ray. Thank you mate.

[ends]