Topics: ISIL, domestic terrorism, border protection, house prices
E&OE…
David Speers
Welcome to the program.
In Sydney today, a Defence Force member, a uniform-wearing member of Australia’s Defence Force, was allegedly assaulted by two men who were threatening to behead him. Fortunately, things didn’t end up being too violent, although punches were thrown.
Separately, another incident in Sydney’s southwest, a man carrying a knife entered an Islamic school. He was apparently asking “is this a Muslim school?” Again fortunately, no one was hurt. But these incidences, following Tuesday night’s awful incident in Melbourne, where a young 18-year-old man, a terror suspect, was shot dead after stabbing two police officers there. It’s no wonder members of the community are feeling rather nervous these last couple of weeks, and no wonder why the Government is taking action both here and abroad to deal with this terrorist threat.
Tonight we’re going to discuss the national security situation, and a whole lot more. We’re joined by Liberal Senator Scott Ryan, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Cassandra Wilkinson, from the Centre for Independent Studies, David Miles, a former Liberal adviser, now with Willard Public Affairs, and Brendan O’Connor is the Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Welcome to you all.
Scott Ryan, these incidences, fortunately they didn’t end up in anything too serious or too violent, nonetheless, what do they say about what’s going on with the current threat of terror?
Scott Ryan
Well, sadly, as the Prime Minister started talking to Australians about it just over six weeks ago, we are at risk, and our national security and our community safety are at risk, both from people who have been overseas fighting and some extremist groups, a very small number, but capable of causing significant harm to a society that’s always valued peace and in which people go about their daily lives without historically having to think about these issues. And so what we’ve seen, particularly with the tragedy in Melbourne on Tuesday night, is that that warning has actually sadly come true, but I think what we’ve also seen is because the Prime Minister has been so open about it and has had this long discussion with the Australian people about it, I actually think the community’s handling it particularly well.
Speers
Brendan O’Connor, these all seem to be fairly unsophisticated type of attacks, but fairly scary, nonetheless. How do you think they compare to the sort of terrorism that we’ve become used to in the past?
Brendan O’Connor
Well they certainly cause anxiety within the community. The fact that, for example, a young man could attack two police officers in a suburb in Melbourne, 75 per cent of Australians live in the suburbs, and that would have not just affected people in Endeavour Hills, but across the nation. And of course, that is, I guess compounded by what we see in Syria, what we’re seeing in northern Iraq and we’ve seen of course on our television screens in terms of the violence inflicted against a number of individuals, and the beheading of a number of people. So you put all of that together, of course it creates anxiety.
Now I think the Government has quite rightly responded to these matters. The Opposition has worked very closely with the Government, the Government’s briefed the Opposition I think in a very timely and fulsome manner, and I think we’ll continue to work with the Government on this issue.
Speers
Cass, violent things, terrible things happen all the time, but it does seem as though police and possibly uniformed defence personnel are being targeted in a couple of these incidences, how serious do you think we should take them, and are we getting carried away?
Cassandra Wilkinson
I think that we should take them as seriously as we take crime by drug gangs, and crime by bikies, and crime by Eastern European extortion gangs and crime by sex traffickers. There are a great many different kinds of violent criminal in Australia, so far this has caused less mayhem than the western Sydney shootings of a couple of years ago, during the gang wars in western Sydney, and that’s not to diminish any of these things, but just to say you have to be very careful about assuming on the basis of one or two incidents that something profound has happened. The change, the fact that from time-to-time violent young men join groups, whether they’re drug gangs, or jihad, and commit appalling acts for which they need to be locked up.
Speers
David, do you take that point, that young men, some young men, are drawn to violent acts, whether it’s with a bikie gang or in this instance …
David Miles
Well I think that there’s an element of truth to that, I don’t disagree with that as a principle, I think part of the problem, or part of the concern with ISIS or ISIL and the kind of acts that they’re doing around the world that they’d inspire people here, is the random nature of them and the innocent people that they target. And not to diminish the other criminal acts either, but they’re often focused within a targeted area. Bikies tend to attack other bikies, don’t just pick up a random person in the street.
Speers
… it’s the random nature of it …
Miles
That’s right, they’re not trying to make a name for themselves by grabbing an innocent tourist and chopping their head off, and these groups …
Wilkinson
But so far, with respect, we don’t know that that’s happening here. We do know that that’s happening in the Middle East, we do know that it’s happening …
Speers
What about the arrests last week? That was apparently about …
Wilkinson
But what I’m saying is, so far, one of the things that makes us better than the countries in the Middle East, and better than the French, and a whole load of others, is that we have an innocent til proven guilty principle here. Once those cases go to court, and we understand what motivated the offenders, and who their friends and associates are. When there’s this sweep of arrests that happened last week, once that comes forward, we’ll understand more about these people, what I’m saying is what we know so far …
Speers
But we do know now, don’t we, that Islamic State are exhorting their followers to attack innocents because of their nationality, and make a terrifying point out of it, that’s what they’re encouraging their followers to do …
Wilkinson
Absolutely they are, but the point is, that’s what’s happening in the Middle East, we’re not sure yet that that’s what’s happening in Australia. We don’t know yet that Australians need to have a blanket national security tightening, we don’t know yet that Australians need to have journalists prevented from reporting …
Speers
But we did see the arrests last week, we saw the awful incident on Tuesday.
Ryan
I think we are dealing with something different now, we know there’s a couple of dozen people who have fought in these civil wars, horrific civil wars overseas, who are back in Australia. We know there are 50 to 70 over there fighting now, and this is a global problem, partly because of social media and ISIS for example, effectively advertising with these brutal executions and people are seeing it a lot more. And this is recognised around the world now, we did have the UN Security Council unanimously agree to call on all nations to make it a crime to go and fight with these groups where there’s these brutal civil wars. So I think that’s what makes this a little bit different to what Cass is describing, because we’ve had some people over there come back and that is a security risk we haven’t had before.
Speers
Let me ask you this, do you think in situations where agencies work out that you might be talking to people in Islamic State overseas and they decide something needs to happen, should the passport be cancelled or not? I guess cancelling it is obviously going to stop them going to join the fight, but the side-effect can be that that only inflames the situation and provokes them to take some action here.
Ryan
But what’s the alternative? There’s two issues here. Firstly, I think we have a responsibility as a nation to stop our people going and joining these conflicts, because of the brutal crimes that are being committed, and this is a new level of brutality. But what’s the alternative? They go over and commit these crimes, they’re going to come home at some point. And so then we have a bigger problem where they come back, they may have been mobilised to go overseas, they come back more brutal, more traumatised, and probably angrier.
Speers
What do you think, if they want to go let them go? Or should we…
O’Connor
I think that the foreign fighters bill that’s been proposed by the Government is something that the Opposition will sign up to, it’s absolutely right that we should be doing the right thing as a nation, not seeing the escalation of violence elsewhere. And I think there’s another threat, as has been mentioned, that is that returning more radicalised, more likely to be better trained, and potentially more dangerous. So there’s an obligation, both as a good nation doing the right thing for others, but also I think in our interests it’s also important to do, but I don’t think we should suggest all of this is new. I think that this manifestation is new, it’s very serious to the extent of what’s happening, but we’ve seen this before. I’ve seen this as a former national security minister, when we’ve seen large arrests in Sydney for serious conspiracies to commit terrorist acts in 2009, we had 450 police involved in the arrests of those people, and many of those who were suspected of committing or conspiring to commit serious crimes were jailed for long periods of time. So this is not new, and the reason I raise that is it’s important for people to understand that we’ve confronted these matters before …
Speers
Sure.
O’Connor
… and I think, therefore we need to examine the resources and the powers required for law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies and that’s why again, we’ll work with the Government. But we’ve responded to this before, and we quite often respond to these types of matters in a bipartisan way.
Speers
I appreciate some iterations of this have happened before, but there does seem to be a greater magnetism at the moment with Islamic State given the success in seizing the territory they have. One of the important things though Cass, clearly is trying to, once you flag someone and cancel their passport, and not just leave them in that situation in the community, but to try and put them back on a path, a more normal path. The Government did announce some measures today, some funding to reintegrate some of these young men, and help them through their communities as well. Do you think it is possible to help young guys in this situation steer away from the radical group they might have been caught up in?
Wilkinson
Yeah, I think like a lot of people I thought it was a bit rich that some members of their community seemed to suggest it was the Government’s fault that this young bloke had turned to jihad, but obviously if there’s an opportunity for schools and for civil society and for the Government to step in, I think part of it comes back to while I don’t think we should rush in and panic and judge, I do think strengthening our civics culture in schools and in the community, respect for our institutions, of Parliament, and courts, and police, and certainly the armed forces. The idea that someone would attack a soldier or a navy personnel in the streets is just disgusting, I do think there is a place for this.
Speers
And the idea they should hide their uniform too is…
Wilkinson
It’s outrageous, it’s absolutely outrageous. You see a member of our services in their uniform, you should be proud to be have them serve us the way they do. There’s no excuse for that. But we need as a community, I think, to end the cultural relativism and show some more pride in our values and our institutions.
Speers
It’s very hard, David, isn’t it to work out what drives an 18-year-old kid to wage a sort of attack that has apparently occurred in Melbourne on Tuesday night, one minute he’s studying at TAFE apparently and stacking shelves at the supermarket. Then he gets caught up in a prayer group and becomes quite radicalised. How does that happen? How do you deal with that situation before it eventuates in a way it did?
Miles
Well I think it’s very difficult. I don’t know about this specific individual, but I think you would certainly find when it comes to people exhibiting anger in spontaneous ways, or with triggers, there’s obviously likely to be some mental health issue that exists and that is going to make someone more prone to be influenced by one of these groups and it’s going to be a good target for some of these groups to go after and be more easily be indoctrinated.
Speers
Someone posts on Facebook, a picture of themselves with a balaclava and a black flag, something should happen? I’m not blaming anyone here, but I’m just saying the things that can be done to intervene …
Miles
Well you’d hope so, and I think part of the cancelling of a passport is an intervention to begin with, to some extent it’s saving them from themselves, it’s saving them from getting into a situation where, as Scott was talking about …
Speers
But it’s not stopping the sort of thing that happened on Tuesday night.
O’Connor
But this person was identified as a person of interest, of course our agencies would have a relatively long list of people who are suspects, but if they’ve not committed a crime …
Speers
They can’t lock them away.
O’Connor
No, and therefore they monitor people and of course that’s all you can do if someone hasn’t committed a crime or isn’t conspiring to commit a crime. So to that extent I think there’s only so much you can do.
Miles
But following the reporting of that incident, if I have understood the process here, was that he was identified as a person of interest, his passport had been cancelled, the police had turned up at his house to search his room, his mother had called him to say that the police are here, he’s called the police to complain about the fact they were searching it and they said “well come on, let’s have a talk about it.” So you could look at that process and say there was an attempt made there to intervene and to deal with this problem. Unfortunately, it escalated before they’d had that opportunity to even have that conversation.
Ryan
I think Tuesday, without commenting on the course of the investigation or what happened, is a sign of two things. Firstly, there are limits to how you can control an outcome, but the system is in place and working, this person was a person of interest, they were under some surveillance, they were invited to come and speak to the police and wanted to speak to them outside. But it’s also a reminder of how dangerous this is. So even with all that surveillance, even with early identification, and cancelling a passport, and even with the invitation to come and speak to the police, it’s still a very dangerous business for those involved in it.
Speers
Let’s look at what’s happening internationally on this front. There’s actually been some positive signs this week of the international community coming together, both at the UN and certainly around the US with the bombing that’s taken place in Syria with about five Arab states joining in that action. How important are the targets in Syria here to trying to destroy, degrade Islamic State, Scott Ryan?
Ryan
Well as I understand, I did read in the American press today that one of the triggers for the American and the Arab nations targeting places in Syria was an imminent threat to the United States from that particular group that was involved there. So I think that was a unique trigger for that, that’s what was reported in the New York Times. So every nation of course has a legitimate right to self-defence and the words used were “imminent threat” so I think that’s slightly different to what we’ve been talking about in Australia, which as the Prime Minister’s made clear and David Cameron’s also made clear when he takes the vote to the British Parliament this week, that we are putting forces forward to Iraq at the request of the Iraqi Government who have these forces effectively in a civil war, and they’ve requested support from their allies and neighbours.
Speers
But ultimately if Islamic State has strength in Syria, in Raqqa, is that somewhere we should be considering also joining the fight?
Ryan
Well I think let’s actually deal with the issue we’ve got in front of us now, this is a humanitarian intervention from our point of view because what is happening, particularly in northern Iraq was effectively ethnic cleansing in the purest form, and then you had the brutality of what was done to the people left, beheading has become a bit of a common word in the media lately but it doesn’t do justice to the brutality of the regime that was crucifying people and the horrific stories of sexual slavery. So what we’re doing is a humanitarian intervention in Iraq. Syria has had a civil war going on now for four years and that’s a slightly different situation and there are actually quite a number of other groups involved as well.
Speers
Sure, but Islamic State there are reportedly also up to no good in terms of the things that you’ve mentioned there, essentially kidnapping girls, women, selling them into slavery, all of that’s happening in Syria as well.
Ryan
And the key difference is the Government of Iraq has actually asked for assistance from its allies and neighbours.
O’Connor
What we could do though is increase our humanitarian support to those in Syria, we could increase for example, our foreign aid in that area, and I think the Government should reassess the level of support we’re providing there.
Speers
I don’t dispute that, but what’s that going to do to solve this problem?
O’Connor
There’s a number of things you have to do. There might be a military response, but you need to be able to stabilise a region of the world, and one of the ways you stabilise it is providing humanitarian support for the citizens and for the people that are there. Otherwise, you have the preconditions of further conflict and it provides the opportunity I think for people to be seduced to have radical thoughts, radical acts. So both in terms of just being a good national citizen, we should be increasing our aid to that region because it’s a crisis that’s existing in that country
Speers
Cass, do you think we should be involved militarily at all?
Wilkinson
I think part of the answer to that question depends on whether we have a plan. One of the fundamental and important things that that General Sir John Monash believed in, which was unique at the time, was that you should never enter a war, never send Australian troops into a war that you don’t have a good plan to win. And winning doesn’t just mean backing the US alliance, which is a reasonable goal in and of itself, but winning means knowing, for instance, which side of that red line that was drawn last year are we now on, since a side was on the wrong side last year, and is apparently on the right side this year. What is the outcome that we intend in Iraq beyond blowing up our enemies? Our soldiers can win the military battle, our soldiers are some of the best in the word, there’s no doubt they’ll win a military battle, but what happens next?
Speers
It’s a very good point about what is a win, what is the end game here? This week the Prime Minister did say in the Coalition Party Room, and Scott Ryan, you’ll know the quote better than I, but he identified two goals, one being to prevent Islamic State being able to wage genocide, or potential genocide, and the other to launch attacks on the West. Are those two achievable goals, do you think?
Ryan
I think it is possible using the air forces that have been established, because at the moment there’s no proposal for boots on the ground, to use that phrase, to dramatically constrain the ability of Islamic State to go forward in Iraq, to keep putting cities under siege and to conduct the ethnic genocide and the ethnic cleansing that it was undertaking; that is achievable. I don’t think nation building is what anyone is talking about here, this is an intervention the world’s undertaking because of the risk to us. There are somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 fighters that are all going to try and come home at some point. So that needs to be stopped, as well as the atrocities that are happening. I mean we can’t stand by and see this continue to go on while we do have the capacity to dramatically limit it, if not halt it.
Speers
Now, one other thing the Government wants to do as part of the anti-terror laws that were introduced to Parliament his week is to declare these no-go zones, like Northern Iraq and Syria, for any Australian that goes there you could be committing an offence unless you have a legitimate defence then to mount that you were a journalist or humanitarian worker or whatever. But, Brendan O’Connor, what do you really think of these?
O’Connor
Well I’d certainly like to see the detail of what’s being proposed …
Speers
Well it’s out there now.
O’Connor
Well I haven’t been across it, but I can understand exactly why the Government would want to deter people, without good reason, from visiting such places in the current circumstances. So to that extent it’s something that, I have not seen it myself, but I’m sure the leader, the Shadow Attorney General and others would be looking at that and looking at whether in fact we would be supporting it. It just seems to me quite sensible. It’s not the first time, by the way, that Australian citizens have involved themselves in conflicts. If you think about the Bosnian war and we’ve had conflicts before where Australian citizens have gone and come back. And not always imported the violence back, but certainly in the context of this situation I think we have to examine very closely limiting travel for Australian citizens if their intent is one to commit violence or to associate themselves with violent acts.
Ryan
The reason for this is that there is already an offence to go overseas and to fight in a foreign army, but it’s not like we have police forces over there collecting evidence so it’s a very difficult charge to prove. So what this bill will do, if it’s passed into law, it will allow the Foreign Minister to declare zones, which would be disallowable I understand and by the Parliament as a disallowable instrument, and if you are there or you stay there or you travel there you can be committing an offence unless you meet one of the prescribed defences. Now that presumes two things: I mean it’s not like anyone who does something like that will automatically be charged, it will be a decision for the independent Director of Public Prosecutions who’d assemble a case load. And then if you were there for family reasons, journalistic reasons or humanitarian reasons, and you can establish that, then that is a defence. So…
O’Connor
I was just going to ask whether the onus was on the person …
Speers
To produce the evidence; the evidentiary burden.
Ryan
I’m not a lawyer. The way I understand it is you would be guilty of an offence but the defences available to you, and if you establish one of them, would mean that you’re not guilty of the offence.
Miles
But the guilt is proved by the fact that you were there, so it’s a simple test.
Speers
For you to mount your defence …
O’Connor
Strict liability; if you were therefore you’re guilty unless you can prove otherwise.
Ryan
And it does rely on the Director of Public Prosecutions, and they are independent. They do have a great deal of discretion. So that’s an important thing to remember when we’ve had the public discussion around this.
Speers
We’re going to take a break. I want to move away from national security to an issue where there’s probably a bit more disagreement and that is temporary protection visas. Stay with us.
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Speers
Just before we get to the issue of temporary protection visas and the best way to deal with 30,000 asylum seekers that, well, that are in limbo really, I just want to discuss the architecture of national security portfolios. There’s some speculation, discussion around this and Brendan O’Connor, you in particular were for some years the home affairs minister in the Labor government before you were later immigration minister. At the moment you have the Attorney General, who has ASIO under his portfolio responsibilities, yet the Immigration Minister Scott Morrison who’s got customs and broader protection. You’ve got the Justice Minister who has the AFP and some other agencies as well. Should there be some over-arching homeland security, home affairs-type minister in your view?
O’Connor
I think it’s worth considering I think it’s a very, if you look around the world, whether it’s the United States, whether it’s Britain, whether it’s Malaysia or other countries within the region, they all have either a home affairs, homeland security type agency. Of course, remembering that you can have different agencies across different ministers because it all comes together at the National Security Committee of Cabinet. All agencies are present, and if they’re not, all agencies who are not a permanent member would come in for particular items. But I do think that it’s time for us to at least accept that …
Speers
Ideally you have one minister that’s responsible for national security at home?
O’Connor
I just think that what’s happened in a very short space of time that the threats to our country and to our citizens, not from the non-state risks and non-state threats, have dramatically grown. So whether it’s the sort of lone wolf or whether it’s the radicalised home-grown terrorist, these things are threats to comparable countries and to Australia. And I think therefore we need to examine the way in which our agencies are conducted and who they report to, we should think about whether we revise that.
Speers
Scott Ryan, do you think there’s some merit in that?
Ryan
Well I think the key lesson from the tragedies of September 11 all those years ago was coordination across agencies, and coordination across communication. I think Australia has got that quite right, I mean we really learnt the lesson of agencies not talking and information staying in silos, and so we have that and it’s further complicated by the state-federal arrangements. Because we’ve had a long practice at that our agencies are very, very good. On the other side we do have experience, since the Coalition’s been in office, of a greater coordinating role through Scott Morrison’s department and the border security immigration program. And so the lessons from that are that greater coordination, as Brendan has mentioned, may provide some benefits. I think that it’s a discussion worth having, but we’ve also got to be careful not to, I think, to set up a monolithic department if we can get all the communication going on without necessarily a new bureaucratic structure.
Speers
Cass, what do you reckon? Would it be an improvement to, taking up the Operation Sovereign Borders example, have one minister – one supremo – bureaucrat slash uniform person who is in charge of the lot?
Wilkinson
I think it’s a really good idea to integrate the operations of operational agencies together, so you have ASIO, ASIS and, to an extent, military. What I don’t think should happen is that the Attorney General should get either involved in that as they have been recently, or that any resulting homeland security-style minister have seniority to the Attorney General. The Attorney General’s role is to represent the law and those golden threads of law that protect the citizen. Any operational minister always becomes an advocate for the operational agencies. And that’s ok as long as there’s tension.
Speers
But is the Attorney General conflicted at the moment, essentially doing both? Being the guy who decides what liberties we need to protect for all of us, and yet …
Wilkinson
Yes, he’s the poacher and the gamekeeper when it comes to civil liberties at the moment, and I don’t think he’s doing a bad job in the circumstance necessarily, but I think that it’s a role that ought to be fixed.
Speers
David, reading this politically is this a change you see coming under that Government?
Miles
Well I think initially they just have to simplify a lot of the ministries as well, and to simplify titles. I think there’s some restrictions as well that I question. If they’re necessary how many ministers you can have, and it’s capped now at ministers and parliamentary secretaries at 42, which doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. If you need more, well you need more and you have more if it’s necessary. But, because it may well be that you do want to have a homeland security minister but you still want to have a separate Attorney General, you still want to have a separate minister for all the other things that come under it, the coordination is the key. I’m not sure I agree with your argument about hierarchies of attorneys general, when it comes around the Cabinet table to when it comes around the National Security Committee of Cabinet they’re all in there. So I don’t think there is a hierarchy …
Wilkinson
But if I may, I worked for six years with the New South Wales police during the period after 9/11 and I can tell you that a police minister, and I worked for two, that they always advocate for the police and there’s good reason that they should, and the Attorney General is always the healthy tension on the other side that says things like ‘reversing the onus of proof have principle and precedent problems’. It’s important for instance that the Attorney General be a serious lawyer, that’s not necessarily a prerequisite on the operational side.
Speers
Let’s talk now about what Scott Morrison is actually doing at the moment before he gets any enhanced portfolio responsibilities. One of the big things that he’s been trying to bring in, but has been unable to do so far, is temporary protection visas. This doesn’t apply to anyone who comes by boat now, but the 30,000 that are currently in Australia, the Labor legacy case load they’re called, who arrived by boat but are stuck on bridging visas essentially. They’re in limbo, they’re unable to work, unable to do much at all really. So he’s done a deal with the Palmer United Party to bring back temporary protection visas; a three year visa or a five year visa if you decide to go to a regional community under what’s called the safe haven visa. Brendan O’Connor, as a former minister, what’s wrong with this idea?
O’Connor
Look I don’t think TPVs have ever worked. I understand the Minister is very passionate about the idea and about the initiative, but if you look at the evidence, 10,000 came in after the introduction of TPVs. In the Howard years it lead to an increase in children and women getting on to boats because the only way they could be reunified with their husband and father, which led to drownings occurring and they did occur during the Howard years. People tend to forget that 400 on one vessel…
(Inaudible)
I’m just making the point that when TPVs were introduced, and the scale of the influx in the Howard years was less than that of Labor, we know that but it was a very significant influx all the same, it didn’t stop people seeking to come here by boat. And the other point I make, and they know this, of the 10,000 the overall majority stayed in Australia; so they became permanent. Now the real question is what will be the case in 10 years? Will the people who go on to these TPVs, will they be here in 10 years? My answer to that is very likely.
Speers
Is that your view as well; that the 30,000, however many of them get on TPVs, will still be here in 10years?
Ryan
Well they have no right to family reunion, but they can work and they can access social security.
Speers
Will they be here in 10 years?
Ryan
I don’t know. Every three years they must re-apply and they must be granted another temporary protection visa. So depending from whence they came, they may no longer be requiring protection. But what I don’t understand about Labor’s arguments constantly against the TPVs, is that they say they didn’t work and they point to these numbers, but they were part of a suite of measures that the Howard government put in place and they were important because they stopped giving the people smugglers something to tell people. It was like turning back the boats, it changed the way that people understood whether they could get to Australia or not. The problem was when Labor got rid of everything, we had these tens of thousands of people arrive. We took a promise to the election that we want to introduce TPVs because we do believe they are important, we do believe that you have to break up the people smuggling gangs by actually stopping them saying ‘get on a boat and you can resettle in Australia’.
Speers
Sure, but how do you know that TPVs were the thing that stopped the boats?
Ryan
Well that’s the point, it was part of a suite of measures.
Speers
But your offshore processing was clearly a big part of it. Now that that’s been back in the boats have stopped, haven’t they?
Ryan
This is the point, that when Labor talks about how we stop the boats, the truth is they have no record on it. You opened the floodgates and we’re dealing with the mess you left us.
O’Connor
What we cannot do is whitewash history and not concede that the fall in boat arrivals happened before the election because of the PNG arrangements that this Government embraced fully, and they were introduced by the previous Labor Government.
Speers
Getting back to today’s debate though, these 30,000; what to do with them? The policy isn’t going to apply to anyone else who comes. The reality is that these 30,000, the bulk of them are most likely to stay.
Wilkinson
I’m probably the only person at the table who thinks that’s a really good idea. They should stay. I don’t have any difficulty with that.
Speers
It’s a reality, isn’t it?
Wilkinson
Look the reality is that neither side can claim, with any certainty, that they solved the problem. And that’s not because either Labor or Liberal are idiots or didn’t try hard, it’s because some countries in the world are so bad that we’re sending 600 Australian soldiers to blow a lot of bombs up there. Some countries in the world are so bad people will continue to flee them, and the question is not who’s tweaking is better than someone else’s tweaking, the question is what can we as a country do to make the maximum contribution to the global refugee crisis? And that covers Africa and the Middle-East equally at the moment.
Ryan
That ignores what happened under Labor, that when they took away the Howard policies people came a long way, they came through countries on the way to Australia, and you can jump on the internet and see what the people smugglers were telling people in leaflets that were scanned and uploaded. And they were telling people that you can come to Australia and stay…
Wilkinson
You’re kidding yourself if you think that it stopped people seeking refuge; they just stopped seeking it here and I don’t regard that it’s a victory. What you achieved is not that people stopped fleeing their countries, but simply that they stopped knocking at the door of Australia and they knocked somewhere else. Then I just think that is just us not doing what we can as a large, rich country to help with this problem.
Ryan
Cass, we can’t solve the problems of the world. Quite frankly, stopping people from getting on boats and coming to Australia actually is something the Australian Government should do.
Miles
And temporary protection visas, they are being reintroduced to deal with the people that are here. They’re not going to apply to anyone who’s on Manus Island, they’re not going to apply to anyone as in Nauru.
Speers
Given that, why not give them a permanent refugee visa? If they’re found to be a refugee.
Miles
Because the Government clearly doesn’t want to do that…
Speers
Why not?
Miles
Because it’s a temporary protection visa …
Speers
Why do you need to make it temporary?
Miles
Because that’s the whole point. You’re seeking refuge from a set of circumstances, if those circumstances in the country that you came from change you may well be able to return. And a lot of those countries need those people back at some point in time to rebuild.
Speers
What’s a country where that might have happened?
Ryan
Potentially Sri Lanka, I would guess …
O’Connor
There were obviously a lot that were being returned, there was a very large proportion that were economic refugees, they actually said so. I mean, I can’t see Afghanistan changing very quickly. I think the real problem is how long do you leave people in limbo? That is an issue and I think it’s also the case that if they are genuine refugees and they are found to be so, you can’t return them to the country of origin unless the circumstances fundamentally change, that can’t happen. And I don’t think there are other countries that are going to say ‘we’re going to help out this first-world country and settle these people elsewhere’. So they can’t return and they’re not really going anywhere else, they’re going to be here indefinitely with no status …
Speers
Would you put them on permanent visas if they’re refugees?
O’Connor
I’m saying, we’ve had bridging visas, we’ve looked to settle people, we’ve had them on bridging visas at the time we were going through the process of determining who was a refugee.
Speers
Once the process has found them to be refugees, would you put them on permanent visas?
O’Connor
Yeah because we’d go through the process. But of course at the same time, and this is where the two major parties have agreed – and I as the minister came to this view and I had to debate this at a national conference of my own party – that I believed we also had to take responsibility. We are not a plaintiff’s lawyer, we had to take responsibility for what was happening in terms of the dangers that were arising for people that were embarking on unseaworthy vessels heading to our shores. People think it’s not our responsibility and I disagree with that and so did Chris Bowen and others, and so indeed did Julia Gillard. We knew we had to deal with that issue. Now people said that might have been harsh, but we believed the deaths at sea was part of the problem, which we had to try and stop.
Speers
Well part of the solution also being put forward by Scott Morrison is to resettle refugees in Cambodia. It would be voluntary, so only those who choose to go there, once they’re processed presumably at Nauru or Manus Island, can go to Cambodia for permanent resettlement. What’s wrong with that Brendan O’Connor?
O’Connor
I guess it galls me to think that the Minister, when in opposition, and particularly the Prime Minister, did not give the then-government the option of providing Malaysia as a deterrent to people taking such dangerous journeys on unseaworthy vessels. I remember the then shadow-minister Morrison, standing in Malaysia, saying ‘we can’t send people to this country, it’s too cruel, it’s not a signatory to the Refugee Convention’. Basically traducing the reputation of Malaysia, saying it was too harsh. And now he wants to sign an agreement with Cambodia. I have to say on the face it – I’d like to see the detail because we’ve seen nothing …
Speers
He hasn’t signed anything yet.
O’Connor
Yeah but this whole area is done in the dark.
Speers
But if you put forward the Malaysia option – and Malaysia is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention – what can you possible object to in this Cambodia [agreement], which would be entirely voluntary?
O’Connor
What I’m saying is the Minister, when he was shadow minister …
Speers
I get that point. Fast forward to today how could you object to this?
O’Connor
We don’t know anything about it. This bloke doesn’t talk about anything.
Speers
You put up the Malaysia solution, how could you resist this one?
O’Connor
It’s either on-water and he can’t talk about it because it is operational …
Speers
If you put forward that Malaysia option, how can you resist this one?
O’Connor
We’d like to see what the detail is. What is the support? What is the level of support? What does he mean by voluntary? Does he mean we’re not going to actually go through and determine people’s refugee status, we’re going to leave them indefinitely sitting in a camp in PNG? Is that what he is saying?
Speers
It’s a good question Scott Ryan because at the moment there is no resettlement going on in PNG, is there?
Ryan
As far as I know, there’s not. But let’s look at the difference between Malaysia and the proposed Cambodia agreement that will be signed tomorrow. It is voluntary for those who have been assessed as refugees.
Speers
Yeah but if you’re in PNG, you don’t have any other option, do you?
Ryan
We said the option would not be to come to Australia …
Speers
But what’s your other option? If you’re in detention, if you’re in the detention camp – and we’ve seen this year just how bad things are there – what other option is there?
Ryan
Well you are being protected by being there. When you are seeking protection, the obligation is to not send people back, so they are actually being protected in those facilities. This is an option for those who are assessed as being in need of protection. It is voluntary. Cambodia is a signatory [to the Refugee Convention]. We will hear tomorrow about the support we will provide to Cambodia. This is a well thought out plan that has been talked about and developed over many months. Labor’s Malaysia solution was a press release.
O’Connor
That’s not true.
Ryan
We didn’t have answers to a lot of questions, particularly around the application of the Malaysian criminal code and minors.
O’Connor
That’s not true. I dealt with, as did Chris Bowen, we dealt with Minister Hishammuddin in detail. This was all publically expressed at the time.
Speers
I’m not saying it is a bad option, I’m just saying there is no other option for those on Manus Island at the moment. They’re in detention, they’re not allowed to have a life, in terms of working, marrying, going to school, anything. They’re in detention. The only place they could go is Cambodia.
O’Connor
Can I just say, as someone who has been there, the conditions are not great, we know that. The biggest problem though, if they had one hour with me, what did they raise? They wanted the determination process as to whether they were a refugee or not to be instituted. And it’s not happening. That leads to despair.
Speers
Cas, you’re probably rolling your eyes at all of this. Cambodia, what do you think?
Wilkinson
I just think that both options are sub-optional and both options are based on the premise that refugees are a burden. As I said before, I think that the United States of America, by taking in 100 million people from all over the world, became the most successful country in the world. Not everything in America is perfect, but the fact that they welcomed the huddled masses and they grew into a large economic powerhouse.
Speers
They aren’t exactly doing that now on the Mexican border.
Wilkinson
They are doing it with most countries in the world.
O’Connor
Rio Grande, how’s that going? I don’t think so.
Wilkinson
You can’t argue that America provided opportunities …
Ryan
So are we.
O’Connor
And our whole country is successful because of immigration. No one is denying that.
Wilkinson
I think you are denying that.
O’Connor
No I’m not denying that. As a migrant, I can assure you, I’m not denying that.
Ryan
The Americans had controlled their immigration program. They had an open immigration program famously, which is the quote at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty, and that was closed in the 1920s, I believe, or maybe just after World War I. They’ve had a controlled immigration program. They have a large one, we have a large one. It is a very different in scale. They also have a very big illegal immigration problem and when you go to the United States and you see issues of exploited workers, you see farm workers being paid subsistence wages, I don’t think a lot of Australians would actually like some of the consequences of illegal immigration that you see in the United States.
Miles
But Cass there is a key point here. I’m sympathetic to your point of view, but you’ve got to go back to what is the origin of all of this policy decision making? It all comes back to the method by which these particular people sought refugee status, which was to work with people smugglers in order to get on boats, and that’s where it has come from. If you’ve come from another process where you come in the front door, none of this applies to you.
Wilkinson
There is no front door in most places for these people. The reason they came through the back door is because the front door was shut.
Miles
That’s not true. Australia brings in a lot of refugees every year through a front door, and none of these procedures or processes apply.
Speers
If you are fleeing persecution, Cambodia may not be the number one choice, but if you are safe from persecution there. Where do you draw the line? If that’s not ideal, where do they go?
Wilkinson
Cambodia is safer than Sudan for the person who moves there, but the problem we face is that we’re treating fellow human beings as if they are a burden to us. I understand that …
O’Connor
I find it so simplistic. I understand your sentiment, I sympathise entirely, but it is simplistic to suggest this country could absorb anyone who would like to be here. It’s not going to happen.
Wilkinson
Nobody, least of all me, is suggesting everyone comes straight away, but if we did better than 15,000 a year. Somewhere between my naïve hallucinations and your 15,000 a year there is plenty of room to move.
Ryan
I was in the Senate when the first Labor immigration minister, Senator Chris Evans, told us these are all push factors, that changing the policies would have no consequence and the legal advocates and refugee advocates said it would take 50 years to fill the MCG. Well they half-filled it in three or four years. We had a major problem.
O’Connor
Why did it start under [John] Howard then if it had nothing to do with domestic policies?
Ryan
It started, but we stopped it. That’s the whole point. It was stopped and you started it again.
O’Connor
Why did it start under Howard?
Ryan
Occasionally there are push factors and the difference under your policy was that you opened the gates and you created a much bigger problem than would have other otherwise occurred.
Speers
I think we’re back to where we started on this.
Miles
It is all about destroying the ability of people smugglers to sell a product. Now these people are unfortunately getting caught up in it, but this is all about destroying the people smugglers product. As happened under the Howard government, when you bring those numbers down, you can bring up the others.
Wilkinson
It would be nice if they now did.
Speers
We’re going to take a break on that note.
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We’re talking tonight to Senator Scott Ryan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education; Cassandra Wilkinson from the Centre for Independent Studies; David Miles with Willard Public Affairs, a former Liberal advisor; and Brendan O’Connor, the Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.
We were just discussing what we would discuss now. A couple of issues I want to get through: house prices. If you live in Sydney or Melbourne this is a big topic of conversation. We’ve all seen the prices going up and up and up. The Reserve Bank Governor and the Reserve Bank clearly have a pretty big concern about what’s going on here. They are looking at ways of maybe not popping the bubble, but certainly taking some of the air out of it.
David Miles, one of the mechanisms might be tighter lending requirement from the banks as to what a borrower would need to have in the kitty before they are able to borrow, so they may not be able to borrow 100 per cent.
Miles
Those things are in place now. Banks require you to have 80 per cent.
Speers
Investors can borrow, if you’re buying an investment property, which is clearly what is driving up a lot of the market, you can borrow 100 per cent.
Miles
That’s true, you can. You’re obviously then earning an income from it.
Speers
And negative gearing.
Miles
For a regular home loan – and it’s not just investors that are pushing up house prices – people are buying properties and they’re pushing up housing prices. That’s Sydney and the Sydney market is an expensive market, it has always been an expensive market.
Speers
So would you just let the markets run?
Miles
Well markets do what markets do.
O’Connor
The market doesn’t run because there are all these government policies that intersect with the market.
Speers
Things like negative gearing.
O’Connor
And stamp duty. Stamp duty prevents all sorts of things. Looking at the ACT’s move to phase out stamp duty is very interesting, both in terms of efficiency and equity. We’ve got people getting older and not selling their house because of stamp duty; labour mobility is a problem because of stamp duty, people won’t move. In the last 100 years, there used to be about four and a half people per house. Now it’s two and half so there need to be more dwellings.
Speers
A lot more housing stock. Cass, you’ve got whole generations locked out of ever owning a home.
Wilkinson
The problem, as the Centre for Independent Studies has identified in research over many years, as have most of the leading thinkers in this area and most economists, is that supply isn’t sufficient to meet demand. The problem is regulatory restrictions on land release. As Brendan says it is about stamp duty being a massive disincentive to moving where jobs are, as well as moving to different sizes of homes. It is the fact that 40 per cent of the price of a new home is taxes and it’s the fact that density, the fight to get density to bring down the price of housing in the cities, has fallen over because of NIMBY-ism and weak government decision making.
Miles
Exactly right. That has a flow on effect to a whole range of other things because without having that density, you then have not only an additional burden of people wanting to buy larger blocks, but the burden of transport and transport infrastructure and productivity. It is a massive problem.
Speers
The productivity that is lost in people driving.
Miles
Sydney is a nightmare for that reason already because we’ve also made terrible decisions in the past by having multiple business districts all over town, rather than having everyone concentrated on the CBD. There are 10 business centres in Sydney and everybody expects there to be transport infrastructure to get to all of them. It is an absolute nightmare.
Ryan
I’m actually with Cass on this. I think rising house prices is not something we should be assuming is a good thing. There are very serious inter-generational effects happening now with a generation finding it so much harder to have access to the housing market.
The problem with proposals to increase the requirement for a deposit is that it just makes it even harder for that very generation. Cass is right, we’ve had constrained land release, infrastructure charges, even things like building codes have actually made building houses more expensive. We have a lot to learn from places like Houston, in the US, there they let people buy a quarter-acre block and they release as much land as people want. Housing over there is much, much cheaper. In fact when people come from anywhere but London or Vancouver, which is a bit like Sydney and Melbourne, when people come from the US to Australia and see our house prices … even to Sydney from New York, they …
O’Connor
It’s true, Sydney has just hit a median price of $800,000.
Speers
If you come from anywhere else in Australia …
Ryan
That’s true.
Miles
The family home in the US, as I understand it, your repayments are tax deductible.
Ryan
The interest is. But I think you’re also capital gains tax liable on the house. Negative gearing is not as big an issue as people make out, it’s actually the oldest rule. We have more demand than supply. Our two big cities – Melbourne and Sydney – have got a lot of immigration. The reason Melbourne has been going up a bit like Sydney for the past five or six years where it historically didn’t, is because Melbourne has now got a very big number of interstate migrants, as well as international migrants.
O’Connor
I think governments can play a role too and we did. I was a big supporter of the construction of social housing.
Ryan
That doesn’t do anything for affordability though.
O’Connor
Of course it does, it creates a greater level of supply and reduces prices.
Ryan
But it imposes costs. When you had social housing requirements in some parts of Melbourne, the government would give approval for towers on the basis that certain apartments were set aside for social housing, which basically meant the other people in the building were paying the cost. All those hidden costs force up prices.
O’Connor
The previous government was involved in the construction of one in every 20 homes in the period when we were in government and I think there is a role for governments to play in housing stock and providing support for people, particularly in terms of housing affordability. You know purchasing houses is falling and it is not just because of the problems of getting into the market, if you think about it, younger people, it is not just about being priced out, they have a different view about what matters to them.
Ryan
Houses became affordable in this country after [Robert] Menzies in 1949 opened up suburbs. We had massive land release, we had infrastructure provision and we said people could go and build their own home and we made it as cheap as possible. Since then we are building layer upon layer of regulation, control, building requirements and taxes and that’s driving up the price as much as lack of supply.
Speers
Something might be done about it one day. We are out of time to solve it here now. Thank you for joining us.
(ENDS)