THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 19 AUGUST 2024
SUBJECTS: MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
NATALIE BARR: The political firestorm around Peter Dutton's call to ban refugees from Gaza is said to escalate this week after the Opposition Leader ramped up his rhetoric over the weekend by comparing Hamas terrorists to the Nazis.
Dutton is also seeking legal advice after independent MP, Zali Steggall, called him a racist over his opposition to granting Palestinians visas, which he says is grounded in national security concerns.
For their take, let's bring in Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, and Nationals MP, Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you.
BARNABY JOYCE: Good morning, Nat.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Good morning.
BARR: Well, Labor frontbencher, Ed Husic, has revealed that Palestinians have been granted tourist visas instead of refugee visas because they were actually faster at the time. Tanya, can you understand why this has led to national security concerns?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, no, I can't, Nat, because the same systems are in place now as when Peter Dutton was the Minister, the same personnel are there, the same head of ASIO giving us the same advice as when Peter Dutton was the Minister.
It's worth pointing out that fewer than 3,000 visas have been issued, more than 7,000 have been rejected. So it's certainly not easy to come to Australia, and in any case, all of the borders are shut now, so if you're in Gaza, you're stuck in Gaza.
When you look at that footage every day of the bombings, the 40,000 people who've lost their lives, 16,000 children who've been killed during this conflict, it's no surprise that ordinary people, not supporters of Hamas, ordinary people are trying to get out of what is obviously an absolute hell‑hole.
BARR: Yeah, it's –
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And there would be a lot of people like me whose parents came here as refugees after the Second World War who would understand that the gift of safety, a place that you can safely raise your family, is incredible, and people like me feel grateful every single day that their parents were able to leave Europe after the Second World War, after so much destruction and violence, and live safely and peacefully, which is what most refugees who come to Australia want to do.
BARR: You're right. This country was built on that. We understand that. But on that point, that your Government is saying that Peter Dutton did the same; he says they didn't. He said when they were in charge they did face‑to‑face offshore meetings. So there's a real discrepancy here.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I tell you, we're not going to go through all of the security checks that we do, because advertising every step we take is a great way to tell people who are trying to avoid the security checks how to avoid them.
But we are getting the same advice from the same security personnel, we've got the same rules in place, and of course, if you're leaving Afghanistan after the Taliban have entered, you've got the same sort of pressures of time. Peter Dutton took people from Afghanistan after the Taliban entered, he took people from Ukraine, he took 12,000 people from Syria and Iraq, and, you know, it is a big and complex task when you've got these time pressures in a war zone.
BARR: Barnaby, we've got more than 10,000 children killed in Gaza since the war began. I know the gates are shut now, but shouldn't we be trying to get them out of danger instead of sort of putting these particular rules in place here?
JOYCE: Well no one's denying, not for one second, that it is abominable what is happening in the Hamas‑Israel war; it is dire. No one is arguing that point at all. What we are saying is that our first and foremost issue is to make sure that we don't have a rush in such a form as we put Australians at risk. If we had one terrorist attack in Australia that was linked to this, it would break all goodwill, it would be catastrophic. And that's what people are worried about.
All the issues that Tanya just brought up of by refugees, overwhelmingly, and the issues she brought up, from countries that had been invaded by a hostile enemy, and that's what Hamas did to Israel, it invaded Israel, and Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and when we hear Ed Husic, Minister Husic saying they're getting visitor visas, not refugee, not going through the refugee process, and when we have the Prime Minister who deliberately and wilfully misled Parliament by saying – leaving out the crucial words of "if criteria hit" – he knows exactly what he's doing.
He's been around here since the 1990s, a long, long time. He knows what he's doing. Then people – it reinforces in people, "You've being sneaky, you're not being straight with us, and you don't – and you plead to our sense of goodwill, which we've got, but we want you to keep us safe".
We don't want any of the – what we're seeing there, or the people who would be enmeshed within a large‑scale movement of people from that Hamas‑Israeli war into Australia, bringing amongst them, amongst very, very relevant and very, very understanding and right causes would be people who have only ill intent, and we just can't afford that. Our number one issue here is to look after Australians, and we've been misled by the Labor Party; they are not being straight with us in what they're saying.
BARR: Yeah. Well, look, I think we need to get the facts straight, because – and we need to take the emotion out of it, which is incredibly hard, and we need to find out exactly what's happening.
I think we've both had our say for this week. We'll see you next week.
END
