Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good questions.

Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, there were—I will take that interjection. There were very good questions today. There were serious questions on national security, and unfortunately we got unserious answers from this Labor government. We asked about the return of terrorists and we asked about the return of ISIS brides to Australian soil, but all we got was obfuscation. We got no answers from this Labor government, but the Australia people deserve better. The Australian people are afraid and uncertain. They're scared about where these ISIS brides are going to live. They're scared about what these ISIS brides are going to do. They're thinking, 'Are they going to be our new neighbour?'

There are beautiful communities in Australia—migrant communities that have come here from the Middle East to build a better life for them and their families—and they are scared. This Labor government has lost control of Australia's safety and security. The Australian people want to know how many temporary exclusion orders in total have been issued over the life of this Albanese government. We asked that question today and we got a nonanswer. It's a very simple question about a very simple mechanism that the government can use to prevent people from returning to Australia if they pose a security risk to the Australian people, yet they couldn't tell us how many, under the Albanese government, had been excluded from returning to Australia because of the security risk that they pose.

Australian people want to know what assurances the minister can provide to the Australian public about whether Kirsty Rosse-Emile has been issued a temporary exclusion order, because, according to reporting in the Nightly, she once openly declared that she wanted to make bombs. This woman is now among the cohort of 34 Australian citizens seeking to return from Syria.

So I ask the Australian people: do you have confidence in this Labor government keeping you safe? I don't. You've just got to take one look at its record over the past few years—the firebombings of synagogues, of places of worship, of childcare centres, where Australian children go to learn and have fun with their peers. Australian parents shouldn't be in fear of sending their children to child care or to schools every single day. We've had homes attacked, and of course we've had the tragic event at Bondi, Australia's worst terror event on Australian soil. This is a hopeless, reckless and weak government that has little regard for Australia's national security.

What is the coalition going to do about it? Well, we are very clear. We will introduce legislation to make it a criminal offence to facilitate the re-entry of individuals linked to terrorist hotspots or terrorist organisations who have committed terror related offences. We will take direct action in parliament to strengthen our laws to protect Australia's way of life, because we take national security, domestic security, the security of Australian families seriously. We will shut the door to people who do not share our values. And we will send a very clear message that anyone who travels to a designated terrorist hotspot such as Syria to support a death cult like ISIS does not deserve to come back to Australia.

The coalition, under the leadership of Angus Taylor, will always put national security and community safety first. We will not allow third parties to facilitate the return of individuals who choose to align themselves with ISIS. And let's be very clear about that. These women chose to support the death cult that has held a reign of terror over good people. And now they want to come back to Australia and bring that here. That was a grave choice that they made, and we will always stand against that and we will always put the safety and security of Australian citizens first.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I respond to some of Senator Collins's comments, I'd first like to comment on some changes I've seen in this chamber around the debates on these very specific topics from those questions in question time. The level of disrespect and blatant politicking is an absolute disgrace—asking questions over and over that seek to divide our community and that seek to incite hatred, or about things that many of you in this chamber know full well cannot be aired publicly. And I will say, as a member of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, that the committee has been briefed. Yes, those opposite have been briefed on the whole ISIS bride scenario. So a lot of what's going on here is blatant and disgraceful politicking.

I look around this chamber, and this issue and the other issues more broadly around racism that we have been looking at are a disgrace as well. The behaviour that we've seen just this week has been deeply saddening to so many of us. I look around this chamber, and I know many of you have worked very hard to build community cohesion. You've worked very hard to stand against racism. I would say the standout person in this chamber is Senator Penny Wong. Tireless, dogged and passionate, she is a mighty advocate. And I have been disgusted with what I saw at question time today—disgusted. I and many others I know look up to Senator Penny Wong and what she has done to build community cohesion and to address issues of racism. I was speechless with what I saw happen in question time today—speechless. And we should remember the history of bipartisan support to stand against racism that this chamber has had but that so many have plundered in this term. They've plundered it.

You should be ashamed, because it's not just about having a few arguments in this chamber; we're all happy to have a robust and out-there debate if you want to talk about your policy, their policy, their policy or our policy on housing, tax or energy. Sure. Let's go. But, when it is about inciting hatred and racism and picking one set of people over every other to highlight, it is a disgrace. Make your points without that. Be careful what you do, because we are going down a very, very dirty, slippery path here. I would advise serious caution.

Our community is precious. People come here from all over the world. I came here. I'm an immigrant. I came to this country, and I was amazed at what a beautiful, safe place it is to be. I'd never experienced that kind of community before. I was delighted to be able to immigrate into this country. And my heart goes out every other person who has—those who've maybe found themselves the subject of the disgraceful conversations in here. My heart goes out to you. You are welcome. And our politics in this chamber need to get better. We need to understand the importance, the value and the risks and just be better.

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also take note of answers to all coalition questions—and I thank the minister for providing details about the management of the consular crisis in the Middle East. But I want to make important points here. Firstly, this conflict was entirely foreseeable. We have had over the past few months two US aircraft carrier battle groups in the region. We have had dramatic negotiations underway directly between the United States and Iran in Geneva that were clearly making very little progress. Last week we had for the first time ever F-22 Raptors deployed to Israel—the squadron—and we had the US Fifth Fleet at Bahrain disperse.

All of those signals suggested that the risk of a conflict in the Middle East was high. Indeed, our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade seem to appreciate that, because, on Wednesday last week, they ordered the evacuation of dependants of our diplomatic and other personnel in Israel. And on the same day that week—Wednesday last week, 25 February—they provided voluntary assistance for the departure of dependants of diplomatic personnel in Qatar, Jordan and the UAE. So the government knew the situation was deteriorating, to the point that they were mandating the withdrawal of some of their own personnel and facilitating it for others.

That being the case, why did the Foreign minister, the Prime Minister or the defence minister not step up in front of the cameras and tell the Australian public: 'We are updating our travel advice. We are warning. We have changed the level of advice. We are getting our own people out. The travelling public in Australia should consider using commercial options while they are available'? That's what the Canadian Foreign minister did. Before the war broke out, the Canadian Foreign minister put out a press release urged Canadians to use commercial options while they were still available.

The Prime Minister was asked about this last week. On an interview on ABC radio last Tuesday morning, he was asked about the risks of conflict in the Middle East and about whether he had any advice to give to Australians. He just said: 'Check the DFAT website. We're keeping that updated.' Here was an opportunity for him to communicate the risks to Australians and to mitigate the impact that Australians are dealing with now, and he didn't take it. Instead, he spent most of that interview talking about the person who is currently eighth in line to the succession of the House of Windsor. So the Prime Minister last week was dealing with what would happen if William and Harry and their children were to pass and who would take the throne of the United Kingdom and Australia, rather than dealing with the Middle East crisis that was unfolding in real time and on our watch.

The minister also said that the number of affected Australians dwarfs any consular operation the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has ever conducted. Well, I don't know if that's an assertion she's made or something she's been advised by the department, but I would point out that, after the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami, in which 26 Australians were killed and many more injured, there were some 15,000 Australians unaccounted for. I would point out that, after the Sari nightclub bombing in Bali in October 2002, some 88 Australians were killed and the ADF had to conduct 66 medical evacuations to treat the injured survivors. So our consular services and our department have dealt with crises of this magnitude before, certainly, and unlike in those other two crises—the Bali terrorist attack and the Boxing Day tsunami—we had some forewarning of this.

If the public had been given advance notice—if the minister had stood up at the same time as the department updated its travel advice to highlight and publicise this, as you would expect a responsible government to do—then we might well have a situation today where fewer Australians had gone to the region or where Australians had deferred or changed their travel plans, which would have meant that the crisis we are dealing with right now would be significantly less. That is my complaint, at its heart—that the government had the opportunity to act here and to mitigate the impact on the travelling public. The public right now are understandably frustrated because they have uncertainty, they don't know when they're going be able to get out and they can't get through on DFAT's consular helpline. The lack of preparedness undertaken before this crisis developed is the cause of at least some of that. This is a basic duty of governments—to prepare for national security crises, to make contingency plans and to forewarn and forearm the Australian public. On that most basic duty, this government has failed.

Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a disappointing contribution from the Liberal Party today in question time! This is a Liberal Party that has learnt nothing from the last federal election. They have tried desperately, time and time again, to use this country's national security as their political sport, thinking that they can somehow sneak into government through the back door by fearmongering and deliberately scaring our community for their own political gain. They simply haven't changed, and they haven't learnt anything. We know the situation is a difficult and complex situation. They know it too, because they set up the legal framework. They know this. It is the coalition, after all, who in government let at least let 40 people, including foreign fighters, back into the country under the same legal framework. They know it. They're just using this for political sport, and it is so disappointing.

The Albanese government's position on this issue is clear, and it is longstanding. We are not providing assistance and we are not repatriating individuals from Syria.

National security is not political theatre. We follow the advice of our security agencies and we follow the law. That is how we keep Australians safe. Our agencies have been monitoring these individuals for some time. Our law enforcement and national security agencies are following the same approach they have for over a decade—the same approach the former government took when they were last in power.

But what this is, at a base level, is politics. I thought, maybe—we've got a new Liberal leader; we've got a new deputy Liberal leader—things might be different. But, sadly, the deputy leader sat here patiently for two days, not even getting a question. It was the same old guard asking the questions—Senators Cash, Duniam and Paterson—the old guard holding the mic, not passing it over to the new leadership team. I had hoped we might have heard something different this week from the new leadership team. But it's a bit like the same old show changing the chairs around on the deck of the boat—it's still the same old nasty cruise heading off to nightmare island.

They say, if you're headed in the wrong direction, it's really good to stop and reflect—take some moments for some deep reflection. What kind of deep reflection have they been engaged in across there? Well, we now know, because we've got a leaked copy of the Liberal Party review, about the type of deep reflection that these guys have kind of been ignoring. It says in the report that they've actually been trying to ignore reflection. They don't want to do it; they don't want to think about it.

But what was really interesting in the copy of the report I received was that the reviewers noted the party's capacity to thoughtlessly offend migrant voters, particularly Chinese Australian and Muslim voters, was breathtaking. Those opposite have had the opportunity to reflect on the election review, helpfully made available to all of us from media outlets. But what questions did they bowl up today in question time? More fear mongering, more material offensive to Muslim voters, more material offensive to Australian citizens. The coalition simply cannot be trusted on these issues.

I was really disappointed to see the contributions from Senator Sharma, someone who should know better because he knows, as a former DFAT official, exactly how hardworking our officers are out there on the ground in very troubling, very dangerous and very difficult situations. He comes into this place and he has a crack at them—people who are working around the clock in really dangerous situations—again, to try and fearmonger. We know that there's a difficult situation in the Middle East, so it was so disappointing to hear that contribution.

I will quickly share some advice. We have had a 'do not travel' in place for the Middle East for some time. Those people who require assistance should contact the Consular Emergency Centre on 1300555135 in Australia—or from outside Australia.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will protect Australians' way of life and restore their standard of living. It is a pity that the answers that were given in response to the questions asked by coalition senators did not reflect such an approach, because we must defend Australian values and we must keep our country safe.

We have a prime minister who once said:

My word is my bond.

But, on national security, Australians are again seeing the opposite. When it comes to keeping Australians safe, as with being transparent, you must be seen to be doing that. You must be transparent about what you're doing, because otherwise Australians will conclude the opposite.

Labor claims it does not want ISIS brides to return to Australia. Yet considerable assistance has clearly been given, including the issuing of passports. We're told that the government is not assisting, yet federal and state agencies have reportedly been meeting for months to manage their return. This is disappointing. It is disappointing that the government of Australia, whose primary KPI is the safety and security of Australians, is not being honest with Australian in relation to the dealings with the ISIS brides.

If Labor truly opposed these returns, it could use existing powers robustly and work with the coalition to strengthen the relevant laws even further if necessary. But instead, most disappointingly, we are seeing secrecy from this government. We saw it in question time today. We saw it in question time yesterday. We see it when ministers do the media. They fail to answer the questions, or they use a collection of words that, while making up grammatically correct sentences, certainly do not come anywhere near answering the questions that have been put to them. That is disappointing because Australians deserve clarity, not contradictions.

These ISIS brides chose to enter these ISIS controlled areas. Islamic State was not a social movement. It wasn't a sub-branch of the CWA. It was a brutal terrorist regime. It treated people who were opposed to the caliphate's life view with horrendous violence. These women chose to enter these areas. No-one forced them to. No-one paid them to. These ISIS supporters did that freely and voluntarily. Indeed, it has been reported that one of them said, before going overseas, that she wanted to make bombs. This is someone who freely, of her own will, decided to go overseas to support a horrible terrorist organisation because she wanted to make bombs—bombs to kill people, bombs to maim people.

Australians who are listening to the Senate today and listening to the answers in response to the questions that were put by coalition senators will be able to clearly determine that, while the questions were pointed and while the questions had a clarity around them, sadly the answers in response to those questions had anything but that. They failed to answer the questions; they failed to provide the information; and, most importantly, they failed to provide security to Australians that their government was doing the right thing to keep Australians safe. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.