2GB Ray Hadley
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
Minister good morning to you.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Ray.
HADLEY:
Now before I get to your normal portfolio, I spoke yesterday about a convicted Queensland paedophile, a grandfather, who is being released as we speak if he hasn’t already from Villawood Detention Centre after the Federal Court quashed your decision to cancel his visa. Now this bloke was born in the UK, held a five year resident return visa, he pleaded guilty in 2013 to three counts of indecently treating a child under the age of 12 who was quote “his lineal descendent” – his grandchild, under his care. He was convicted and sentenced to two years jail, suspended after six months of course, which is another story for another day – what we do with paedophiles in Australia. Justice John Logan has ruled your use of discretion was unreasonable “used a sledgehammer to crack a nut.” Have you still got a sledgehammer in the bag you can use there somewhere?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well not as Social Services Minister but as Minister for Immigration I had just zero tolerances for paedophiles. I cancelled numerous visas for people who were involved in that and we actually changed the law to ensure there was an automatic cancellation for those who were involved in serious offences and I make no apologies for it and I wish he was going home.
HADLEY:
Can your now Minister, Minister Dutton, have another crack or is that the end of it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well if it is a Federal Court decision I imagine then it’s up to the Government to be able to take it further with appeals. I mean this is an important part of the system that if you commit a crime when you are on a visa, I don’t care how long ago it was and particularly if it is a crime against children then you have no place here, absolutely no place here.
HADLEY:
But why – I mean look I know that Justice Logan would say “look I am not interested in the whys and where fors of paedophilia I’m dealing purely in case law.” But at the end of the day if there is a Federal Court judge who thinks it is ok for a bloke on a visa who performed sexual acts on his grandchild to stay here we have a problem with the Federal Court don’t we?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well look I have moved on to a different portfolio now and I don’t get the briefs on these cases or the court decisions. But often the issues here more generally speaking when courts overturn these decisions relate to the persons connection to Australia and how long they have been here. Frankly I don’t care; I really don’t care how long they have been here. If you came out and you’re on a visa you are not a citizen – we are already having a discussion in this country about citizenship for those who are engaging with terrorism and why we would strip their citizenship away. Well frankly if you are on a visa and you have been convicted of an offence involving sex with a child, go home. Full stop.
HADLEY:
Well seeing as you started on that pathway, and we will come back to your portfolio in a moment, Philip Ruddock says terrorist supporters who have their citizenship revoked will be able to appeal the decision before they are deported. This Special Envoy for Citizenship says proposed new laws are expected to include the option of a judicial review. Is that the way it is going to tumble?
MINISTER MORRISON:
This was always the proposal that there would be judicial review of a Minister’s decision and somehow this was conveniently left out against the narrative against the proposals the Government were putting up. It was always the proposal that there would be judicial review of the decision of a Minister as there always is, as this case in relation to this other character has indicated. I think on that debate more generally we need to remind ourselves we are not talking about people who are going on holidays to the Ivory Coast or something like that. We are talking about people who are going to Syria and or Iraq to fight with Daesh. If you don’t want to have your citizenship cancelled don’t go there. It’s pretty simple. Because if you do go there the Government wants to do everything within its power and wherever possible create the powers that ensure you can’t come back. It’s that simple. We are focused on the outcome here; we don’t want them coming back.
HADLEY:
Ok now you were Immigration Minister, we have spoken about the Federal Court but we now should talk about the Administrative Appeals Tribunal because they overturned many decisions when you were Immigration Minister. But it seems now that you are the Social Services Minister more and more appeals to the AAT are going your way. Have you changed any of the personnel there have you? Have you cherry picked some people to place in there at your disposal?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Government is regularly making appointments to these various panels…
HADLEY:
Have you made any appointments recently?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I can’t claim that that has been responsible for this initiative. But the Government has taken a very strong view about rorting when it comes to welfare. Welfare is for people who need it not who want to game it. I am pleased that the appeals mechanise is backing up the decisions of the Government. We have already introduced tougher measures relating to Government doctors having to approve your condition in relation to your Disability Support Pension application. We have tightened up the portability arrangements so people just can’t you know troop off overseas for as long as they like and continue to pick up the DSP. You don’t get sort of holiday pay when you are on the DSP. We have put over $200 million in this Budget into strengthening our compliance and welfare cop on the beat measures through the Department of Human Services. So we are – we promised a tougher cop on the beat and that’s for welfare – a stronger welfare cop on the beat and that is exactly what we are delivering.
HADLEY:
Are you surprised the Admin Appeals Tribunal is being so supportive of the Minister’s measures?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I am pleasantly encouraged.
HADLEY:
Are you astounded?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well let’s just say it is great to see. I mean being in previous portfolios and other places and your listeners would be well aware of many of these decisions and look I respect the role that they have to play and they will often look at the sort of black letter of the law in this. That is why it is important that Ministers can make decisions. I would regularly make decisions as Immigration Minister under the intervention powers where an appeals process could only make one decision which wasn’t in my view in the interest of the country and that’s why the intervention powers are there to overturn those decisions.
HADLEY:
Ok, running out of time to legislate reform due to start July one with deals yet to be reached on cutting Family Tax Benefits, income supplement, and unemployment benefits. The Palmer United Party Senator – the last one standing, Dio Wang – there is no one left he is it, has declared he won’t support your changes to the Paid Parental Leave scheme. Now I know that you have been able to somehow guide your way through the Senate and use all your best diplomatic skills to con these people into believing you are one of them but it looks like you have run out of chances now with some of these people.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well we were never counting the PUP votes on any of the measures. They have made it pretty clear even before we had announced them that they were opposing them and I think that is a pretty irresponsible position to take but that is the position they have taken so I haven’t wasted any time talking to PUP on that matter…
HADLEY:
What about the rest of them? So you haven’t spoken to Clive [inaudible]
MINISTER MORRISON:
There is no point because their position is well known and I am not going to waste their time and I presume they don’t want to waste ours. But the other Senators have been very engaging on all these issues. We aren’t running out of time that’s just simply not true. I mean some measures can take months to get passed, others can go more quickly. We are engaged in those discussions with the Senators now. Often times in the media they want to create a sense of crisis around these things, there is no sense of crisis around this what so ever. We are following the normal process and we are working through the issues with the crossbench. We wouldn’t have to do this is of course if the Labor Party were actually going to support savings. They seem to be in a fit of self-congratulation today because they are actually going to support a saving that they themselves proposed. I mean it is a drop in an ocean in terms of what they are supporting on savings. They have a $50 billion hole in their own fiscal set up in relation to the Budget. I have called them Budget smugglers because they think they can make promises about things without having to pay for them and that is exactly what they do.
HADLEY:
Now, I have an email “what is the best phone number to report a welfare cheat?” Its 131 524.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s it.
HADLEY:
131 524. Everyone has a boss it appears, except the Human Rights Commissioner, Gillian Triggs. I think you are going to need a shoe horn to get her out of her position. Minister Dutton is doing his level best. She has made some outrageous claims including the presence of armed guards on Christmas Island that we dispelled six months ago. She has now tried to link, or suggest a link between Australia and turning back boats – the policy and then Indonesia’s refusal to negotiate over the death penalty for two of the Bali Nine. She has overstepped the mark on many many occasions but at the end of the day is she here until 2017? Is that the end of it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well that is how it works but I mean the great tragedy about all this is putting aside various Government Ministers and the Government’s differences of views with Gillian Triggs, I don’t think the Human Rights Commission has been well served by her tenure. I don’t think Australians feel better and more supportive of the Australian Human Rights Commissioner because of her engagement in various issues and what from looking outside in I’m sure looks like a completely partisan approach to these sorts of issues. I don’t think that serves the Institution of the Human Rights Commission very well and above all that’s the thing that I think should be weighing on her mind and those who advise her.
HADLEY:
Finally, there is a piece in Fairfax papers this morning about conservative Government MPs warning the Prime Minister he faces a quote “savage internal backlash over the issue of same sex marriage.” They’ve even likened it to the split over the ETS that cost Malcolm Turnbull the Liberal Party leadership back in 2009. Now you are on the record – your opposition to gay marriage, you are entitled to your view. There are people from the Labor side of politics who share your view; a notable Senator there has expressed that view. I don’t know what the Prime Minister does with this one. He has held a certain view for a long, long time, like others including me that view sort of changes with time and things happen in your life and you think about it. I don’t think Tony Abbott – I made the point on the Today Show this morning, is the type of person to be threatened by these warnings. I mean I know people are fervent about it, on both sides of the argument. But do you need to threaten the Prime Minister from within?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I don’t believe anyone has number one, number two is I am quite certain the Prime Minister hasn’t changed his view on the central question on this issue and he certainly hasn’t indicated that to me or anyone else. This debate shouldn’t be owned by any one side of politics but also Ray it shouldn’t be owned by any one side of the debate and I think there is a lot further to go on this question and on this issue. It is a very significant change to a long standing institution not just within this country but more extensive than that and I think the Australian people have to be taken along on this issue. The questions about conscience votes and these sorts of things well we are not even at that stage yet because they are – for a Bill to go to the floor of the House of Representatives the government has to be able to permit that to occur and I think there is a lot more discussion, a lot more investigation into these issues and the presumption that there is only one question to be put here I think is frankly presumptuous. There are migrant communities and ethnic communities all across this country who have very strong views about this issue. Not just those from Christian Anglo-Saxon backgrounds but right across the community. I don’t think a lot of those voices have been heard yet in this debate and I think it is important that this decision isn’t imposed upon people around the country and it is properly ventilated and everyone’s view gets to get worked through.
HADLEY:
In relation to this and this is a personal view. I haven’t thought much of it and I am 60. I have spoken to people about it more recently because of the prominence in the media and I play a role in the media and I spoke to someone and I can’t identify them because that would therefore identify their son who is homosexual, who has a partner, he is a young man in his 20s, late 20s who wants to commit to that partner in a formal sense and the father had a similar view to me and said I will ask you two things, he said why shouldn’t he find some happiness in the same way that I was able to find happiness with my wife. Secondly if it was your son would you feel different, or you daughter? I did an honesty test and probably thought yeah I don’t have a homosexual son or daughter and I would embrace them with all the love and care that I embrace any heterosexual partner they had so and I have had friends over the last 40 years who handle that, some appropriately, some inappropriately, particularly those who did it 30 or 40 years ago. It is a really difficult thing to deal with, Scott, when your son comes home and says dad I am gay, it is really difficult. Then you start to think, and my 21 year old daughter who is now based in the United States said to me and you know she lectures me quite often about a whole range of things and she knows more than dad.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s a daughter’s job.
HADLEY:
She said dad, you need to reassess things, you need to be a little more open minded about things. I guess to a certain extent I am being a bit more open-minded about it and I keep thinking about my friend and his son.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That is the sort of time we need for those sorts of reflections to be had. The presumption that there is only one answer to this question too that same sex marriage under the Marriage Act is the only answer. Philip Ruddock last night was referring to a French style outcome where you would have registered civil unions at the federal level. So there would no longer be, under that proposal a Marriage Act as such. There would be a Civil Union Act where you would get equality of all relationships before the law and then issues of marriage would be determined by the various religious bodies. I think there are a range of options yet which haven’t been ventilated because…
HADLEY:
Sure.
MINISTER MORRISON:
[inaudible] same-sex marriage bandwagon then somehow you are a homophobe or something like that then I don’t think that is very helpful.
HADLEY:
You are offering via what you just said an explanation and a solution I think.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah. I think that needs to be ventilated, the idea that there is just one answer and this has to be done now and it has to be forced on the Australian population without further discussion for people to reflect I am very uneasy about that. So I think it is time for people to have a bit of a breather to think about this and consider what the other options are and rather than lecturing everybody about what should be done, when it should be done and what it should look like and all the rest of it, I think there should be time for the country to think about this, for politicians to think about it and I think there is a way through this. On the other side whatever the outcome is I would hope this wouldn’t be a thing which tears the country apart. It shouldn’t.
HADLEY:
There has got to be mutual respect here.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I agree.
HADLEY:
From both points of view and I don’t know who is right and who is wrong and I know that I have shifted as I have got older on a whole range of issues, as no doubt you will. If you live long enough, Minister, you will find that at 60 you are whole lot different to how you felt when you were 30, 40 and 50.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think that always is true and Australians have got a lot of common sense on a lot of these things and I trust their common sense and at the moment I don’t think the broader Australian community have had the opportunity I think to really consider all the options and all the implications of this.
HADLEY:
Alright, a sensible debate is required. I look forward to you company next Monday for another sensible debate.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Ray, see you from Canberra.
ENDS