Topics: Religious Discrimination Bill, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) annual threat assessment, disrupting and stopping foreign interference and international borders reopening to tourists.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Well, joining us live now from Canberra is the Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews. Minister, thanks for your time this morning. We will talk about that in just a moment, but first I’ve just got to get your reaction to that long night on religious discrimination – five moderates crossing the floor handing Labor a big win. Your thoughts on that and the five who voted against their own side?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, good morning. It was certainly a big night, and I think really proceedings in the House finished just after 5am this morning. But it was a night of a lot of emotion, a lot of passion from Members debating what really very important legislation. It was legislation that we said at the last election that we would actually take through Parliament. So that process has well and truly started. And it’s important to note that it was the religious discrimination bill that was passed through the House. It will now go through and be debated in the Senate today I believe. So more will come out of that during the course of the day.
Look, yes, there were five members of the Liberal Party who chose to cross the floor. We’re well and truly on the record as saying that the Liberal Party does allow people to vote in accordance with their views. The views that they expressed actually weren’t the views of the government, but they were still at liberty to put their views forward and to vote accordingly.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Can you live with the changes to extend more protections?
KAREN ANDREWS: I want to make sure that people’s freedoms are respected and that people have the opportunity to choose to worship or not to worship if that’s what they choose, and no-one should be discriminated for the beliefs or the thoughts that they have in relation to religious matters or other matters. So I’m very comfortable with the government’s position, what we took into Parliament last night, what we passed with the religious discrimination bill. I think that’s very important. No-one wants to see anyone discriminated against, particularly for those matters. There were a number of quite significant reforms, and I’m very comfortable with the passing of the religious discrimination bill.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Yeah, but, I mean, does this prove that extensions to include trans kids should have been included in the first place?
KAREN ANDREWS: Look, I think there’s going to be continuing debate about that when it goes to the Senate. And I think there are some really important issues that need to be discussed because there are always some unintended consequences that need to be fully examined. Now, I am very concerned about impacts on single-sex schools, so what’s going to happen at all boys or all girls schools, how that’s going to be managed. But having said that, I also have a lot of confidence in our schools to be able to manage situations in the best interests of the children who attend there.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay, Minister, on to these claims – quite startling, actually – from Mike Burgess overnight; he is claiming a spy ring has tried to infiltrate the upcoming election. How was it caught out? And it’s a nice approval here for you that the system’s working.
KAREN ANDREWS: Look, it absolutely is. And, of course, last night the Director-General of Security Mike Burgess gave his annual threat assessment, and he announced that after full assessment the terrorism threat in Australia remains at probable. It’s been there since 2014. So that means that there are people out there with the capability and the intent to do us harm. So our terrorist threat level remains at probable.
But he also touched on some other matters that I think are very important to us. One was the increasing risks to us from foreign interference and espionage. He also spoke about terrorism and the fact that lone actors were going to continue to be an issue for us, and he talked about ideologically motivated violent extremism and really made the point that it’s not as simple as right or left wing – it’s actually violent extremism that’s ideologically motivated.
Now, to go to the point about political interference, Mike did use as an example a particularly concerning circumstance where, thanks to good work from ASIO, the foreign interference was disrupted.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Yeah.
KAREN ANDREWS: That’s a good thing, particularly as we go to an election this year. But I think it’s also important to note that foreign interference occurs at all level of government – local, state and federal, and that’s what we have to make sure we’re countering.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Yeah, and he referred to a puppeteer, but who was the puppet master here, Minister? Is it Russia or is it China?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, as you would be aware, Mike Burgess didn’t disclose that last night. And I think that the point that we have to take away from that is that there is at least one nation that has been involved. That’s certainly a concern for us. But there are potentially others. So ASIO doesn’t just concentrate on one or two nations; it has a very wide reach. And it would be wrong of us to just focus on one or two nations when we know that it’s in the interests of some other countries to interfere in our political system.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay. Just a final one here, Minister, on this push to mandate a third jab: how disruptive do you think that’s going to be for international travel if people are going to need three shots?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, I’m delighted that our borders are going to fully reopen to fully vaccinated travellers on the 21st of February, and that’s less than two weeks to go. That’s going to be an enormous boost to our tourism providers and to our economy here. We’ve been very careful to make sure that we have always spoken about fully vaccinated because we know that there have been changes from time to time. Now, we took advice from our Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly, before we made the announcement earlier this week. And the advice that we received from Professor Kelly was that it was effectively a double dose of the likes of AstraZeneca, Pfizer et cetera.
But when you look at fully vaccinated, you have to look at those vaccines that have just a single dose to be fully vaccinated. We will always take the advice that is provided to us by the Chief Medical Officer, and he sources his information from a wide range of sources. So I’m very confident that we’ll continue to follow his advice, and he will be giving us good and strong advice.
PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay, Karen Andrews, we’ll leave it there. Appreciate it. Thank you.