Television Interview, ABC News Breakfast

SUBJECTS: Federal Response to Bondi Terror Attack; PLA Navy Task Group.

OLIVIA CAISLEY, HOST: Let's return to our top story, the continuing political response to the deadly Bondi terror attack. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles joins us now from Geelong. Thank you for chatting with me today, I wanted to go first to this idea of a royal commission into these attacks. We've seen some of your Labor colleagues – Ed Husic, Mike Freelander – backing that approach. Is that a view you share?

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Well, royal commissions take years and we need to be acting within weeks. It's really as simple as that. I mean, we've had Jillian Segal do her report as our Special Envoy into combating antisemitism. We understand that antisemitism is at the highest point that I've seen in my lifetime. She has given us a program of action. We have now endorsed that in full and we are working on those actions and we want to do that right now. A royal commission will see delay to all of this. So we don't believe that we've got–

CAISLEY: Sorry to interrupt. So, your concerns about holding a royal commission is mainly to do with timing, is it?

MARLES: Well, royal commissions take years. I mean, that's what they do. And we've also done a lot of the work of knowing what the issues are and what we need to do. I mean, we need to be going after hate preachers and that's why we've announced that we will pursue law reform in that regard. And we want to do that in the coming weeks, not in the coming years. We need to be looking at the opportunities that those who seek to do this damage have in terms of access to guns and there is further gun reform that can be done. And we need to be doing that right now. And there is a task in understanding what's happened here in terms of intelligence, in terms of policing and the like, but that's why we've engaged Dennis Richardson independently to pursue his work. And even there, in a matter of months, not years. So this is action which is required right now, and that is our focus.

CAISLEY: Well, sorry to interrupt, Minister, but I guess on that timeliness point, we're seeing a whole range of former High Court justices, senior barristers, all saying that it would be a good idea to hold a royal commission concurrently with a– you know, the intelligence review, as well as perhaps what NSW is pursuing as well. But let's go to this review into the security agencies that you've mentioned there. It's going to be spearheaded by Dennis Richardson. Can you assure Australians that that report, when it's finalised, will be made public?

MARLES: Look, there will be a public version of the report. I mean, there will be elements of it which necessarily deal with classified information and it's by definition important that remains classified. But we've made clear there'll be transparency in respect of this. But, you know, Dennis Richardson is a person with enormous experience, firsthand experience in terms of being secretaries of departments, but also these intelligence agencies. He will do this independently. He's not of the agencies or the department now, and so he is able to go into this in an independent way. But we need to get to these answers quickly and we cannot be waiting around for years, which is what a royal commission would take. I think Dennis is a person who– 

CAISLEY: Sorry to interrupt. Can the public then expect there to be public hearings then under Dennis Richardson's inquiry?

MARLES: Well, Dennis will pursue the inquiry in the way in which he sees fit to get to these answers as quickly as possible. And that's what we need to be doing here. I mean, we do have a sense of direction right now. Jillian Segal’s report was really significant in respect of antisemitism. That requires action right now. Dennis Richardson will be able to do this work in terms of the operational side of this and do it in a matter of months, so that we are acting now. And that is going to be the focus of the way in which we respond to this. And I just make the point in relation to a royal commission: when we put in place legislation to go after hate preachers, for those who seek to incite hatred, that will come with controversy within the Parliament. I mean, the Labor Party has pursued greater forms of hate speech in our laws, but none of that has happened easily. And if we walk down the path of a royal commission for anyone in the Parliament who seeks to delay, they will hang on to that royal commission as a reason why we should not be acting now. And that's why we do not want to give people that excuse. We want to move ahead right now so that we can have action on this, so that we can do everything to make sure that this never happens again.

CAISLEY: Yeah. Have you given him a bit of a deadline, then, for when that report needs to be finalised? 

MARLES: We have. 

CAISLEY: Because you keep speaking to the timings of it. 

MARLES: This is– sure. And I don’t want to go into all of that now other than to say this needs to be done within a matter of months and that is the time frame that we are working on in respect of the work that Dennis will undertake.

CAISLEY: Okay. I wanted to ask you, during the first term of the Albanese Government, we saw some machinery of government changes whereby the ASIO and Australian Federal Police moved into the Attorney General's Department. We also saw the likes of ASIO boss Mike Burgess taken off the National Security Committee. Those decisions were ultimately later reversed and now they– so, Burgess is back on the National Security Committee. Do you think that, I guess tweaks like that to machinery of government changes might have played a role here when it comes to monitoring terrorism in Australia?

MARLES: I doubt it, is the answer but, you know, Dennis will have an opportunity to look at all of that. I mean, we do seek to refine how the machinery of government works so that it happens as efficiently as possible. But I think when we get into the sorts of questions as to what lay behind what ultimately eventuated the weekend before last, I don't think it's going to lie in those machinery of government questions. But that doesn't– that won't stop Dennis looking at all of that. But I think this is going to be something that the answers will lie in a much more operational respect than that.

CAISLEY: Minister, a couple of weeks ago you flagged the Australian Defence Force is monitoring a flotilla of Chinese ships that were at that point in the Philippine Sea. Are you still keeping an eye on these vessels and where are they now?

MARLES: Well, we are. I'm not about to give a running commentary on that other than say the vessels are not within the vicinity of Australia. But we maintain maritime domain awareness across areas of interest and by that I mean the Pacific, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Northeast Indian Ocean. And we have a very good sense of the movements of vessels across those areas of interest. This was a matter that ended up being reported publicly, which is why I spoke about it publicly. And we've been monitoring that particular task group, but it's not within the vicinity of Australia now.

CAISLEY: Ok. These kinds of deployments, though, outside the first island chain are pretty unusual. What kind of message do you think China is trying to send here?

MARLES: Well, I think China is seeking to shape the world around us in a way that we weren't seeing, you know, 15 or 20 years ago. That's a point that we've made on numerous occasions. And China has enormous and growing capability– naval capability and we see that as well. What matters to Australia, though, is that the global rules‑based order be maintained. You know, the rules of the road at sea, as it were – freedom of navigation, freedom of airspace – is fundamentally important to Australia's trade. Most of our trade goes through the South China Sea, for example. And so our work is very much on asserting the rules‑based order in and around our sea lines of communication and we will continue to do that.

CAISLEY: Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, thank you. 

ENDS