Television Interview, ABC Afternoon Briefing

SUBJECTS: Investment in Bushmasters; Anzac Day; ISIS Foreign Fighters’ Wives; White House Correspondents’ dinner

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: The Australian Government will spend $1.2 billion on new Bushmasters and upgrading Defence Force trucks. The Assistant Defence Minister, Peter Khalil, is my guest this afternoon. Welcome to the programme.

PETER KHALIL, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Hi Patricia.

KARVELAS: So, on the Bushmasters, you're going to sell a fleet of Bushmasters to the Netherlands, also build 268 more for us. How many are we selling to the Netherlands?

KHALIL: Well, I can't go into the contractual details. I keep getting asked questions about this, what variants they are, all the specs and so on. So, they're very technical details. I think there is going to be a fleet that's sold or exported to the Netherlands. There'll be different variants that are produced or manufactured in Bendigo. It's a great outcome, by the way, for regional Victoria, for Bendigo, for local Defence industry, it's locking in about 300 jobs, which is fantastic for local industry. And there's about nine countries that actually use the Bushmaster. We've sold to nine countries. So, it is a fantastic bit of kit and it has a great track record in its deployments in pretty harsh environments and theatres of operation. In Afghanistan, particularly.

KARVELAS: I want to move to the issue around the booing on Anzac Day. It's been obviously very contentious, it's been condemned widely. The RSL is going to review it now. Is that wise?

KHALIL: Well, I saw Peter Tinley's interview. I thought he spoke quite eloquently about the issue. My view, Patricia, and obviously, as an Assistant Minister of Defence, that view is somewhat important. The Welcome to Country is a profound mark of respect for First Nations Australians who have been here since the beginning of recorded time. And the booing that occurred at those ceremonies, the solemn commemorative ceremonies at the Dawn Services, was not just disappointing, deeply disappointing, it was disrespectful. Not just to, obviously, Indigenous Australians who have served in the uniform, have died so sacrificed, you know, serving Australia, but to all people that came to the ceremony, to the broader community. And it's just a lack of basic decency, you know, it's not that hard. And I, in my electorate at the Fawkner RSL, I did the Dawn Service there when we arrived at at 4 o'clock, there was vandalism across that RSL. There were a number of RSLs that were vandalised. Red paint splattered all over the memorials. It's just deeply disrespectful. I mean, that'll be sanctioned by the law, but I think we're at a point where the extreme ends of the political spectrum are articulating whatever their views are in these disrespectful ways. And lacking that basic decency, we can disagree, but at least navigate your differences with some respect. And that's been, I think, what--that's been the kind of centrepiece of our democracy and our multicultural communities. We've been able to actually live in relative harmony by navigating those differences. If you have a problem, if you have an issue, doing it in the way they've done it is not the way to do it. It's disrespectful to so many people in the community.

KARVELAS: If you're just tuning in, our guest is the Assistant Defence Minister, Peter Khalil. It is disrespectful, but it's happened now two years in a row. So, this is becoming almost a, you know, part of the ceremony. How do you stop it? Or it'll happen next year, won't it? Unless you've got a plan.

KHALIL: Well, how do you stop it is a very interesting question. I mean, this is the issue that we're facing as a society. There are elements within our society that think it's a good idea to boo and show disrespect to what is…

KARVELAS: Well, should the police be responding more quickly, moving people on?

KHALIL: There are certain laws that I think that were deployed during that ceremony in which, you know, whether it's state police or AFP, if it's a federal event or whatever it might be that, you know, people are preventing the ceremony from commencing or continuing on, that can be deployed. I would hope that, though, even before you use the law or police, that there is an understanding that you don't need to do that. You can have your views. And by the way, freedom of expression is a very important principle. I've heard this argument being made. Oh, it's free speech. Sure, we have free speech in this country, but it is not unlimited. There's a basic set of decency that you have to utilise when or an obligation when you're using your free speech. And there's a certain red line. And I think that red line was crossed with respect to the way that those people, the actions that they took at those ceremonies.

KARVELAS. So, how do you change Welcome to Country?

KHALIL: Culture or?

KARVELAS: No, Welcome to Country. Because the RSL says now they'll review it.

KHALIL: Well, I don't know. The RSL will go through their processes, and I think what…

KARVELAS: If they dump the kind of official Welcome to Country…

KHALIL: I wouldn't preempt anything that's going to happen. I think all that Peter Tinley said there was that they would be looking at reviewing their policies as they usually do. I think he also mentioned that each branch has their own individuals.

KARVELAS: Yeah, they [indistinct]. These are about guidance that they provide,

KHALIL: I would like to hope and. And I think that the vast majority of Australians would see that this is a profound mark of respect. It's not much to welcome, to have that Welcome to Country, you know, for 30 seconds or a couple of minutes at the start of a ceremony as a matter of respect. And most Australians view it that way. There is extreme groups on either end, maybe, that don't.

KARVELAS: Matt Canavan, a little earlier, said that the government shouldn't. He did condemn the booing in actually quite strong terms, but he said the government shouldn't dismiss criticism of how frequent they've become and how people respond to that. Do you think that's right?

KHALIL: Well, I don't agree with Canavan or Angus Taylor, who sort of leant in to one side of this by saying, 'Oh, we condemn the booing, but we shouldn't have to do it all the time', and so on. They're trying to make both arguments at the same time. And I think that's particularly problematic because, yes, it is an important thing that is done as a mark of respect. It should be dealt with, treated with respect, and done in a proper fashion by people. You know, whether it's an Indigenous elder, a First Nations elder that's doing that. And I think we're getting into those kind of culture wars where they're trying to make a point about, 'oh, well, yeah, the booing's bad, but you shouldn't do it anyway.' So, it's a bit, what do they call it? one half of a dozen and whatever other clichés. Take that out of it and just ask the basic question: Do most Australians think that that is acceptable to behave in that way?

KARVELAS: No, most don't.

KHALI: It's such a solemn commemorative service...

KARVELAS: That is absolutely right. But some Australians think they're overdone, they've said that.

KHALIL: They're entitled to their opinion. That doesn't give them the right then to then just boo and disrupt a ceremony like this, which is a very solemn ceremony which is there to commemorate the people who have sacrificed their lives to protect and defend this country over a century. And there's over 100,000 Australians who've died in doing that service. So, I think they need to think about that.

KARVELAS: Assistant Defence Minister, I just want to ask you about a couple of other issues. ISIS. There are 13 people, Australian citizens, linked historically to ISIS in Damascus that are making their way home. The Opposition is arguing that the government should be doing more. You're essentially, you know, making it easy for them or facilitating this. Is there more that you could do to stop them?

KHALIL: Well, let's stop them. A couple of points to answer your question. First of all, the government's been quite clear that it is not and will not be repatriating those individuals from Syria.

KARVELAS: But if they make it here?

KHALIL: The Government's been very clear in stating that we are taking the advice of the security and intelligence agencies that those Australians, if they were to return and they've committed crimes, they will be facing the full force of the law. Let's just be really clear about this. We take the advice of those security agencies already. For example, the advice to apply a temporary exclusion order has been applied on one of the individuals. There may be further advice around that, the TEO, for people who don't. Now, it is basically excluding someone from entering. So, there are certain actions that have been taken already in respect to that.

KARVELAS: They could make it here, right? You accept that?

KHALIL: Well, if any Australians make it back to Australia and they have been involved in any crimes, they will be facing the full force of law, and the Federal Government will take the advice of the security intelligence agencies, who are continuously assessing the situation on the ground and those individuals.

KARVELAS: You accept that they could make it here?

KHALIL: I don't know, Patricia. I think that what I'm saying is that what we've prepared and what we're doing is taking the advice of the agencies, making sure that if there is advice that says there should be an exclusion order, that it's applied, one has already been applied. And that if those people do return, that they will face the full force of the law for their crimes.

KARVELAS: But there's nothing that can be done to stop them, right?

KHALIL: Well, Australian citizens have rights that we all do as Australian citizens. But I think there's been pretty clear-cut statements by the Government about what will be done if those people do return.

KARVELAS: Just on the rise in political violence, or if you see it that way, what we've seen in the United States unfold, Donald Trump says this is just the way it's always been really, in many ways. Is that right?

PETER KHALIL: Probably not. I think the US has gone up and down in cycles. I mean, during the Kennedy era, there was quite a lot of political violence. If there's students of history that have watched that. I think the disturbing thing for me, and I care about Australia, obviously we all do, is that this touches on the earlier part of our conversation. It's that if there is a disagreement about something, if there is a difference of view, if there is a very vehement difference, that the people who have those differences don't resort to violence or use violence as a political act, that's the most disturbing thing. Because democracy is predicated on the idea that we can have those differences and we, we, we debate them, we come to some sort of consensus, or we vote on them based on a democratic process. And the distance between the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader in the House of Representatives, the dispatch box is actually the length of two swords. It's two sword lengths. That's symbolic of the idea that you can't reach your opponent with a sword. You have to debate them. And I would hope most Australians, I think, really appreciate and respect that about our system of governance. And I hope that we are not. No one's influenced by some of the violence that we're seeing in other parts of the world.

KARVELAS: Just finally on the war, which is obviously in a ceasefire situation at the moment, but we're waiting for some movement there. Iran is reportedly offering the US that it'll open the Strait of Hormuz, but discuss this, this issue around nuclear weapons later. Is that acceptable?

KHALIL: It's a good question. I mean, I think these negotiations have been going back and forth, back and forth.

KARVELAS: We want the Strait open, so Australia's view?

KHALIL. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister have been very clear that we all want to see de-escalation obviously of conflict, that we want to see the Strait open. So, whatever negotiations are conducted and those honest brokers that are helping with those negotiations, countries in the region, and others we want in the international community, we want to see the Straits opened and a return to normal trade. And we, we hope that those negotiations are successful, frankly.

KARVELAS: Thank you so much for joining us.

KHALIL: Thanks, Patricia.

ENDS