LUKE GRANT:
Prime Minister, Happy New Year.
PRIME MINISTER:
Luke, Happy New Year to you and your listeners.
LUKE GRANT:
Very nice to talk to you. We had that awful, awful, tragic happening in Paris yesterday. We know now that it is likely one of those cowardly brothers on the run in Paris did spend some time in Syria. A concern many of us have is, as we read in the Telegraph a week ago that we might equally, here in Australia, have 20 returned Jihadists that are out and about walking our streets. You understand how concerned we are. Is there anything you can do about it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Luke, as you know the Government has recently changed the law to make it much easier to prosecute and jail people who are going to fight with terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere. As for those who have gone and come back prior to these new laws I do want to assure everyone, Luke, that our police and security agencies are keeping them all under reasonable supervision. I can’t say that they are all under 24 hour watch but certainly we are doing everything we humanly can to ensure that anyone who is a menace to our safety is being monitored. One of the other features of the new laws is the control order, provisions have been strengthened, and that also makes it easier for us to keep tabs on people who are a potential threat to the Australian community. The safety of the community is our absolute number one priority but we are a free and open society as well and what we can never do is sacrifice our values in the quest to defend them. We will do whatever we humanly can to keep people safe but we will keep them safe as a Government of a free and open society.
LUKE GRANT:
Yeah, I understand that but I thought that your Coalition went to the Parliament – so the Opposition and the minor Parties – with the idea of if you go to a country but particularly Syria and you come back then there is a problem there. I understand that Senator Collins from the ALP watered that down to meet regions. We don’t know, do we Prime Minister, from here whether someone is in the north, the west, the east or the south – we don’t have those capabilities, do we?
PRIME MINISTER:
We can do quite a lot, for instance, you can tell from a lot of things that people say about themselves through social media, you can tell from signal intercepts quite a lot about exactly what people are up to and as some of your listeners might know Foreign Minister Julie Bishop recently declared Al Raqqa in Syria to be a designated terrorist area. So, anyone, any Australian, who has been in Al Raqqa is guilty of a serious offence and if such a person were to return to our country they would be prosecuted and they would be jailed for a very long time indeed. No one has any good reason for being in those parts of Syria and Iraq which are under terrorist control.
LUKE GRANT:
Don’t you agree, and we have had many of our listeners put this forward this morning, that once they make that call – to go to that part of the world, obviously to serve no good on Australia’s behalf – they have done their dash. That’s treason. They don’t deserve the Australian citizenship, do they?
PRIME MINISTER:
We can’t take away the citizenship of people who have got it unless we discover that they have got it under false pretences but we can deal with them with the full severity of the law. Certainly, we intend to do that – to do just that, Luke – to deal with them with all the severity that our law can muster because it is a very serious criminal offence to go overseas to fight with terrorist groups. It is now, thanks to the recent changes, much easier to demonstrate that people have been overseas with these evil intentions. We certainly understand and if there was ever any doubt it should have been dispelled by what we saw in the streets of Paris the other day. We understand the people who leave our country to fight with these terrorist groups they come back brutalised and militarised and much more able to do us harm and that is why it is absolutely critical that we have all the legal authority to put them away for a very, very long time indeed.
LUKE GRANT:
Yes, well there will be no one listening to me that wouldn’t, if you went to the Parliament wanting more power that wouldn’t back you 100 per cent of the way. Just on domestic politics, Graham Richardson pays you a number of compliments saying amongst other things that you are very bright. I am sure when you read that you were quite chuffed but he does suggest that you can reset things by saying, “you know what, we didn’t exactly do what we set out to do. Things are a bit tougher than when we discovered on coming to Government. This is what is going on,” and kind of take the people in, almost Beattie-esque, PM. What was your take on that column today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Luke, interesting you should ask that question because I normally read Graham Richardson’s column. I know Graham a little, he was a political opponent in the Parliament but as he says he is an Australian first and a Labor man second. I think that is an important distinction to make. Look, I get a lot of public advice. I suspect the advice that I was given this morning by Richo is better than much of the advice I get and I think that he might find that I read his piece quite closely in the weeks ahead.
LUKE GRANT:
Righto. Is the GST going up now that we have a Minister, Mr Robb, talking about it?
PRIME MINISTER:
The short answer is no. The GST will not change in this term of Parliament and it cannot change in any term of Parliament without first of all the support of all the states and territories including the Labor states and territories and without effectively a Parliamentary consensus. So, without a measure of bipartisanship the GST is not going to change. Now, lots of people can argue a point about how our tax system might work better and good luck to them if they want to put that perspective forward but the assurance I give to your listeners and to Australians more generally is that it won’t change in this term of Parliament and it can’t change without all the states and territories agreeing with the change and effectively a bipartisanship or at least a consensus in the Parliament because it is a big thing to do and as far as I am concerned what we should be on about is lower taxes not higher taxes. Lower, simpler, fairer taxes is the absolute objective that we are taking into this tax white paper process this year.
LUKE GRANT:
We are about to bump into the news but I have to ask you; did Dr Killer convince you to hop off the bike?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, I thought about Graeme as I was pedalling up the hills of Neutral Bay this morning at about half past five. He has obviously got a perspective and, yes, if you hit the concrete cycling can be quite dangerous but as long as you don’t hit the concrete cycling is very good for your health.
LUKE GRANT:
Exactly. Good to talk to you PM and all the best for 2015. I do appreciate your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks so much, Luke.
[ends]