Michael Sukkar MP

Interview with Andrew Clennell – Sky News Australia

THE HON MICHAEL SUKKAR MP – SHADOW MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, NDIS, HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW CLENNELL – SUNDAY AGENDA, SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA

Sunday 18 August, 2024

TOPICS: Palestinian Visas, NDIS legislation, Housing policy and Clare O’Neil, CFMEU

E&OE

Andrew Clennell: Joining me live is Shadow Housing, Homelessness and NDIS Minister Michael Sukkar. Michael Sukkar, thanks for joining us. Let’s start with this Palestinian visa. Peter Dutton is saying the PM misled Parliament. Mike Burgess’ Interview transcript is everywhere to be seen. Is that really as serious as a mislead or just a clumsy editing out of words?

Michael Sukkar: Well, it’s definitely a mislead and it’s a very serious thing to mislead the Parliament, particularly if you do so deliberately. Now, when you’re quoting somebody you, I suppose, can leave out a little bit from the front of a sentence or a little bit from the back of a sentence. But when you omit something that is crucial to the context of a statement in the middle of the sentence, i.e. you use the words at the beginning and then at the end and exclude important words in the middle, that’s misleading. I don’t think anyone that’s watched Parliament, though, will be surprised with the prime minister. I mean, he was slippery, he didn’t want to answer questions last week and that’s bad enough, but to misquote deliberately the director of ASIO is a very serious thing and you know, the Prime Minister will need to front up and apologise for it and make it right tomorrow in the Parliament.

Andrew Clennell: Well, the penalty for misleading is supposed to be resigning. So are you suggesting he should resign?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I’ll tell you what, the bigger issue here is, Andrew. And you know, we all get interested in the machinations of parliament, but the big issue is this: we now have a prime minister who thinks that it’s okay to bring people here on temporary visas with a view, presumably based on what Ed Husic just said, to making those permanent visas to bring people here who may be supporters and sympathisers of Hamas, a terrorist group. Can you imagine any other prime minister in our history saying, for example, we’re going to bring refugees to this country who support al Qaeda, who support ISIS? I mean, it’s inconceivable that we are having a conversation in this country where the prime minister is defending a situation where supporters of Hamas, people who celebrated and supported what happened on October seven, are the people that we could be potentially letting into this country. It’s an absolute outrage. And our first duty is to protect Australians. And we don’t need supporters of Hamas, a bloodthirsty terrorist group in the vein of al Qaeda and ISIS in this country. Now, the Prime Minister couldn’t get up in Parliament and guarantee that there was nobody who supported or sympathised with Hamas. Instead, he came out and said, Well, support of Hamas wouldn’t be a reason not to grant a visa, it’s an outrage.

Andrew Clennell: Mr Sukkar, the head of ASIO said that, though in fairness, is the Opposition undermining the head of ASIO when he said it was okay for people with rhetorical Hamas sympathies, not terrorist sympathies, to come here?

Michael Sukkar: Well, governments are ultimately the ones where elected by the people who direct and decide policy. And I can tell you right now, a coalition government would have as explicit policy that we would not allow Hamas supporters and sympathisers into this country. We’ve said very clearly we don’t even want one Hamas supporter or sympathiser, a listed terrorist organisation, in this country. That would our policy, it’s clearly not this government’s policy. That’s an outrage.

Andrew Clennell: And why do you think they let them in on the visitor visas?

Michael Sukkar: Well, Ed Husic seemed to bell the cat on that. So that could bring them in more quickly. He said that explicitly. Now, I don’t know if he said that accidentally. I don’t know if he was given talking points to say that or whether the truth just slipped out. But basically what he confirmed is – we are circumventing a proper process to ensure the integrity of our migration system and ultimately to ensure the safety of Australians by having an expedited process that we know for a fact means some people have arrived here with no face to face checks, with not the usual sorts of checks that would be undertaken. And this idea that they’re running an identical process to what the Coalition government did, you quite rightly pointed out, Andrew, that in cases of the past, whether it be in relation to Syria or Afghanistan – refugees were taken to third countries and processed in some cases up to 12 months to make sure that we were thoroughly vetting every single application. This idea that you can bring somebody in on a visa within 24 hours and then just to glibly say, Oh, well, we ran through the same processes, you know, that that 12 month process took for the Coalition is outrageous… this is important.

Andrew Clennell: Why this is important? Why do you think they’ve done this?

Michael Sukkar: Well, because they have a cavalier attitude clearly, to this issue. They think that there’s nothing wrong with bringing Hamas sympathisers and supporters potentially to this country. That is the fundamental disagreement here. The coalition says we don’t think it’s proper to have Hamas supporters in this country. And clearly, Labor feel as though that shouldn’t be a criteria that would would stop somebody from entering Australia on one of these visas.

Andrew Clennell: It’s been put to me that to even get through that Rafah crossing, the Israelis have to do their own checks on people. Do you accept that?

Michael Sukkar: Well, I tell you what I’ll accept when the prime minister comes into parliament and starts answering questions and takes us through exactly what’s going on. But we know one thing for sure.

Andrew Clennell: Is that appropriate to talk about national security, the various checks in the parliament?

Michael Sukkar: It is absolutely appropriate for the prime Minister to make very clear one way or the other, whether they believe that Hamas supporters, supporters of a terrorist organisation or sympathisers should be able to get their hands on one of their visas. Now, I think it’s pretty clear at this stage I’ve said that that wouldn’t preclude you from getting a visa. So allow him to take us through that. Now, of course, there are details that you wouldn’t disclose publicly. There’s no doubt about that. But let’s get back to the earlier point, Andrew. Anthony Albanese has said he is running an identical process to that of the Coalition and we’ve pointed to third party processing and vetting that took in some cases up to 12 months and he is seriously suggesting that his 24 hour turnaround is an equivalent process to what was being conducted then. It’s a joke. And finally, Andrew, I’d add this – If you look at Syria as the most relevant recent comparison, we were bringing in people being persecuted by ISIS in that case a terrorist organisation. We were bringing in people who were being persecuted by them. Now the sticking point here is the government could be potentially bringing in supporters and sympathisers of the listed terrorist organisation we’re referring to. There’s very little comparison between the two, and they’re doing it in 24 hours.

Andrew Clennell: Do you see do you see the Palestine-Israel wars featuring at the next election as moving votes?

Michael Sukkar: Look, I don’t know, Andrew. I think there will be people better qualified than me. What will move votes is people looking at Anthony Albanese being weak on our borders. I mean, we saw it in relation to detainees being released into the community who had shocking criminal records, sexual offenses, murderers, rapists, who then who then inflicted that on the Australian public because of Anthony Albanese’s weakness. That’s ultimately the thing that will move votes. And this is just another example of his weakness. And our view on this is very simple. You’ve got to put the interests of Australians first. We are elected by Australians to put their interests first. Their interests must be first and their interest is not supported by Hamas supporters and sympathisers being granted visas into this country and if any Labor minister wants to come on and claim that, let them do so.

Andrew Clennell: Zali Steggall claims Peter Dutton’s racist. The Lebanese Muslims Association’s made similar comments. What’s your response to that?

Michael Sukkar: Good luck to them. I mean, look, we’re very used to in Australia for people to finger wag at Australians and call them racists. We were called racist when we said that you should secure the borders and turn boats back. And we did that. John Howard was called racist. Tony Abbott was called racist. Scott Morrison was called racist. But ultimately what people like Zali Steggall and others who start pointing their finger and calling racism, they’re calling Australians racist because Australians want secure borders. Australians want visas going to people who don’t support listed terrorist organisations. So ultimately, if someone like Zali Steggall is accusing Peter Dutton of racism, she’s accusing the vast majority of Australians of racism. Because I can tell you right now, having been out in my electorate and many others over the last couple of days, Australians are very supportive of the very simple premise at the heart of what we’re discussing here, and that is supporters of terrorist organisation Hamas should not be granted visas to this country and we have not had that assurance from this government.

Andrew Clennell: Onto your portfolio of NDIS. Now are you going to support the Government’s legislation to crack down a bit on the scheme? Would you like to see it go even further in terms of tightening eligibility and the like?

Michael Sukkar: Well, we’ll have a look at it this week. It should come up into the Senate this week, although I do note that Bill Shorten was running around like a headless chook claiming the world was going to fall in when a Senate inquiry was extended by a few weeks. And yet they didn’t bring their bill forward last week. It was apparently so urgent that it didn’t even come forward for a vote in the first week we were back after the winter break. So that tells you a little bit about the process. The truth here is this is a bill that’s got some worthy changes in our view. There’s some issues as well. And we’re working with the government on amendments to see where we can find some middle ground and how we can support it. It’s been a regrettable process where the form of this government advocate groups have been forced to sign NDAs. It’s been a shocking consultation process. There’s a lot of fear out there amongst families and NDIS participants. So we’ve been working hard, trying to provide them with the sort of information and support that they’re not getting from the government to try and ease some of that anxiety. But let’s see what happens this week. We’ve been working pretty cooperatively with the government and we’ll see if we can find some middle ground. And and if we do so, then that support will be forthcoming.

Andrew Clennell: You’ve been critical of the new Housing Minister, Clare O’Neil. You say she misled Parliament by saying there were experts saying things when they weren’t by saying there was Treasury modelling around the government’s plan to build 160,000 homes when there wasn’t. She also couldn’t name experts when you put her on the spot as to saying who went after she said that they were experts, saying the CFMEU scandal has had no impact on residential construction. What do you make of how she’s begun the job?

Michael Sukkar: Well, it’s a salient lesson for the Labor Party. I mean, I congratulated the new minister, but I did make the point that the housing portfolio is too important to use it as a dumping ground for a failed former minister who was clearly being demoted for the disaster she oversaw in home affairs. And really, it only took a couple of days for it to unravel with this new failed minister. You’re right. She claimed that there was Treasury modelling for the large corporate Build to Rent policy. That modelling didn’t exist because Treasury officials had confirmed it hadn’t just days earlier. She then claimed that she had accidentally thought that that was Treasury modelling, that it was Property Council modelling, suggesting that 160,000 additional homes would be built under the policy that Property Council modelling actually showed that no net new homes would be built under that policy. And then, as you quite rightly say, after that shocking start, she said in Parliament that there were some experts that believe the CFMEU have not increased construction costs in the residential housing industry. I gave her every opportunity under the sun to name who those experts were, and she studiously avoided answering that question, presumably because she just made that up on the spot. So it’s been a shocking start for the Housing Minister. But the truth here is it doesn’t matter who the minister is – when you don’t have policies to support or assist Australians, it won’t matter who’s ultimately trying to sell the message, whether it’s a high performing minister or whether it’s a poor performing minister like Clare O’Neil, it really doesn’t make a difference. I think the great irony of Clare O’Neil sort of failing her way into the housing portfolio means that she’s now responsible for so much of the mess she created as Home Affairs Minister when she brought in more than a million people in a two year period. And at the same time, we’d only built 265,000 homes. So she will be now responsible for so much of the mess that she created in home affairs. But if you look at her start thus far, I don’t think you’d have any confidence that anything’s going to change. In fact, it could get worse under her stewardship.

Andrew Clennell: Mr. Sukkar, out of time. Just briefly, and I do mean briefly, if you don’t mind, will the opposition come to a settlement, do you think, with the government on the CFMEU administrator legislation this week?

Michael Sukkar: Look, I hope so. This can’t be a bill that’s running protection for the CFMEU. It’s got to be robust, it’s got to ultimately ensure that it takes the lawlessness out of this industry. There so many holes in it, it was like Swiss cheese, the bill that they brought before the House. So I hope that they will come to the party and strengthen it and actually have a fair dinkum response to this shocking stain on the Labor Party and the union movement.

Andrew Clennell: Michael Sukkar, thanks for your time.

ENDS