Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Most of us will recall where we were on 9-11. That event was so far from Australia but it hit hard at home as we felt the world turn. Overnight, international conversation shifted. When I travelled overseas in the weeks after 9-11, I saw security at airports change. In Australia, I observed a change in the national lexicon. Muslim Australians were treated with suspicion, and for a time we fell into the trap of an us-and-them mentality.

We are a nation built on migration, a country that has welcomed 7.5 million migrants since World War II—and we certainly do our bit when it comes to the 65 million displaced persons in this world. The challenge continues to grow and I would argue that we should do even better. We should be more generous when it comes to helping to resettle genuine refugees in larger numbers to this country—that was certainly Labor's position at the last election, and we continue to support this approach.

Conflicts abroad impact us here at home. We have seen an increased need to focus on and resource measures used to reinforce and guarantee our national security. We must use all tools in our toolboxes to combat Daesh and other extremist groups that seek to harm our national security and our way of life.

Australia's largest RAAF base, Amberley, is located in my electorate of Blair. Thousands of men and women are based there, and from there they deploy into warlike situations and into peacekeeping. Our servicemen and women risk their lives to protect ours and our strategic interests, often leaving their families behind in worry and anxiety. Many men and women from Ipswich and the Somerset region in my electorate have made that sacrifice. The saddest times that I have experienced as a federal member have been the repatriation ceremonies at RAAF Base Amberley—to see the bodies of brave men come home, and their families greet them in sadness and grief.

The base at Amberley plays a critical role in ensuring our national security at home and abroad. But the first and frontline security on our borders is the Australian Border Force, who operate at our international airports, our ports and at sea.

In my role as shadow minister for immigration, I visited many of our major international airports and met Border Force staff. They are able officers, who speak with passion and pride about the work they do. They thrive on well-established information-sharing relationships with security agencies at home and abroad, ensuring they get access to information that assesses risks within our national security framework. Intelligence gathering begins from the moment a traveller books a ticket to the moment they present to ABF officers at our border. The Australian Border Force has access to remarkable databases and technology—real-time assets to respond to real-time threats—and we need those because the threats have grown in the past 20 years. Between 1990 and 2010 there were approximately 30 Australians who travelled to conflict zones, with 20 returning to Australia. Those figures have risen to over 120 Australians travelling to conflict zones, and over 30 returning, from 2011 to mid-2015, often with nefarious motives.

We can take measures like relying on intelligence to cancel visas, preventing entry into Australia and using antiterrorism laws to prosecute suspected terrorists. I have long been a believer, however, that prevention is even better than cure. The Australian Border Force can protect from overseas influencers entering our country, but in partnership with that we must ensure that young, vulnerable and impressionable Australians do not have the opportunity to become radicalised. Australia's counterterrorism strategy: strengthening our resilience 2015, published by the Council of Australian Governments, is clear about the measures that governments must adopt to ensure our national security. Governments must communicate messages so that people:

… find a sense of meaning and belonging in Australia, without resorting to violence.

The strategy goes further and says:

Peaceful expression of diverse political, religious and ideological views is an important and highly valued feature of Australian life. An objective of terrorism is to undermine our values and social cohesion. We must not let this happen.

We undermine our social cohesion when our leaders point the finger at fellow Australians based on race, on our ethnic heritage and on our preconditioned biases. It does us no good in our efforts to counter terrorism when some of our leaders use baseless arguments and cheap political scoring tricks to pick on other Australians. These irresponsible statements do nothing to further our national security.

Countering terrorism is a responsibility we all share as leaders in parliament with business and other community sectors. As members of parliament we must take care to set the right tone in this debate. Rather than demonising and labelling sections of the Australian community we should focus on the positive work being done to ease the transition of migrants into our community. I am pleased to sit on the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, where we are looking at the integration of young Australians in this space. The committee is going to consider the mix and coordination of settlement services, national and international best practice in migrant settlement outcomes and prospects, the importance of the English language to migrants' and prospective migrants' settlement outcomes, and other related matters. We need to do all this to ensure people who choose to call Australia home are given the best chance in life.

The divisive nature of public comments made, however, by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection in the last week or so pulls at the fabric of our multicultural society. The claim of the immigration minister—that the Fraser government made what he described as 'a mistake' in welcoming Lebanese families to Australia 40 years ago—was a grave political mistake. The immigration minister did not just say Australia had a problem but pointed to a whole section of the Australian community and to members of that community. Words have power and meaning; the immigration minister would do well to remember that. The Prime Minister should take immediate action to bring the immigration minister into line. He should repudiate these comments unequivocally. He knows that comments like the ones that were made last week are just the type of comments our national security agencies tell us are counterproductive to preventing radicalisation and defeating extremism. The immigration minister should be made to apologise. He should know better; he must do better.

I want to send a clear message: if Labor are in power and people post material online, those people will be found out by the agencies. If you seek to harm Australians, you will not come into this country if there is a Labor government. We welcome the finalisation of a report by the Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator on recent overseas attacks and on the lessons we can learn. We will support a review of the way Defence and our domestic counterterrorism operations work together. We live in an age where technology has greatly benefited our society, but it also comes with tremendous risks. Cybersecurity is an important element of our national security. We are committed to making sure we use up-to-date technology so we can better protect our people, institutions, businesses and communities. It is why, when Labor were last in government, we opened the Cyber Security Operations Centre and adopted Australia's first comprehensive Cyber Security Strategy. Strategies like these are absolutely necessary when, on a daily basis, we are asked to share online so much personal information, from banking information and medical history to our intellectual property.

It is important that we have responsibility as leaders and we exercise discretion and prudence. We must place our society and our community first, we must meet the cybersecurity challenge in Australia as we move forward and we must respond to it immediately. We must not compromise our national security; we must say and do everything we can to enhance it. We are a nation built on migration with a culture shaped by those people who choose to make Australia their home. We must embrace diversity, unite our communities and celebrate what it means to live in Australia—that everyone has a fair go and everyone is treated with respect, humanity and compassion. We will always be stronger when we stand together and respect one another.

I stand on this side of parliament proudly with the Labor team. We stand with our First Australians and those who have come since to make this country our home. We are all Australians, every one of us from where we come. We must treat each other with respect, humanity and decency, and we must always be vigilant when it comes to national security.

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