Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on action the government is taking to protect Australian families from criminal gang members and individuals who pose a national security risk? Is the minister aware of any inadequate approaches?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I want to thank him for his support, and all the members on this side of the House for their support, for what we're doing in clamping down on criminals who are committing violent offences against Australian citizens. We've ramped up the number of visas that we've cancelled for noncitizens—people who have committed serious crimes against Australians. The number is up by 1,200 per cent and it includes, importantly, 40 visas on national security grounds. So, significantly, 40 people who would pose an extreme risk to the Australian community have had their visas cancelled and either have been deported or are in the process of being deported.

The government will look for more ways in which we can strengthen our national security laws—ways in which we can strengthen our border security—to keep Australians safe. That's what the Australian public wants and that is what this government delivers.

Now, the government will always look at new approaches and listen to new ideas about how we can strengthen those laws, and I want to praise the member for La Trobe, who was a former counterterrorism officer in Victoria. He's working on a committee at the moment, looking at ways in which laws can be strengthened. To his great credit, he has proposed an intervention order regime to help de-radicalise extremists. I was interested to read an article in the Herald Sun of October 18 this year, where it detailed support for that scheme by the Police Federation of Australia chief, Mark Burgess, who represents 60,000 police officers. He supported in principle this intervention scheme. The way in which it would operate is that the order would result in extremists being banned from accessing radical content online, from interacting with other extremists and from going to specified places of worship.

You'd imagine, Mr Speaker, that there would be widespread support for such a proposal. However, there is not—but there is one person in this House who I fear I will embarrass by naming him in this debate. It's the case that this individual doesn't like his name being mentioned in Hansard during the course of question time. It's my old friend the member for Blair. Remember him? He smiled—that's his first facial expression during this question time. Well done to the member for Blair for that mild reaction! He has opposed this change. This was his quote in relation to the member for La Trobe's suggestion. He said:

This is real nanny state stuff, this is almost totalitarian intervention into people's domestic and family life without the individual … committing any act.

Mr Speaker, at the next election, if you want a weak approach to border protection and if you want a weak approach to national security, go with him—go with him, is my advice. He is the weakest link in the chain and he's the weakest link in the opposition. (Time expired)