Vince Connelly (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is managing the difficult issue of potentially returning foreign terrorist fighters to Australia; and is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. It's a very important question because all of us want to make sure that we keep Australians safe. We know that since 12 September 2014, when the national terrorism threat level was raised, there have been seven attacks targeting people in Australia and 16 major counterterrorism disruptions.

I can inform the House that, since 2012, around 230 Australians have travelled to Syria or Iraq to fight with or support groups involved in the conflict. The government has put forward to the parliament a number of bills designed to keep Australians safe and to keep these people from coming back to our country wherever that is possible because we know, on all of the advice available to us, that many of these people can pose a very significant threat. We've seen very major disruptions in European countries, across America and in South-East Asia, in our own region, where foreign fighters have returned to their country of origin and caused significant loss of life. We don't want that in our country.

We have done everything we can to keep Australians safe, but the position of the Labor Party remains completely confused. It is clear from a train wreck interview on Insiders on the weekend that Senator Keneally, the opposition minister for home affairs, had absolutely no idea what she was proposing. There have been media reports about Labor urging—or at least Senator Keneally, because I think other members of the front bench have distanced themselves from her. Senator Keneally has by her own admission received advice from my department that people do pose a certain risk—that is, they are terrorists who pose a very definite risk if they return to our country, and yet Senator Keneally is out there calling for them to come back to our country. I don't think that reflects the view of the majority of the Australian public.

The public support this government—they did at the last election—because they know that national security is a significant issue, and they know only the Australian government has the ability to keep Australians safe. We know from the Labor Party that they've given up on border protection. We know that, in relation to national security, they have sought to water down every bill that has come before this parliament. Senator Keneally's latest foray into the media on this topic just demonstrates that the Labor Party has no idea what they are doing when it comes to national security.