Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, I don't know. I'm just about to be sick after what I have just heard delivered in this place, talking about people's freedoms when there are many Australians in this country who still don't have the freedom to walk safely because of the ideologies of people who have no regard for the Australian people and who wish harm on us, which has happened. There are some of us in this place who take the safety of Australian citizens seriously and then there are those who clearly don't. Those of you who dread the thought of a toxic, violent and lethal ideology returning to Australia will join with me in supporting this temporary exclusion order bill today, a law that is also in the UK—it may not be the same but it was brought into the UK as well because they knew what was happening in their country.

I don't think enough consideration goes into the work that it takes or the money it costs taxpayers to monitor between 400 and 500 Islamic extremists who have somehow been given the freedom and right to live in a peaceful nation like Australia. So it deeply concerns me to think that, under the current legislation, we are fuelling a fight by allowing some of the 230 people who left Australia to fight for terrorist groups back into this country. There are 230 left. Are they all Australians? Were they born here? I don't know. Do they have dual citizenship? Again, I don't know. Did they migrate out here to make Australia their home and are they wishing to fight against the values and principles of Western societies and destroy another country?

I know they are against Western values and I know that they are hateful towards our culture and our way of life. One hundred of those have actually been killed. I'm glad to see the end of them. Eighty want to come back to Australia—hence the bill. And if you allow that 80 back in then their wives, their kids will be allowed in as well. What are their thoughts? What are their beliefs? Are they the same as their husband's? Then we have more problems on our hands. It concerns not only me but also federal and state police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation as well.

We are talking about the types of scumbags like Khaled Sharrouf. I want senators to imagine a dysfunctional character like Khaled Sharrouf, who left Australia in 2013 to fight for Isis, back in Australia. He was the guy who held up the severed and bloodied heads of Syrian soldiers and who made his young sons do the same. Senator McKim may talk about 14-year-olds; these kids were younger than 14. If you understand Islamic terrorists, they train them, they radicalise them and that's why they get them young. These are the types who want to come back to Australia. These are the people whose rights the Greens and Labor have defended. All I can say is thank God we killed him and his horrible terrorist sons in 2017. If ISIS weren't broadly defeated in Syria and other parts of the Middle East, these people wouldn't be fleeing. They'd be expanding their terrorist network into other countries.

I went to a function in Sydney just a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea who the Chaldeans were. They come from Syria and Iran. They are basically a Christian group of people going back hundreds and hundreds of years. Ask them what's happened to their countries. Ask them what's happened to the women and children. Their homes have gone—absolute destruction—because of ISIS. They have been given an opportunity to live in Australia that they are so grateful for. But the pain is still there. Who is doing anything about it? Do we ask those people if they want these men back in Australia, these fighters of ISIS? I'm sure they would say, resoundingly, no. I believe millions of Australians don't want them back in this country.

Instead, the surviving cowards of ISIS are happy to return to Australia and spread their hateful ideology here. I believe the majority of Australians don't have any sympathy for these terrorist fighters and want them kept out. That's been quite evident in listening to talkback radio and as I travel around the country talking to other Australians. If I had my way they'd never be allowed back into Australia at all. But, apparently, that's not constitutional. That's why the temporary ban is for two years, notwithstanding a further two years if necessary.

Labor have never been tough on border security, and they were sent a very clear message at the recent federal election about their inability to take a strong stance on terrorism and illegal border arrivals. I trust that senators of the Labor Party will heed the warning of Australian voters and support this bill in the Senate. As for the Greens—well, we've heard their reply from Senator McKim. Their policy on open borders and allowing in non-vetted people with these barbaric, hard-core and fundamental Islamic ideologies cannot continue. I listen to Senator McKim and he talks about their basic human rights. Well, I'm sorry, what about Australians basic human rights? What about the people in Syria and Iran, and even in Afghanistan? What about their basic human rights? He's not thinking about that.

Everyone has responsibilities for their own actions. These people lost their basic human rights. He talked about freedom—their basic freedoms: that's what it's all about. Basic freedoms and their freedom of movement in Australia, because if they come back here we're going to monitor them. How dare we do that! How dare we know where they're going and what they're doing! If they're planning a terrorist attack or if they want to murder an Australian, how dare we ask about that and their basic freedoms? No! They lost their freedoms when they left this country to go and fight. They had no fear, but an intention to kill those who opposed their ideology and to take over countries and murder others—innocents. These people don't deserve to be here. Why should we bring them back? Why should we pay for their legal costs and then end up with them possibly in prison at a cost to the taxpayer? They made their choices in life. You make your bed and you lie on it, as far as I'm concerned.

How ridiculous is it to say that you're losing your freedoms? What about the people that have lost their lives in this country because of those who want to take innocent people's lives because of their own views? Treated equally under the law—that was another comment: treated equally under the law. They gave up those rights. They don't have those rights to be treated equally.

I've been in this chamber now for three years. I hear the Greens going on with their comments about all how they want to protect everyone's rights, but it is never, ever about the people here in this country and protecting the rights of people in Australia. It is always about everyone else around the world and their privacy and protecting their rights. Your responsibility is here in this country to protect the rights of the people here. As we make this decision, their right is that we ensure the safety of the people in Australia first and foremost. We're sending a clear message: if you have to go through this, a TEO, to get back into this country, so be it. Then you might think twice about leaving our shores to go and fight in another country where you have no regard for life over there.

So it's about time we toughened up and got tough on this. That's what the Australian people want from us. Heaven help us if the Greens ever get control of the government in this country. It would be bedlam. As I said, it is a real concern where we are headed as a nation if we do not allow this bill to pass. As well, I would say that most of these people who want to come back here would be unemployable. Not only will they cost Australia enormous amounts of money in surveillance, but they will have a tendency to remain on long-term welfare—plus their families, if they want to apply to bring in their families.

Lastly, I would like to put on the record how grateful One Nation voters and I are for the tireless work of our Australian Defence Force and coalition partners, who have decimated groups like Isis. The Australian federal and state police, along with ASIO officers, also deserve an enormous amount of praise for their help in maintaining the safety of all Australians against the terrorist threat in this nation. To all our serving personnel, both here and abroad, all I can say is thank you.

I can speak on that because I went to Afghanistan last year. I was in the war zone and I saw how the benefits of us being over there had helped the country to get back on their own feet and start learning how to defend themselves to give the people back their right to actually vote, which they were frightened to ever do before. So our presence over there is helping the people. To spend time with the soldiers over there and try to understand them was a wonderful experience for me. So, unlike a lot of people here in this place, who speak on an issue yet have never travelled over there to take firsthand experience to do with it, you clearly sometimes don't even know what you're talking about.

I don't want to see this terrorism in our own country. The only way we're going to stop that is to take a strong stance against these people coming back here, who will clearly have this hatred in their hearts for us, our culture and our way of life, and will do us harm whenever they possibly can.

So I say to the Greens, I wish you would do the job that you should be doing here: standing up and representing the people of Australia and their safety first and foremost. Because isn't their safety the number one issue that we must be looking at here, first and foremost? These freedom fighters made their choice to go over and fight in another country. What about the lives that are being destroyed there? They have no regard for that. Do you think they have any regard for lives here in this country? A clear message must be sent to everyone else in this country: if they think about wanting to leave our shores to go and fight somewhere else, there will be repercussions and you will face those repercussions. If it means you will never be able to return home to Australia, so be it. If it means you will never come back here and see your family, so be it. You made your choice in life. You made your bed, you lie in it.

I hope that this bill gets through tonight with some commonsense from the senators in this place. It is so important to our security. I will say to the government, to Peter Dutton, that I am grateful that they have introduced this bill, because this is what the Australian people want.