Interview - ABC Afternoon Briefing

GREG JENNETT: All right. Well, Labor frontbencher and Early Childhood Education Minister Anne Aly has occasionally had special responsibilities for the government on the humanitarian crisis that the Israel-Hamas war has wreaked. Anne Aly joins us now from our Perth studio.  

Anne, welcome to the program. I’ll come to visas and ASIO’s security processes in just a moment. A very quick observation, though: you’ve had a full Cabinet camped out in Perth for the last two days. I’m sure you were part of events there to defend the west for the ALP. Is this governing or campaigning? Can you just clear that one up for us, Anne?

MINISTER ANNE ALY: Well, this is the fourth time that we’ve had a Cabinet ministerial meeting here in Western Australia. It’s the Prime Minister’s 23rd visit to Western Australia, which earns him the honorary sand groper title. This is governing. This is a Prime Minister and a Cabinet and a leadership team and a caucus that is demonstrating to Western Australia that we understand that Western Australia is not just the economic engine for WA but for the whole of Australia. We understand the unlimited potential that there is here in WA, which, by the way, stands for “Way Ahead,” not “Wait Awhile,” as some might argue. 

JENNETT: All right. Thanks for clearing that up, Anne. Let’s go to the real issue du jour, and I know you’re poised to make some responses to Peter Dutton and others. So, the ASIO boss, Mike Burgess, has claimed his comments on security checks or criteria for the issuing of Palestinian visas have been distorted. As we sift through what Mike Burgess has said, does that mean that no visa holder who has come to Australia will have supported Hamas or think that what happened on the 7th of October is okay? 

ALY: Well, look, I think it’s pretty extraordinary that the Director-General of ASIO needs to come out and basically make a public statement that his comments have been distorted for political gain by the Coalition. Frankly, sitting there in parliament, question after question – 44 questions in the last couple of sitting weeks in parliament – about this, not a single question about the economy, not a single question about cost of living, not a single question about Australians doing it tough. Every single question was about this in order for Peter Dutton and the Coalition to conflate, as they do, conflate terrorism with refugees, with asylum seekers, and with people coming out of Gaza. It is absolutely offensive to people who are fleeing what is basically the destruction of their homes, their towns, their cities, coming to Australia, people who have lost family. 

And Mike Burgess is, as the Prime Minister has said, he is a competent – more than competent Director-General for ASIO. Peter Dutton needs to tell Australians who doesn’t he trust. Does he not trust the Israeli security agencies who vet them? Does he not trust the Egyptians who vet them? Or does he not trust our own security agencies? 

JENNETT: Okay. Well, I think if he was here – and we will speak later in the program and to James Paterson – he may well say it’s the government we don’t trust for its own policy choices in choosing to go down the path of processing and issuing tourist visas, which would then invite the question, I suppose, were all 3,000 visa holders checked for any support for Hamas? We can’t say that, can we?

ALY: Well, every visa to come to Australia goes through checks. Every person who seeks to come into this country, regardless of which visa they choose to come into this country, goes through checks. First of all, if they’re coming out of Gaza, which is quite extraordinary that they would come out of Gaza considering the Rafah Crossing has been closed since, I believe, March or May – quite extraordinary that they would come out of that. If they’re leaving Gaza, if they’re able to leave Gaza, they have been checked by the Israelis, they’ve been checked by the Egyptians, and they have been checked by ASIO. This is not a matter of the tourist visas or anything else. This is purely – and I have seen this over eight years, Greg. I have seen Peter Dutton and the Coalition time and time again try to whip up fear in the community and kick – no, punch down on people who are simply seeking to escape a war zone, simply seeking to escape a zone where their whole lives have been annihilated. 

JENNETT: They certainly are doing that at the moment, Anne, which brings us to a new or relatively new set of statistics – that almost half of the Palestinians who’ve made it to Australia are now making asylum claims on shore here. Had the government, or even you as someone familiar with these matters, fully anticipated this? 

ALY: I think, you know, everyone who comes to Australia who believes that they are entitled to asylum is entitled to apply for asylum in Australia. They will go through the processes that every person who comes here who seeks asylum, regardless of which visa they came to, it will go through the same process. 

But I must say this, Greg: listening to Peter Dutton saying that the only reason that they are seeking asylum is because they need permanent residency completely demonstrates his lack of understanding, lack of compassion, and lack of empathy. People don’t seek asylum because they want to; they seek asylum because they’re forced to. 

JENNETT: But just to test that in other circumstances – let’s take only one, the Ukrainian displaced people – they were issued visa subcategory which is, for all intents and purposes, temporary. Why couldn’t that have been the approach with the Palestinian cohort? 

ALY: Well, this was the advice that people were given in order to get people out of Gaza. I think that the situation in Gaza was so desperate, and this was the fastest way that people who could get out of Gaza at the time could get out. And let’s not forget that many of them had family here in Australia as well. In fact, many of the tourist visas that were – I don’t know for sure, but I think all of them – were for people who had connections to Australia as well. 

JENNETT: Okay. Are visas being reviewed, or should we have reason to suspect that visa holders in Australia presently, some of whom may now be seeking asylum and the other half perhaps not – Peter Dutton has certainly suggested today, Anne Aly, that AFP and ASIO are “chasing their tails” and expending resources trying to check the status of the 1,300 here. Do you have anything to rebut that assertion? 

ALY: Well, if Peter Dutton knows something that the Government doesn’t or that ASIO or the AFP doesn’t know, then he needs to speak up about it. Look, anyone – and every member of parliament will tell you this: we get representations all the time from people whose visas have been denied, who have been – who have applied for permanent residency and that’s been denied. You know, we get asked to make representations, we get cases before us all the time. This would be the same thing. These people are all in the same situation. Anyone coming to Australia who seeks asylum, who seeks a permanent residency, who seeks any type of visa, goes through exactly the same checks that everyone else does. 

JENNETT: I think the suggestion here, though, by Peter Dutton, if I was to interpolate, was that retrospectively they might be chasing their tails on the original tourist visa grouping, but you’re saying you can’t – you’re not in a position to confirm that?

ALY: Well, I’m not in a position to confirm that. And I don’t think Peter Dutton is in a position to confirm that either, to be honest. I think he’s doing what he always does – which is trying to suggest that people who have fled Gaza, who have come to Australia and who have fled what is an annihilation of their homes, their cities, their towns, are somehow a security threat to Australians. He didn’t have that to say about people – white South African farmers. In fact, he wanted to give them full protection. You know, this is a person who I have observed over the last eight years in parliament has – takes particular joy, to be honest, out of punching down on certain groups. 

JENNETT: All right. Look, you’ve comprehensively addressed that. Thank you for doing that, Anne. It probably would be remiss of me not to ask one question, which I will do just at the end, in your area of early childhood education. Jobs and Skills Australia has released some estimates today which makes for daunting reading if you’re looking at universal early childhood entitlements, because the current workforce alone would need to grow by 8 per cent to meet known unmet demand presently. Your wage subsidy – and here’s the question, Anne – your wage subsidy is limited only to the next couple of years. Reading this report, does it now have to be indefinite, that wage subsidy?

ALY: Well, the wage subsidy is a two-year wage subsidy in recognition of the fact that there is a workforce crisis, that there are early childhood educators leaving the sector, and that they deserve – they deserve a pay rise that is in line with their professionalism and the professionalism of what they do. 

The Prime Minister and I were out today at TAFE talking to early childhood educator students in their second term. They’re going to be graduating in November and in December they’ll get a pay rise. These are people who otherwise would not have had access to early childhood education and care courses had we not implemented our Fee-Free TAFE program. We are doing everything that we can to ensure that we have the workforce that we need to lay the foundations for reforming the sector towards a universal early childhood education system. 

JENNETT: Yeah, it’s a big task ahead. 

ALY: It sure is. 

JENNETT: I’m sure we’ll come back to that and other matters. It’s always good to have you with us, Anne Aly. We thank you, as always. 

ALY: Thank you, Greg.