Sky News Sunday Agenda

CLENNELL: I'll talk to you about antisemitism in a moment. Let's start with the Telstra outage the other day. What's your latest information on it and what consequences will the company be facing given the Minister, Anika Wells suggested that Telstra must "face the music"? Are they going to cop a hefty fine? And how does it work?

CLARE: Well, it could potentially be a fine of $30 million. That's what the law is now. You know, this is serious. People could have died. Telstra's let the country down. Triple 000 shouldn't go down when it goes down, if people have got an emergency and they're ringing an ambulance to get them to hospital and it doesn't work, then people can die. That's why this is so serious. There's a parliamentary hearing that's going to take place, I think, on Friday of this coming week. But there's also the work that ACMA is doing. And as I said, they could potentially cop a fine of $30 million.

CLENNELL: Who levies it? How does it work?

CLARE: Well, that would be done by the government through ACMA. I think I'm right in saying that.

CLENNELL. So, when does that decision get made?

CLARE: Well, that'd be made after the investigation and that work is on foot right now.

CLENNELL: How long do you think that'll take?

CLARE: Not sure. I don't want to, you know, guess, but I reckon it'll take a little bit of time.

CLENNELL: On Barnaby Joyce's statement, we shouldn't rule out China was involved after the ballistic missile test. Do you dismiss that?

CLARE: Well, it pays just to take a bit of time and, you know, work out, you know, what the cause of this was. Aren't they saying it's a software bug that took the system back 20 years to back when Barnaby was part of the Howard government. So, you know, with all of these things, it pays just to find out exactly what happened. It's the same problem with members of the Liberal Party picking up the phone and ringing triple 000. My four year old knows that you only ring triple 000 in an emergency. And the fact that members of the Opposition were picking up triple 000 and interrupting that service, which should be for emergencies at a time like this, I think is deeply concerning.

CLENNELL: Have you whipped that up a bit, though, the government on Sarah Henderson, considering there's a bigger issue.

CLARE: I think she whipped it up herself probably at this desk or the one in Canberra.

CLENNELL: I believe you and other members of Cabinet are on Telstra phones. Did you lose connection for a time?

CLARE: No, I didn't.

CLENNELL: Okay. This nuclear submarine missile test by the Chinese government. How worried is the Australian Government about this?

CLARE: Oh, look, I think you don't make friends by firing a missile over someone's backyard, right? Good neighbours don't shoot stuff over someone else's house. And you pointed it out in your preview piece there. There's a contest for influence in the Pacific. The Prime Minister has now developed agreements and alliances with Papua New Guinea and Fiji and Vanuatu and a range of other countries in the region. We're working to strengthen our friendships in the Pacific. You know, other countries are firing ballistic missiles over them. That's not the way to make friends and influence people. 

CLENNELL. So, has it played into Australia's hands in that respect?

CLARE: Well, that's for others to judge. And I don't think the evidence, according to Australian officials, is that this was designed around the time of the Prime Minister's trip. The point is you don't make friends by firing rockets over their backyard.

CLENNELL: Do you think this will deter Pacific nations from signing agreements with Australia?

CLARE: No.

CLENNELL: I have Barnaby Joyce on later, you heard. I wanted to ask about what Pauline Hanson has said about monoculture. What do you think Pauline Hanson means when she says there should be a monoculture here?

CLARE: Who knows? All right, look. Monoculture, you know, what are they talking about? People with one eyebrow. You know, this is just ridiculous.

CLENNELL: Monobrow.

CLARE: Look, we're a multicultural country, Andrew, right? Whether you like it or not, made up of people from all around the world. Different religions, different backgrounds, different cultures. The sad part about this, I reckon, is the Liberal Party's got a pretty proud history here. The Liberal Party are responsible for getting rid of the White Australia policy. Now they're so spooked by One Nation that they can't even say the word multiculturalism. 

CLENNELL: I thought it was Gough who got rid of it. Was it Malcolm Fraser?

CLARE: Oh, no. Before Gough. Before Fraser. Before Gough, the Holt government and Gorton and McMahon all took the initial steps to get rid of the White Australia policy. Gough got rid of the last remnants of it. The fact that the Liberal Party, with all of that record that they should be proud of, can't even say the word multiculturalism sort of reeks of desperation.

CLENNELL: Are you saying One Nation wants a White Australia policy?

CLARE: We've got three right wing parties at the moment. The Libs, The Nats and One Nation. They're like the Neapolitan ice cream of Australian politics. The problem is they all want to be vanilla. That's the problem here. We are a multicultural country. It actually makes us -

CLENNELL: They want whites, they want whites only. That's what you just said. If they want vanilla.

CLARE: Well, you know - 

CLENNELL: Is that your belief?

CLARE: I don't know. You've got to ask Barnaby that. He's going to be on the program in a moment.

CLENNELL: But what else did you mean by vanilla?

CLARE: Well, pretty much vanilla across the board. When it comes to policies, they're all the same, right? Whether it's on -

CLENNELL: You didn't mean they want white?

CLARE: No, no, no. I'm not talking about that. Think about what they want to do in terms of making it easier to sack people, lowering wages. Pauline Hanson -

CLENNELL: Not much vanilla about that.

CLARE: Barnaby Joyce. Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce will talk to you about migration. But they're against free TAFE. Right? If we want to get more tradies to build more things, then things like investing in TAFE is important as well. They're against that too.

CLENNELL: You've got, correct me if I'm wrong here. I want to get this right. So, your wife's Vietnamese Australian. Is that correct. So, do you find this sort of stuff offensive from that point of view?

CLARE: You know, I actually think that Australia is a better country because of the migration that's happened to Australia over the last 40, 50 years. We're made up of people from all around the world. The bloke who's a player for the Socceroos has got it best. You don't choose where you were born, you don't choose the colour of your skin, but you do choose to be a good person. You know, I tell little kids when I go to primary school, you get to do that a bit as Education Minister, that Australia's a bit like a fruit salad. We all like apples and oranges and bananas, but they're better when they're all together. And that's Australia. Right? We're not all the same, but we all get on and work together.

CLENNELL: What's your message to Barnaby Joyce, who's about to join me, then?

CLARE: Well, I just asked Barnaby to be true to the person that he really is. Barnaby and I are mates. We've known each other for decades. And I know, you know, Barnaby is a good man who believes in multiculturalism and understands that Australia is better because of all of the people that have come here and made Australia their home, many of whom live in his neck of the woods.

CLENNELL: Is the government not helped though by letting so many migrants in in a short period of time by not doing more to block the ISIS brides? Has the government not helped in terms of this debate?

CLARE: Look, I think in the wake of COVID there was a lot of people who came into the country after that. Part of that was international students, you know, the bank, the sort of pent up demand after people couldn't come here for a couple of years. We've got that net migration down now by close to 50 per cent. But I've got to remind viewers, Andrew, I introduced legislation into the parliament to put a cap on the number of international students who come to Australia and the right wing parties opposed it. So, if they're serious about this, if it's not just about picking a fight but, you know, working out a fix, then they would have supported that legislation.

CLENNELL: This week shapes as something of a week when it comes to tackling antisemitism in this country. First of all, the universities will front the Bondi Royal Commission. What are you expecting to hear there in terms of what universities have been doing wrong in failing to stamp out antisemitism?

CLARE: I think you're going to hear some pretty horrific evidence tomorrow and over the next few days in particular from Jewish students about the abuse that they suffered, the intimidation and the harassment that they experienced at universities. And that's just not on.

CLENNELL: What's the worst thing you've heard?

CLARE: Well, you see a bit of it reported in the newspaper today, people being called baby killers. Right. The universities were caught flat footed here and in fairness to the universities, some of them have made important improvements over the course of the last few years, but not enough. There's a lot more to do. We said last year that we would change the law to mandate or require universities to take certain steps in relation to antisemitism to make sure that they've got plans and policies and complaint systems for when people make a complaint to make sure that it's fixed, that's for students and for staff and that becomes the law tomorrow. But that's just the next step. What we also need to do is give the regulator of universities more teeth, more powers when universities fail to act to be able to fine them. The regulator at the moment, if it wants to fine a university, needs to go to court. I figure that that's not the right approach and so I'll introduce legislation to give the regulator more powers over the coming months.

CLENNELL: There'll be a renewed focus on bullying too at this meeting of state education Ministers, where you'll also discuss antisemitism on Wednesday.

CLARE: Yeah.

CLENNELL: Do you want to talk us through that?

CLARE: Well, bullying of kids. Anyone who's a mum or a dad who's watching would know this is worse than ever. You know, when we were kids, bullying happened at school, but now it can happen at home too. It can follow you all the way home. One young girl, 12 year old girl, called Charlotte O'Brien, who grew up not far from me, lost her life to bullying almost two years ago in September of this year. And her mum and dad, Mat and Kelly, incredible people. I, you know, like, if that happens to you, what do you do? You crawl up into a ball. They did the opposite. They created a foundation. Charlotte's message to them when she passed away was to ask them to encourage more kids to be upstanders, not bystanders, and to do something to tackle bullying. And so they approached me. It's led to the development of changes that are going to be rolled out in schools where schools have got to act within the first two days. But also an advertising campaign that's going to kick off next month that they've been involved in helping us to develop. But also some resources for parents, because often parents, whether it's your child that's getting bullied or if you get a message on school Bytes from a teacher that says your child's done something wrong, you don't know what to do to be able to stop it and stamp it out. So, this campaign is about helping to be able to identify if your child might be being bullied and then what you can do as a mum or a dad. And Mat and Kelly are going to present that to Ministers this week.

CLENNELL: Okay. Do you concede the social media under 16 ban isn't working for those who are between the ages of, say, 11 and 16 at the moment? And when can we expect some action against the social media companies?

CLARE: Well, kids are smart, right? I never thought this would be perfect. There's always going to be kids that are going to work around the system.

CLENNELL: Most kids.

CLARE: Well, you know, it's a bit, it's a bit like alcohol, right? We've got laws that say that you can't drink alcohol until you're 18, but there are kids under 18 that get access to alcohol. It doesn't mean you don't have a law to stop it. But my problem's not with kids. My problem's with the tech companies and whether they're taking this seriously.

CLENNELL: Well, they're not going to take it seriously until you take action against them. And that seems to be taking a very long time.

CLARE: Well, it needs to be faster. Right. There's a bill in the Parliament that should have passed two weeks ago but was held up by The Greens as well as the Libs working together, that doubles the fines and gives more power to the regulator. You know, I see in my job -

CLENNELL: What's the point of doubling the fines if you're not fining them. I know what you mean about more power -

CLARE: You've got to do both, right.

CLENNELL: What's your advice? Is your advice that there's action that's near or not really?

CLARE: Well, that action will happen as soon as the Parliament goes back, if we get the support of the other parties.

CLENNELL. So, because of this bill, we will see action, is that what you're saying?

CLARE: Well, there's action happening now, right? But this is not a set and forget area. If you need to beef up the fines, do it. You need to give more power to the regulator, do it.

CLENNELL: The ban - 

CLARE: You need to apply it to other - 

CLENNELL: It's now July, isn't it. So, when? When are we going to see it?

CLARE: It's already. Hang on a sec, mate. There's about five million of these accounts that have been deregistered. The problem is are the kids getting back on, right. So, giving more powers to the regulator to force the tech companies to act is important. Can I just make one other point about this, though? Because we've banned phones in schools, right. So, between 9 o' clock in the morning and 3 o' clock in the afternoon, we've got a real live experiment about what works and what doesn't. And if you ask teachers, they'll tell you the impact on behaviour is real, the impact on focus in the classroom, when you don't, you know, look down into your bag to grab your phone, you're focused on what the teacher's saying at the front is positive. The impact in the playground's real as well. Kids are talking to each other and playing games rather than, you know, doom scrolling. So, we know it works. The problem is when kids get out of school and they're back at the bus stop, they're back on their phones. And so what we do here matters.

CLENNELL: The PM had to apologise during the week for his comments about Kylie Minogue. How would you have answered that question?

CLARE: Look, he apologised. He said it publicly and clearly, and I think that's the end of the matter. If you make a mistake, you apologise and that's what he's done.

CLENNELL: Is there a risk in politicians having to pander to interviews with influencers and comedian podcasts and the like to reach a more fragmented audience these days.

CLARE: Oh, look, there's a risk whenever you do an interview. There's a risk when you do an interview with Andrew Clennell.

CLENNELL: Right. Speaking of which, there are some people in the - 

CLARE: Here we go.

CLENNELL: - in the NSW Right faction who are keen for promotion and the PM wants to promote. I'm talking about the likes of Andrew Charlton, Kristy McBain, Matt Thistlethwaite. For them to be promoted, people like you and or Chris Bowen and Tony Burke would have to retire. Are you contemplating retirement at the election?

CLARE: No, I'm not. You know, I pinch myself that I've got this job. You know, I'm a kid from Cabramatta who is the first person in my family to finish Year 10. And now I'm the Education Minister getting a chance to - this is, you know, a dream job to be able to do something to help more kids get the education that they need and that the country deserves. And I'm just trying to do a half decent job of it.

CLENNELL: Are there any hard feelings from the NSW Right to Richard Marles over the way he handled the last reshuffle, initially doing a deal that the NSW Right wouldn't have to give up a spot just yet, and then reneging, leading to the axing of your mate, Ed Husic?

CLARE: Look, we're all adults and we're working together. One thing that you see in this team is unity, right? And I don't think that even our harshest critics could say that this is not a united team, which stands in pretty stark contrast to the other mob when they're already talking about Andrew Hastie potentially taking over from Angus Taylor.

CLENNELL: What do you make of Ed Husic outspokenness in caucus in recent weeks? He seems to be regularly opposing the government position on issues like AUKUS. Is that just sour grapes from Ed?

CLARE: Look, when you're on the backbench, you're entitled to be able to express your views on all different sorts of things. Ed's a person with some pretty strong views. I think everybody knows that, and that's fair enough.

CLENNELL: Jason Clare thanks for your time.