Katharine Murphy, deputy political editor
theguardian.com, Wednesday 8 October 2014
Prime minister says a red card system “will happen quickly” after Alan Jones raises concerns about Lakemba lecture
Tony Abbott tells Alan Jones hate preachers should be kept out of Australia. Source: 2GB Radio
Tony Abbott has apologised for not moving sooner against “hate preachers” – while flagging a “red card” system to deny people entry to Australia.
The prime minister told the Alan Jones radio program on Wednesday morning Australians were permitted to “say stupid things” but the government should act to prevent people from overseas entering the country to stir up trouble.
“By all means let Australians who want to say stupid things to say stupid things but there’s no point importing troublemakers from overseas to stir people up,” the prime minister told 2GB.
“I am sorry we haven’t red-carded these hate preachers before but it will happen and it will happen quickly. We should have a system in place that red cards these hate preachers.”
Jones raised concerns about a lecture scheduled for Friday in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba by the group Hizb ut-Tahrir. The radio host told the prime minister the group was banned in several countries that were “cauldrons of extremism”. Jones said people were angry that hate preachers were “walking all over us”.
Abbott said he understood why his host was frustrated and angry, and he was frustrated and angry himself – but his advice was the group could not be banned in Australia under “existing law”.
The prime minister said Australian law only allowed groups to be proscribed if they were terrorist organisations, not if they campaigned against “Australian values.”
“We are advised under existing law we can’t do it. The law is changing,” Abbott said. “At the moment we can only ban organisations that engage in terrorism. Under the law that we are bringing through the parliament hopefully before the end of the year it will be an offence to promote terrorism.
“Then I suppose we need to have another look at Hizb ut-Tahrir to see if they fall under the definition. I’ll need to get fresh legal advice once the law has changed.”
The red card system for hate preachers flagged by Abbott on Wednesday morning appears to be a statement that the government will use the existing law to prevent people entering Australia. The prime minister said what he was talking about did not require a change in the law.
At a later media conference in Sydney, Abbott said “all sorts of powers” were already available to the government to deal with the issues he had raised but “the important thing is to use them”.
The prime minister said he envisaged “better coordination between our agencies”.
“I say to people who want to come to this country from overseas to peddle their extremist ideology, to divide Australian from Australian, to give implicit, if not explicit support for terrorism, don’t bother applying,” he said at a media conference.
“Don’t try to come because while we welcome people who want to come to Australia to join our team, while we welcome people who want to come to Australia to visit relatives, to have a holiday, to explore our fantastic country, what we don’t want is people coming to this country to peddle an extreme and alien ideology.”
Abbott said he “welcomed and rejoiced in the presence in this country of people of all faiths and none,” but that the threat to Australia was extremism and criminal behaviour.
“No-one does Australia or indeed Islam any favours by conflating Islam with extremism,” he said.
Earlier, Jones asked the prime minister why he wasn’t using existing provisions in the crimes act to suppress radical groups. “Why haven’t we heard more about the powers in the crimes act and the section that is headed treachery?” Jones inquired.
“Well, that’s a very good question Alan, and I don’t know the answer to it,” Abbott told his host. “I rely as you can imagine on advice from officials and this is not a section of law that has been brought to my attention, but now that you’ve raised it I will ask them to see if that can’t be deployed against [groups] like Hizb ut-Tahrir.”
Abbott repeated the point that “we don’t want to import troublemakers to stir division in our society … who will effectively promote terrorism”.
“They are promoting the ideology that spawns terrorism.”
Jones was concerned about the military being told not to wear their uniforms in public because of the heightened domestic security concerns, and schoolchildren being told by teachers not to wear their cadet uniforms. “The prime minister has said be normal, get on with your life – now we have teenagers frightened to wear their cadet gear,” Jones said.
The prime minister appeared not to know about instructions regarding cadet uniforms. “People should be able to go about their daily lives in this country safe in the knowledge we are a peaceful, tolerant broadly happy country,” he said.
Jones urged: “So say something to these kids about their cadet gear.”
Abbott said he knew nothing about this issue. “I haven’t written any such letters.
“My advice,” he said, “is people should go about their normal lives.”
