Interview with Natalie Barr, Sunrise

17 April 2024

NATALIE BARR: The 16 year old boy, who allegedly carried out an attack on a western Sydney church on Monday night, wasn't on any state or federal police terror watch lists. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns says the teen also wasn't suspected to have been radicalised. He's accused of stabbing Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and three others. He's been arrested and he remains in police custody this morning. For more, we are joined by Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil and Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume Good morning to both of you. Clare, if the alleged attacker wasn't on any watch list, what can our security services do to stop something like this from happening again?

CLARE O’NEIL: Thanks, Nat. I'll get to your question in a moment, but could I just say, on behalf of the Australian government and the Australian people, how much our hearts go out to the community that's been particularly affected by this tragedy in Western Sydney. To have an incident like this occur particularly in the context of people calmly worshipping is just something that's so awful to see. And I know I speak on behalf of Jane and all members of Parliament when I just say how sorry I am to that community. Um, you ask a really important question about our law enforcement officials, and it's also important for us to just say our thanks and gratitude to law enforcement, not only in the work that they've done in this incident, but in their broader work in protecting the Australian community. What I can tell you is I've got an enormous level of confidence in the people who work in this area. Our law enforcement officials are very good at what they do, and we know that they have successfully thwarted about 21 terrorist attacks, things that would have been incredibly violent incidents over the last decade. It is correct to say that we are seeing a trend where it is harder for us to discern when a terrorist attack like this may occur, but I would say that police and law enforcement officials are very good at this, and I'm confident in their abilities. We need to let them do their investigative work, but that's progressing very nicely and I'm confident in their work.

NATALIE BARR: Yep, they certainly do have a big and difficult job. So graphic videos also of this alleged attack were circulated on social media. As we see it was live streamed It's been suggested it may have that may have fuelled some of the mob scenes we then saw afterwards. Jane, do you think there needs to be tougher regulations on social platforms? I know the government is demanding that the videos now be taken down and they're given 24 hours.

JANE HUME: Well, you would certainly expect the social media giants that display these videos to immediately respond and take them down the moment that they know that something untoward has occurred. What I would say though, is reiterating Claire's point. Our law enforcement officers were hurt in the scuffle afterwards because of that. response to people coming to the same. And that is a great concern. Those law enforcement officials have done so much to keep us safe, if anything we can learn from the experience in Bondi earlier is the bravery of those law enforcement personnel and that kind of response that mob mentality is almost as dangerous as the terrorist attack itself.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah, you do wonder why with all their resources that those social media companies can't rip this stuff down straight away. They seem to be, you know, complaining left, right and center why they can't. Clare, also making headlines, the government is also set to argue an Iranian man who has refused to cooperate with efforts to deport him, should continue to be held in immigration detention. Now the man has been in detention for a decade has resisted efforts to remove him arguing he'll face persecution if he’s sent back to Iran. Labor's legal challenge threatens to lead to 200 non citizens being released because they have cooperated with authorities. Do you think that's going to happen if you release this guy if this guy stays in because he hasn't cooperated? Can the others argue well they have cooperated and they're allowed to be led out?

CLARE O'NEIL: Well, that's not what the Commonwealth believes. Nat and we've gone to the High Court very strongly arguing that this particular person should remain in detention and the Commonwealth should remain empowered to detain people who are in these circumstances. I'm not going to get into the argument with you today because there is actually a hearing, as you point out in the High Court today, and it's not appropriate for me as one of the relevant ministers to be making comment on it. All I would say to Australians is that we have very strongly argued that we should be allowed to continue to detain this person. I can tell your viewers of course that we are prepared for every eventuality in terms of what decision is made about this. But please understand, at the moment, we are empowered to keep that person in detention and he's in detention because of our decision.

NATALIE BARR: What about everyone else? What about these other hundreds? What if they get out again?

CLARE O'NEIL: Well the court case- sorry Nat, the court case relates to that person and others in his situation. So just stepping back from the complexities here. We want the Commonwealth to retain the power to detain that person and to detain other people who are in his situation. And that is the argument that we've made very strongly to the High Court, and we will await the high court's decision whether that comes today or further down the track.

NATALIE BARR: Okay, Jane, what's your reading on this?

JANE HUME: Well, we would hope that the government takes a big deep breath after this High Court decision and doesn't take the same knee jerk reactions as it did with the last criminal detainee that then was released on top of another 150 criminal detainees. We would hope that there were laws in place already, that they're not these ones that the government is trying to rush through, that we're now having hearings on right now, that Clare is relying on to make sure that people like this particular individual can stay behind bars, can stay in detention, rather than be released along with another 200.

NATALIE BARR: Okay, we await that decision. Thank you very much. We'll see you next week.