EDITORIAL: Albanese needs to fix hole in security laws
EDITORIAL: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is fond of saying the broken-promises Budget was necessary to do what’s right.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is fond of saying the broken-promises Budget was necessary to do what’s right.
And yet in doing so he has trapped himself in his own rhetoric when it comes to doing what’s right and needed on another matter — ensuring our border, our national security, is not compromised.
Mr Albanese told Seven’s Sunrise on Friday in relation to the hotly-contested tax changes, “if you know that there’s a problem, if everyone’s identified the problem and it’s agreed the system is broken, then you can’t just sit back and not do anything about it. What we’ve done here is do something about it”.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Host Nat Barr persisted that “for 45 days, people have been angry and confused. They have been running to their accountants. They don’t know what’s happening. Do you think you’re out of touch?”
Mr Albanese doubled down: “I, as Prime Minister, have a responsibility when something is identified as broken, to do my best to fix it, even if there’s a political cost of that.”
Point taken Prime Minister. Your job is to fix things that are broken.
The conversation then moved on to the approval given for the return from the Middle East to Australia of the final “ISIS bride”.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had initially issued a temporary exclusion order against Hodan Abby to refuse her return on national security grounds.
But on Thursday Mr Burke revealed she could return from Syria after finding a way around the order.
He argued that legally his hands were tied because a formal request was made which the Government was advised could not be rejected.
We have here a person deemed enough of a risk to have been slapped with an order denying permission to enter Australia.
And yet we are told she needed only to apply for a return permit to override the exclusion order.
“The temporary exclusion order applies until a permit is issued and when a permit is requested, a permit lawfully has to be issued,” Mr Burke said.
What a farce.
Mr Burke tried to play down the impact of the obvious loophole.
He said on her return she would be required to provide 24 hours notice before using any form of technology, including phones, email, social media or the internet.
“We will have to know where she lives, where she works, where she studies, if she books a ticket to anywhere,” he said. “There will be a very high level of scrutiny and surveillance and we have gone absolutely to the legal limit that we’re able to.”
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was having none of it.
He accused the ISIS brides — who had gone to live in the region amid ISIS brutality — of abandoning Australia and supporting an “evil death cult” and steeping their children in a “monstrous ideology”.
“The Albanese Government said it ‘couldn’t do anything’ — what a lot of codswallop. It chose to do nothing,” he said.
The Liberal leader said it “fails the security test, fails the fairness test, fails the values test, and fails the pub test”.
Which takes us back to Mr Albanese. Here is something which is clearly broken.
Mr Prime Minister, how about fixing it?
