Interview with Sarah Abo, The Today Show, Channel Nine
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SARAH ABO, HOST: The Prime Minister is facing pressure from his own MPs to keep pushing for stronger hate speech laws amid fears of Islamic hate preachers that will be let off the hook. Hate speech laws amid fears of Islamic hate preachers that will be let off the hook. Joining us to discuss today's headlines is Minister for Employment Amanda Rishworth, and Chief Political Correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald Paul Sakkal. Paul, I'll start with you because this is, of course, according to your report in the Nine papers this morning. So the PM facing internal calls to toughen the hate speech laws while the Libs seemingly want to weaken them. Who's he listening to here?
PAUL SAKKAL, POLITICAL CORRESPONDANT: Well, the PM's trying to make this week one where some legislation gets through the parliament. Because the worst outcome here is one where all politicians rush back to Canberra, as the opposition and various other people outside Parliament called for, and we end up with a big slanging match and nothing gets done. That'd be a terrible sign for the Jewish community, be a terrible signal to the rest of the world about how we've united after this attack. But it's just worth remembering why we are passing these anti-vilification laws. We know that the two shooters in Bondi allegedly attended a study centre where preachers have been spewing hatred against Jews, gays, various other minorities for many, many years unchecked. So there was a sense that we needed to lower the threshold for criminality to try and capture speech that was not clearly inciting violence, but had the serious chance of promoting hatred which might lead to violence. Now, when the Government put forward those laws, we heard all kinds of free speech advocates say, oh, but what if it captures this kind of language and that kind of language? So the Government's pulled that section of the bill. There might be a flow-on consequence, which makes it much harder to actually ban some of these groups because that racial vilification provision is gone. And so some in the Jewish community and some Labor MPs are worried that we might end up with not much here.
SARAH ABO: And, look, everyone we know behind the scenes has been working furiously to present something. Obviously, Parliament's been recalled early. But, Amanda, you guys have made a lot of noise about the Coalition being the difficult ones here and abstracting this, but if Paul's report is accurate, are the hate speech laws dividing your government, the government?
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Well, first, I would say what happened in Bondi was shocking and an attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on us all. And so, we need to come together and strengthen our hate speech and, in fact, the bill before the Parliament will strengthen the laws against hate speech and be the strongest laws that the Commonwealth has ever had. But when it comes to the racial vilification laws, it's very clear that the opposition would not support these.
SARAH ABO: But it's not just the Opposition though, Amanda. It's your mates, the Greens, as well.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: There was widespread opposition across the Parliament. But that shouldn't mean we shouldn't take action. And that's why the bill before the parliament does deal with listing organisations that do spread hate.
SARAH ABO: But are you blaming the Coalition or the Greens or whatever instead of actually looking internally and whether there are people within your own ranks who don't think this is a strong enough bill or a good enough bill?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: What I'm saying is I'm saying we need to get laws through the Parliament.
SARAH ABO: That takes agreement.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: It's a numbers issue. And so if you have both the opposition saying that we will not support racial vilification laws and the Greens not supporting, then you can't bring it into law. So we need to find laws that we can pass to bring stronger hate speech laws into this country, and that's what our Government's doing.
SARAH ABO: Alright, and you are facing a bit of pressure to get that done. I mean, we're also looking at the polls this week, which don't paint a great picture for your party, Amanda. One Nation's surge in support, Pauline Hanson confident she can win government. She's surpassed the Coalition in that News Corp poll from yesterday. The PM though reckons it's not something to worry about. Is he being a bit naive, Amanda?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I did read some of the comments Pauline Hanson made in her press conference. I'm not sure the biggest point on her resume is bringing Barnaby Joyce over to the party. I'm not sure I'd put that on my resume to become Prime Minister. But in all seriousness, I'm not focused on that this week. I'm focused absolutely on the work that needs to be done to combat anti-Semitism in this country, to pass our laws that make sure that there's sensible gun reform in this country, and of course, that we do tackle hate speech.
SARAH ABO: Yeah, I think you're right. And, Paul, obviously it's not an issue to focus on this week for the Government, but it might be a problem for them long-term. We're seeing more and more Aussie voters turn against traditional parties and towards these right-leaning or left-leaning, sometimes, leaders.
PAUL SAKKAL: 100 per cent. I think there were two polls out yesterday, one from our newspapers, one from the News Corp stable, and the biggest take-out was that, whether or not the One Nation vote is soft and will actually remain at that high level remains to be seen, but voters are bleeding to both sides and the major parties' actually remain at that high level remains to be seen, but voters are bleeding to both sides, and the major parties' primary votes are both really at record lows. The Coalition certainly is, but Labor's also hovering around the high 20s, maybe early 30s, which historically is very low. So I think- and just talking to people over summer, and I'm sure you both experienced this, people just looked at Canberra and politicians over this period after a really shocking tragedy, one which the nation's really never seen anything like outside of Port Arthur, and thought, are these guys serious? Can they come together? This looks like a bit of a mess. And without putting much thought to it, because they're watching the cricket and hanging out with their family, I think people are looking for alternatives, and that's a sad reflection on our body politic.
SARAH ABO: Yeah, that's right, and they don't want to be waved off anymore. They want people to actually listen and act. But that is a problem that both parties face, certainly in the long term. Amanda, Paul, thanks so much for joining me this morning. I really appreciate your time.