National security, government transparency, telecommunications failures and public protests. A lot going on, and we’re facing a series of very pressing issues in our country, not to mention what’s going on in the rest of the world, but new revelations about the return of ISIS members, or people who were there with an ISIS member have raised questions about safety and government oversight, while planned protests at the Opera House didn’t go ahead. There was still a protest, but it wasn’t 40,000 was more like eight, and that’s the tension that’s been around our city and of course, it’s all been terribly, terribly hurtful, very hurtful for the Jewish community. At the same time, you know, the triple zero outages. We really have been in a hell of a news cycle, as Smithy and I keep saying, the last two or three weeks, and they’ve been carpeted by the Minister as well. Got a lot to unpack from the corridors of power with Shadow Immigration Minister Paul Scarr, who joins us on the line now for Canberra. Conversations, Good Morning mate.
Senator Scarr
Good morning. Tim, great to be with you and your listeners again.
Tim Webster
Yeah, lovely to talk to you. Look, can the government really, and I said last week, I mean, you had Tony Burke coming out to rescue the Prime Minister over this, because the return of these, you know, ISIS brides, if you like, to our shores, passport, citizenship papers. I mean, they don’t write themselves do they?
Senator Scarr
Absolutely and especially children who were born to parents overseas need to make an application through what’s called citizenship by descent, and that requires the cooperation of the government. So the main issue here is we ask questions. We ask questions of the Prime Minister, we ask questions of the Foreign Affairs Minister, and they just stonewalled us and I think the Australian people have a right to the information. They have a right to know what all the circumstances are in relation to the return of these people to Australia.
Tim Webster
Yeah, no, I didn’t see all of that Question Time, but Tony Burke obviously stepped in Paul to save the Prime Minister and Penny Wong and said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Look, I knew about it. I knew about it a couple of months ago. Well, if he knew about it a couple of months ago, why didn’t we find out?
Senator Scarr
Well, exactly. Where did the line of communication break down and this is information which the Australian people deserve to know, Tim, your listeners deserve to know. So why wasn’t the government on the front foot and informing the Australian public? We’ve got people in this country who were victims of ISIS, who suffered incredible atrocities at the hands of ISIS, and they found safety in Australia and they’re asking questions. They’re asking questions. So the government should have been up front. They should have told the Australian people the full story from day one and not be dragged kicking and screaming to actually dribble out the truth over question time and Tony Burke did have to come to the aid of the Prime Minister. You are absolutely correct.
Tim Webster
Well he sort of tends to be their attack dog, doesn’t he, Tony Burke? On the Triple Zero failures, the Minister has met with Optus executives, the owner from SingTel, and we’ve had, I think, the Mayor over here from Singapore, and apologising, blaming technical equipment and human error. I mean, you’re calling for a fully independent investigation. What should that inquiry look like? To say it’s not acceptable is such an understatement. It’s not funny, because it’s not funny.
Senator Scarr
Yeah, I agree, Tim, it’s, it’s hard to actually put in the words how significant this is – people lost their lives. People lost their lives. It doesn’t get more serious than this and the fact of the matter is that there was a recommendation made in November 2023, all the way back in November 2023 for a special custodian to be set up to oversee these sorts of issues and that didn’t occur, so the inquiry needs to look into that. The inquiry needs to look into the chain of communication from when the outage first occurred, who knew what when, and it needs to come up with recommendations to make sure this never happens again. Australian families should never be in this situation. Your listeners when they ring Triple Zero, there should be an ironclad guarantee that they can get in touch with the authorities and get the help their loved ones need.
Tim Webster
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s leave that one there, because the government, we probably should say, give them a bit of a wrap, are onto it, just a matter of how seriously they’re onto it, and how seriously it’s taken by Optus and, by the way, all the other telcos.
Senator Scarr
The way the system should work is, if there’s an outage with one telco, the system should just seamlessly change over to the to another telco, right? So there is no impediment to getting through the triple zero. So why didn’t that work in this case? This really does need an independent investigation as much as anything, to give confidence to the Australian people. Because I think confidence has been shaken.
Tim Webster
Now it was the topic of the week last week, the proposed protest at the Opera House, which didn’t happen. It was a much smaller protest, not 40,000, it was 8000 and it happened around Australia. There were protests in Bega and Perth and Adelaide, and of course, Lydia Thorpe’s extraordinary outburst in Melbourne. You’ve got behind all of that, our Jewish community coming together to mark the largest loss of life since the Holocaust, and that doesn’t seem to be being mentioned very often, and it’s been incredibly hurtful for them to have to see all of this and you just hope, if this peace process proceeds as we hope it does, that the heat will go out of it, and we might get something positive to happen and maybe, just maybe, the protests will stop.
Senator Scarr
Why would you protest when a major peace plan initiative has been announced? Shouldn’t that be celebrated, that this violence is coming to an end, that there’s a chance for peace and I’m so pleased the authorities prevented the proposed protests at the Opera House. So hats off to them. I think that was incredibly important and I just want to see those hostages released. I want to see the violence come to an end, and I want to see enduring peace. I never want to see us go through this again. Tim, it’s just been terrible.
Tim Webster
Now this is relating to you very personally. You addressed the Migration Institute of Australia on Friday at their conference. Tell us more about what happened there.
Senator Scarr
Yeah, I did. Tim, so it was one of my first opportunities to set out my thoughts in relation to the debate and this is a debate Tim that we need to have, and it’s a debate in the national interest. There’s research that indicates 49% of Australians think our immigration rates are too high. At the same time, three quarters of those people also believe, though, that multiculturalism has actually been to the benefit of Australia, right? So this is a concern around numbers, and when you look at the numbers, we’re still 100,000 above the 10 year average prior to the pandemic, and we’re still about 90,000 above what Treasury’s long term forecast is and housing is a major issue. In 2024 there were 177,000 dwellings built in this country, and that’s compared to the supply, the demand requirement of 223,000 and that’s an issue.
Tim Webster
Look, I have to tell you, I mean, at the government level, you know what the situation is, and I do too. I mean, I’ve got a tradie son, I’ve got tradie mates, and they will all tell you that these targets are simply not achievable. It won’t happen and yet we’re still at federal government level, pouring people in, particularly to New South Wales and Victoria, Sydney and Melbourne, where people want to live and nowhere to live. I mean, fair dinkum, you just shake your head at how stupid it is.
Senator Scarr
The government needs to explain how it comes up with these figures and how it takes into account things like housing supply and infrastructure pressures. So when, when the figures were announced a month or so ago, Tony Burke put out three sentences, 100 words. That’s all it was. There was no explanation to the Australian people. So one of the things I’ve been calling out for is detailed analysis, long term planning, and bringing the Australian people on the journey.
Tim Webster
Yeah, absolutely. At the very least, at the very least, that should be done. Yeah. Always good to talk to you, mate. Thanks for your time.
