Andrew Clennell, Host: Joining me live is the Assistant Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister, Matt Thistlethwaite. Thanks so much for your time.
Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade: G'day, Andrew.
Clennell: I will ask about Nauru in a second. What do we know about this Russian consulate attack today, first, a bloke driving into the gates in Sydney?
Assistant Minister: Yeah. Allegedly a 39 year old male has attempted to drive through the gates of the Russian consulate in Sydney. He's been arrested by the Australian Federal Police. We don't know much more than that, so the normal course of investigation and prosecution will ensume, but it's a disturbing incident and it's obviously worrying for the residents around the consulate.
Clennell: Do we know if he's Ukrainian or what his motivation is?
Assistant Minister: No, we don't know the nationality of the person, certainly don't know what the, what the motivation is. And obviously the AFP will investigate and try and find that out.
Clennell: And any thought of what sort of charge he could face?
Assistant Minister: No, I don't know. I don't know what the AFP will have charged him with. Obviously potentially malicious damage, but there could be further charges as well that are much more serious.
Clennell: So, let's talk about this Nauru deal. There was Murray Watt effectively saying you'll be paying a country $400 million to take 200 criminal detainees off our hands. I described this on air yesterday as kind of a bribe. Is it?
Assistant Minister: No, it's about keeping the Australian public safe. These are people who've come to Australia and let's face it, migrating to Australia is a privilege and we ask not much of people, but we ask that you obey the law. And these people have broken the law and some of them have committed heinous crimes. Now we've got to judge what the expectation of the Australian people is. And we believe that the expectation of the Australian people is that we act to keep Australians safe and that is to keep people such as this off the streets. You know, we could deport them to the countries that they've come from, but unfortunately, because of legal reasons, we couldn't do that. We could keep them in immigration detention. The NZYQ case said we can't do that. So, this is the alternative that we've come up with to keep Australians safe by removing them to Nauru.
Clennell: Will they be detained in Nauru or live freely?
Assistant Minister: That's up to the Nauruan government. That'll be a matter for the Nauruan government.
Clennell: They haven't indicated to us either way.
Assistant Minister: No, they haven't. I understand that possibly they can live in the community over there. It'll be a matter for the Nauruan government. We've signed an MOU with them. The Minister, Tony Burke, signed that last Friday. So, that's a matter for the Nauruan government. But the funding that we're providing is to help them settle people over there.
Clennell: One of these characters is an alleged murderer and another one alleged home invader. How do you think the, I think it's, 12,000 people on Nauru feel about having those sorts of people in their midst?
Assistant Minister: Well, the Nauruan government understand this, and they've made the decision that they believe that they can settle these people and they're willing to enter into the MOU, but I think --
Clennell: Because they're desperate for money, aren't they?
Assistant Minister: Well, I think that people have got to understand we've got to act as a government in the best interests of Australians. That's what we're elected to do. And the Australian people expect us to make sure that people such as this are not roaming free on the streets of Australia. They've lost their privilege to remain in Australia because they broke the law and we're removing them because of that.
Clennell: Was there a bartering process here in terms of the payment to Nauru? Like, did the government start with a lower figure and settle on where you're at?
Assistant Minister: I don't know. I wasn't involved in the negotiations. That was a matter for Tony Burke. But we believe the cost is a reasonable one to ensure that we can keep Australians safe into the future. And the other thing, Andrew, is this is about sending a message to people that migrate to Australia. We expect you to obey the law, and if you breach the law, then you face the prospect of being removed to Nauru.
Clennell: You're ultimately doing this because your preventative detention laws weren't going to work on this cohort, were they?
Assistant Minister: Well, we're doing it because all the other alternatives have been ruled as invalid by the High Court or inoperable because of international law. So, it's not the principal option that we sought to use, but it's the option that we have to settle with because of those court rulings.
Clennell: When are we seeing the 2025-26 permanent migration program announced? It's now September.
Assistant Minister: Yeah, that'll be announced, that'll be announced soon --
Clennell: What, in the next week or two?
Assistant Minister: We've had a recalibration in numbers. We've reduced net overseas migration by 100,000. It takes a fair bit of time to consult with the States because they deliver a lot of the infrastructure and services that migrants rely on. And there's a budgeting process, so --
Clennell: Will we tick over 200,000 in terms of permanent migration? Will we break the record of 195,000?
Assistant Minister: Well, we didn't last year, about 185,000 last year. So, as I said, we've been reducing the numbers, but we need to be conscious of the fact that most of those are skilled migrants. And when you go to rural and regional Australia, employers are crying out for skilled labour because unfortunately they can't get it through the Australian system. Now we're attempting to train more Australians by providing fee-free TAFE, prac payments and all that sort of stuff, but that takes time. You can't say to an employer, oh, listen, we're going to change the system. We'll give you an apprentice in four years' time. They need people now, so you're going to have to have a level of skilled migration.
Clennell: Doesn't the large size of these numbers, though, and maybe why you don't want to broadcast it so loud, feed into that some of that March for Australia sentiment that we saw on the weekend?
Assistant Minister: Well, I mean, people have got the right to protest. We understand that, as long as they do it safely, but unfortunately there were some extremists that were involved in that that don't represent the views of Australia. I think on the whole, Australians accept that migration has been a positive for our society and our country and we need to calibrate the numbers every year and we do that by balancing it with community expectations and needs and the budget. But Australian employers in rural and regional areas particularly need skilled labour. We've got to respond to that. We've got to provide them with the labour that they need so they can grow their businesses into the future.
Clennell: We had Richard Marles' visit to JD Vance in the US last week. Do you think this gets us closer to an Albanese-Trump meeting?
Assistant Minister: Hopefully it does. We've had the request in for a while we had a meeting scheduled, but obviously President Trump had to cancel. So, we hope that we can have a meeting soon. I was in the Australian America Leadership Dialogue a few weeks ago in Adelaide, where I met with Congressional representatives from the Republicans and the Democrats. We spoke about defence issues, we spoke about trade issues. At that level, the relationship is as strong as ever, particularly around defence. Had the largest number of troops in the marine rotation in Australia this dry season up north than ever before.
Clennell: Do you think AUKUS is safe, then?
Assistant Minister: I do, yeah, I do. In the discussions that I had with both Republican and Democratic representatives, including Joe Courtney, they were confident that AUKUS would be maintained and that the Virginia-class submarines would be delivered on.
Clennell: They probably want more money though, won't they? This might be a feature of an Albanese-Trump meeting. Bigger commitment from Australia to AUKUS.
Assistant Minister: Well, we've explained that we are increasing the Defence budget and I think that we've got to try and get away from this notion of a certain proportion of GDP and start thinking about, well, what does Australia need to defend itself? What capability do we need? And we used the Defence Strategic Review to identify what capability Australia needs. And we're now making those investments and that facilitates a $50 billion increase in defence spending over the course of the decade.
Clennell: You're a father of four?
Assistant Minister: Yes.
Clennell: How do you reckon this social media ban for under-16s is going to go?
Assistant Minister: Well, if it helped get my kids off social media a bit more every day, then I'm all for it. I think that most parents --
Clennell: Your kids are all under 16, aren't they?
Assistant Minister: I got 16 and under, yeah, 16 and under, four kids. I think most parents are frustrated with the amount of time that kids do spend on their iPads and their phones, because we'd like to see them out playing more, we'd like to see them out doing sports.
Clennell: Isn't that up to us as parents, though, to some extent?
Assistant Minister: Well, yeah, it is. And I try my best to get my kids out playing soccer and going for bike rides and going to the park --
Clennell: Probably going for a surf, know you.
Assistant Minister: You can't be there all the time. So, I think it's about, it's also about trying to keep kids safe and unfortunately, many of them are exposed to things online that can harm their social development, particularly when they're under 12 and 13 years old. And I've got concerns about that with my kids and that's why we're acting, to keep them safe.
Clennell: Well, I guess where you might run into a bit of political trouble here is from this age assurance trial, the suggestion you could use facial recognition or other identifying characteristics. People are going to be concerned about their privacy, aren't they?
Assistant Minister: Yeah, they are. And that's a legitimate concern. And that's why we're saying to the platforms, you've got the technology there. It'll be up to you to make sure that you can verify the person's age. But you've got to also assure the Australian public that you're not storing data for untoward reasons. I mean, let's face it, they store a fair bit of data about us at the moment and we all trust --
Clennell: How can we trust them on that?
Assistant Minister: Well, that's what we've got to make sure that they can assure us of that. And that's what this process is all about. The technology exists, they store a fair bit of data at the moment and they've got responsibilities to store that securely. They're going to have to do that with this as well.
Clennell: Now, before the election, you were an Assistant Minister for Australia becoming a republic, or a similar type, that title's gone after the Voice referendum. Is that a disappointment to you?
Assistant Minister: Look, obviously, you know, when I came into Parliament, I made it clear in my first speech that I would like to see an Australian head of state one day. I think that Australia is a mature, independent nation and that we can have one of our own as our head of state. But it's not a priority for this government at the moment. Our priority is cost of living, ensuring that we're getting the economy growing and that we're delivering the commitments that we took to the election.
Clennell: Matt Thistlethwaite, thanks so much for joining us.
Assistant Minister: Thanks, Andrew.