Latest / Inside Politics / Return of 'ISIS brides' raises many questions about what it means to be Australian

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Return of 'ISIS brides' raises many questions about what it means to be Australian · Inside Politics

0:00
S1: Hello and welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Today
0:04
S1: on the pod, we're going to discuss the so-called ISIS brides.
0:07
S1: That is the group of Australian women and their children
0:09
S1: who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State and are
0:12
S1: now trying to get home to Australia. Prime Minister Anthony
0:15
S1: Albanese says the women are not being provided with any
0:18
S1: assistance from the government, but it seems there is a
0:20
S1: little bit more to the story than the government is
0:22
S1: willing to admit to. And here to discuss, we have
0:24
S1: our senior writer and Walkley Award winning general legend Michael Bachelard,
0:29
S1: who's been following the story for years. He joins us
0:32
S1: from Melbourne. And joining us from Canberra, as usual, is
0:35
S1: our chief political correspondent, Paul Chuckle. Hello gentlemen.
0:38
S2: Good day Jacqueline.
0:39
S3: Good morning both.
0:41
S1: Batch. Thanks so much for joining us. I think it's
0:43
S1: the first that you come on inside politics and we're
0:45
S1: deeply honoured. Can you tell us a little bit about
0:47
S1: this group of Australian women and children who tried to
0:50
S1: leave Syria this week, or tried to leave their camp
0:52
S1: this week and were turned back? How many of them
0:55
S1: are there? Where are they coming from and where are
0:57
S1: they trying to get to?
1:00
S2: So there's 11 women and 23 children in this cohort
1:04
S2: of 34. They're about half and a half from Sydney
1:08
S2: and Melbourne. They moved to Syria, or they in some
1:12
S2: cases say they were forcibly taken to Syria by husbands
1:15
S2: or whatever. When the Islamic, the so-called Islamic State caliphate
1:20
S2: was in operation between about 2014 and 2019 when that
1:25
S2: collapsed in March 2019. They were captured by Kurdish forces
1:31
S2: fighting against Islamic State in the northeast of Syria and
1:35
S2: put in internment camps. There are two camps there, and
1:39
S2: mostly they were put in a camp called Al-hol, which
1:42
S2: I visited that year, 2019, and they've been there ever since.
1:46
S2: They are Australian citizens. They have an entitlement, as Anthony
1:50
S2: Albanese has said multiple times this week, to to a
1:53
S2: passport and to return home. And this week they tried to,
1:57
S2: I guess, enjoy that entitlement and for various reasons have
2:01
S2: been unable to.
2:03
S1: So you. As you say, you went to the Al-hol
2:05
S1: camp in the northeast of Syria in 2019. It's quite
2:09
S1: a notorious camp. Can you tell us just briefly what
2:11
S1: the conditions were like there and what you saw there
2:13
S1: with that larger group of Australian women and children?
2:17
S2: Yeah, they called themselves. They said they were living on
2:19
S2: Australia Street, but it really wasn't a street. It was
2:22
S2: a few tents amid the dust and dirt. There were
2:25
S2: tens of thousands of other people there. It was very
2:29
S2: hard for us to get in. The authorities were worried
2:31
S2: about the security situation. We took us several hours to
2:35
S2: convince them to let us in. They gave us not
2:38
S2: very long as we drove in. The van we were
2:41
S2: in was pelted with stones by some of the kids. There.
2:45
S2: We saw young boys holding up the one finger, which
2:48
S2: is sort of a sign, an Islamic State sign. It
2:52
S2: was a pretty rough, rugged area. We could only interview
2:55
S2: them for not very long. They had to keep their
2:58
S2: niqabs on the whole time because to be seen without
3:03
S2: one among the hardliners there would have been dangerous to them.
3:07
S2: And they wanted to conduct the interview inside the tent.
3:10
S2: So it was a very tense, difficult situation, partly relating
3:14
S2: to the security situation in north eastern Syria at the time.
3:17
S2: But just in general. That was a terrible camp. Um,
3:21
S2: they were moved a couple of years later to a
3:24
S2: better camp called Al-roj, a better regulated, um, better run
3:29
S2: and less violent, I think. But nevertheless, they've been all up.
3:34
S2: They've been living in tents in pretty dire situation, uh,
3:38
S2: climatic extremes, often with very young children. There were babies
3:43
S2: and and toddlers when, when I was there. And they've
3:47
S2: been there for seven years.
3:48
S1: Yeah. So successive Australian governments, going back to the Morrison
3:52
S1: government have moved or have helped repatriate groups of women
3:56
S1: and children previously. So this is sort of the most
3:59
S1: recent tranche, if you like, of these, these women and children.
4:02
S1: The Morrison government helped Clare O'Neill when she was home
4:05
S1: affairs minister under the Albanese government in their last term, helped.
4:09
S1: But this time, Paul, the political climate is really different
4:14
S1: and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made it very, very
4:17
S1: clear that he wants to distance himself and his government
4:20
S1: from these women. And he says that they are not
4:22
S1: being provided with any help. What's going on here?
4:26
S3: Yeah, that's right Jack. So there's been a few different
4:29
S3: moments of debate over the past 6 or 7 years
4:32
S3: post the caliphate coming to an end, where different groups
4:36
S3: have come back to Australia under the Morrison government. There
4:38
S3: was a group of orphans brought in by that coalition government.
4:41
S3: I was reading quotes from Scott Morrison today where he
4:44
S3: expresses great sympathy with the plight of the children, who
4:47
S3: he says made no mistake of their own. They were
4:50
S3: dragged into this, and Australia has an obligation to give
4:53
S3: them a decent life, notwithstanding the mistakes of their parents. Then,
4:57
S3: in the early part of the Albanese government, there were
5:00
S3: four women repatriated and 13 children that was under the
5:03
S3: Home Affairs Minister, Clare O'Neil. And then just after the
5:07
S3: last election in May, there was another outbreak of debate where, uh,
5:13
S3: a group was. Well, did they come back? Batch did
5:16
S3: that group come or not? In the end.
5:17
S2: Yeah they did. They there was um.
5:20
S3: Yeah they did. They went to.
5:21
S2: Sydney. They escaped. They they were in Al Hol, not
5:24
S2: in Al-roj. They escaped themselves via people smugglers and made
5:29
S2: it to the Lebanese border. The Lebanese authorities imprisoned them.
5:33
S2: And then somehow they got to the embassy and, uh.
5:38
S2: And were given passports and came back to Melbourne.
5:40
S3: Yeah. And in that post-election debate, the government used similar
5:45
S3: language around and this kind of technical language around providing, quote,
5:50
S3: no assistance, where they say that the only engagement they
5:54
S3: have with the group that's attempting to come is to
5:56
S3: issue them passports, which the government says they are obligated
5:59
S3: to under Australian law, but they are not facilitating the
6:02
S3: repatriation through flights or any other means. But there's this
6:05
S3: kind of rhetorical double game going on where they say
6:07
S3: there is no assistance, but there is the provision of passports.
6:11
S3: The opposition says that is a form of assistance, and
6:13
S3: the opposition questions why the passports are being given. Because
6:17
S3: in previous moments there has been a rejection of the
6:20
S3: provision of passports. And the opposition argues that could occur again.
6:24
S3: But the interesting difference, I think, in the debate this
6:28
S3: last week, compared to the one last year, is that
6:31
S3: the Prime Minister is using much more forceful moral language.
6:36
S3: When asked about whether there should be sympathy for the
6:39
S3: group attempting to come in this past week, he's said
6:42
S3: that to quote his and he's quoted in his mother
6:44
S3: here he says, you make your own bed, and there
6:46
S3: should be no sympathy with a group of people who,
6:49
S3: at least in some parts, maybe not. The whole group
6:51
S3: willingly went to fight with a group that massacred Christians.
6:56
S3: Other minority groups use rape as a tool of war
6:59
S3: and was driven by a motivation to create an anti-democratic,
7:04
S3: theocratic state and the underpinning argument from the Prime Minister
7:08
S3: there being that these people do not share Australian values
7:11
S3: and have no place in Australia. So that's that's the
7:14
S3: intriguing difference this time around. And obviously the context, whether
7:17
S3: or not this is the driving force. But the obvious
7:20
S3: intervening event is the Bondi massacre, which has created a
7:25
S3: long and at times toxic debate about Muslim immigration in Australia.
7:29
S1: But what what are you what's your take on what's
7:31
S1: going on there? Because, I mean, is it tricky word
7:34
S1: games from the government. Does the provision of passports amount
7:38
S1: to assistance? Has any other assistance, consular or otherwise, been
7:41
S1: given to these women? Presumably they need money to get out.
7:45
S1: Presumably they couldn't apply for passports from within this horrific
7:48
S1: camp they're staying in. What's really going on?
7:52
S2: There's a bit of a mystery around this, but. But
7:54
S2: I think we can say a few things. Paul's right.
7:56
S2: The government government's rhetoric has hardened over the past year.
8:00
S2: The message is the same if they can make it
8:02
S2: back themselves. Our hands are tied. We are forced to
8:04
S2: do this. It's not our fault, essentially, and I think
8:08
S2: that is probably a post bondage thing. Um, but at
8:11
S2: the same time, these people have been asking for passports
8:14
S2: for a long time. A lot of the information that
8:17
S2: the passports are based on are the photographs and whatever else.
8:20
S2: The other stuff that they need was collected by the
8:22
S2: government in 2022. As I understand it. So since then,
8:26
S2: there's been various attempts by the family members to to
8:29
S2: get passports issued and they have not been. And suddenly
8:32
S2: now they have been. And I can't get to the
8:35
S2: bottom of why, um, Penny Wong's not answering questions about it,
8:39
S2: and the Department of Foreign Affairs won't talk about individuals.
8:42
S2: So that's one sort of aspect of the mystery. The
8:45
S2: other aspect is it is true that this is what
8:48
S2: they call a family repatriation, that the families have gone over,
8:52
S2: or representatives of the family have gone over to Syria
8:55
S2: to try to bring them back, that the government hasn't
8:58
S2: been actively involved in that, but the provision of passports
9:02
S2: and the, I guess, the kind of fitting under the
9:07
S2: rubric that we have to do this because it's what
9:10
S2: the rules say is the government's position. It's interesting to
9:14
S2: me that today, I think, or last night, Tony Burke's
9:17
S2: position on that actually also sort of firmed up. He
9:20
S2: basically said, we're obliged, we have to do this, we
9:22
S2: can't not do it, etc. whereas for the past two
9:26
S2: years at least, they have been not doing it. And
9:29
S2: for the past seven years they haven't explored these options.
9:32
S2: So there is clearly some assistance going on in my view.
9:36
S1: Yeah. And clearly, as you say, something shifted in the
9:38
S1: last little while that these women have been given the
9:41
S1: passports and are able to leave the camp even though
9:43
S1: they got turned back. What does the Australian law say
9:46
S1: about the provision of passports to people who are, in fact,
9:49
S1: Australian citizens? I mean, citizenship is an either or thing.
9:52
S1: You can't be a little bit of a citizen. If
9:54
S1: you are, then you are and you're entitled to a passport, right?
9:58
S2: Correct. And the government's now kind of been pushed and
10:01
S2: edged towards that decision because it's clear that finally we
10:04
S2: found out that passports have been issued. Passports act is
10:08
S2: the law. And underpinning that is is, as you say,
10:12
S2: citizenship and the rights of citizenship. And when a public
10:15
S2: servant was answering these questions a month ago in estimates,
10:19
S2: not just citizenship but identity, and that's tied up with
10:22
S2: being Australian. That's a right we all have. You turn
10:25
S2: up to an embassy overseas, you've lost your passport or
10:27
S2: it's been stolen or whatever. You're entitled to a passport
10:30
S2: as a citizen. And these people are no different women
10:33
S2: and children.
10:34
S1: Yeah that's right. Well, and as as we were talking
10:37
S1: about earlier, the children are entitled to Australian citizenship, even
10:39
S1: though not born in Australia. Some of them because they
10:42
S1: were born to Australian citizens overseas. Talk to me about
10:46
S1: there's one woman we've now learned who is subject to
10:49
S1: what is called a temporary exclusion order, which prevents her
10:51
S1: from returning home to Australia for the next two years,
10:55
S1: whether or not she has a passport. So she even
10:57
S1: if she can get out of Syria and out of
10:59
S1: this horrible camp, she won't be able to come home.
11:02
S1: What are the grounds for those orders? And why is
11:04
S1: it that one woman has been selected out of this
11:06
S1: cohort that are all a bit sort of suspect if
11:08
S1: you like, to be prevented from coming home, but the
11:11
S1: others are free to do so.
11:13
S2: We're all sort of people who are interested in this
11:15
S2: kind of speculating about that at the moment. The it's
11:19
S2: a national security law. It was introduced under the Morrison government.
11:22
S2: Labour had some real objections to it, including constitutional objections
11:27
S2: at the time, but ended up backing it. It's it's
11:30
S2: a temporary way that the government can exclude people who
11:34
S2: they believe might be a national security threat, so might
11:37
S2: be involved in an extremist group or organization, or might
11:40
S2: be planning some kind of terrorist act or, you know,
11:42
S2: an associative terrorists. It's that it's about it's like that.
11:47
S2: It's kind of at the far end of of what
11:49
S2: you'd put people's culpability. Um, and it's it's only temporary.
11:54
S2: It doesn't override the what we were talking about before
11:57
S2: the rights of citizenship, but it's sort of intended as
12:01
S2: a pause on there being allowed back into the country
12:04
S2: so that the government can figure out what to do.
12:07
S2: Now they are challengeable. This is this law has never
12:09
S2: been challenged in the High Court. Those constitutional questions that
12:13
S2: were raised in 2019, they still exist. And this may
12:17
S2: be a test case to challenge it, but nevertheless, it's
12:20
S2: kind of right out there on the edge of national
12:22
S2: security legislation. And this is, you know, this is for
12:26
S2: a group of people that the government knows quite well.
12:29
S2: They've had, you know, in one spot, they've been able
12:31
S2: to talk to their families and figure out what their
12:34
S2: stories are and what have you for seven years. So
12:37
S2: to apply it to one particular woman, um, is bold.
12:42
S2: I can't answer the other part of your question. Who
12:45
S2: is she? What's her particular story? Because the government won't say. Yeah.
12:50
S2: Tony Burke has given some details about her, but they
12:53
S2: haven't identified her.
12:55
S1: Yeah. I mean, presumably the intelligence agencies have been all over,
12:59
S1: you know, the families of these women and sort of
13:01
S1: their communities and the background from which they come. It's
13:05
S1: just interesting. It is interesting to sort of wonder what
13:08
S1: in particular this woman has done, whether there's fresh intelligence
13:10
S1: or it's based on the reasons or her affiliation with
13:13
S1: ISIS when she went over to Syria. Paul, I want
13:17
S1: to ask you about the broader political context. This is
13:20
S1: such an interesting story in itself. It raises so many
13:22
S1: questions about what it means to be Australian and what
13:25
S1: Australian citizenship means, but it is unfolding at a time
13:27
S1: when there is a focus on Islamic extremism. Post Bondi,
13:31
S1: the opposition is about to release its immigration policy and
13:35
S1: we have the rise, the surging rise of One Nation.
13:38
S1: And Pauline Hanson, of course, making comments this week saying
13:41
S1: there are no good Muslims. And more recently she's come
13:44
S1: out and said that Lakemba, which is a heavily Muslim
13:47
S1: area in southwest Sydney, is not a safe place and
13:51
S1: that other Australians don't feel welcome there. Connected or not connected,
13:56
S1: the Lakemba mosque has now received, you know, horrific death
13:59
S1: threats after those comments were made. Might to start with
14:02
S1: what is? What have coalition members said about Pauline Hanson's
14:06
S1: Islamaphobic comments?
14:09
S3: Yeah, I do wonder if this week and the reaction
14:12
S3: to Hanson's comments on there being no good Muslims, which
14:15
S3: she slightly backtracked a couple of days later. Under under
14:19
S3: a lot of pressure. And Barnaby Joyce is not backed
14:22
S3: her in. Her newest recruit, Matt Canavan, a nationals far
14:25
S3: right senator, is really slammed Hanson and said this is
14:28
S3: proof she can't lead a major party. I do wonder
14:30
S3: if this week will be looked back at and perhaps
14:33
S3: this prediction will not come true at all. But I
14:35
S3: do wonder if this will be seen as one of
14:37
S3: the first weeks where scrutiny was really turned on One
14:40
S3: Nation after a period of months in which they've been
14:44
S3: not really closely scrutinised. There's been a halo on them
14:47
S3: and they've got a lot of positive media attention, and
14:49
S3: their polling has been surging off the back of immigration
14:52
S3: concern even pre Bondi but particularly post Bondi. And I
14:56
S3: wonder if the commentary will shift after this week to
15:00
S3: be slightly more critical to. diminish this idea that Hansen
15:05
S3: has changed, that she's a more moderate person now, that
15:07
S3: she's more in touch with the mainstream. So we'll wait
15:10
S3: and see. But on the on the broader context, in
15:13
S3: terms of how the Prime Minister in particular is talking
15:15
S3: about ISIS brides this week, we call them ISIS brides.
15:18
S3: But as James Patterson and the opposition calls out points out,
15:23
S3: some of them might have gone merely as associates or
15:26
S3: unwilling partners, but others went with an intent to be
15:30
S3: part of this movement. So I think that the term
15:32
S3: is slightly misleading and also maybe even slightly sexist. But
15:36
S3: in terms of the context of what the Prime Minister's
15:39
S3: saying this week, I think there's a link to be
15:41
S3: drawn between how the Prime Minister is talking about ISIS families,
15:45
S3: how Chris Minns, the New South Wales premier, has dealt
15:47
S3: with pro-Palestinian protests, and how Peter Malinauskas, another right faction
15:53
S3: labor leader, dealt with the Adelaide Writers Festival issue. And
15:56
S3: in all of those cases, there was a debate around
15:59
S3: rule of law and esoteric rights, around freedom of speech,
16:02
S3: freedom of association and constitutional rights for these ISIS families,
16:07
S3: and the kind of majority instinct to say from a
16:10
S3: mainstream Labour leader to say, no, we don't quite want
16:14
S3: to emphasize those rights or conventions. We want to reflect
16:18
S3: the view of the majority, which are which is that
16:20
S3: these views or, or, uh, or rights or the, the,
16:26
S3: the viewpoint of the advocates who back these kind of, uh, more,
16:30
S3: more radical positions or protest movements is not what a
16:34
S3: mainstream Labour government wants to be associated with. And they're
16:37
S3: taking the risk of rubbing up against the rule of
16:40
S3: law to express that majority viewpoint. And that obviously brings
16:44
S3: them into conflict with legal experts, potentially with the High
16:48
S3: Court in the case of the use of these temporary
16:50
S3: exclusion orders. But if you look around the world as well,
16:53
S3: I mean, Keir Starmer, other, other centre left leaders are
16:57
S3: taking really quite striking steps to counter protest movements and uh,
17:02
S3: counter extremist groups because they've made a determination that that's
17:06
S3: where majority opinion is. There is a hardening of attitudes
17:11
S3: towards immigration across the Western world. And I think that's
17:13
S3: what we're seeing play out here.
17:14
S1: Yeah. But I want to ask you for your reflections
17:18
S1: on the sort of One Nation coalition stance here and
17:21
S1: how they how the coalition and in particular, the new
17:24
S1: Liberal Party leadership differentiates itself from one nation and perhaps
17:30
S1: distances itself from these very, very hostile to general Muslim
17:35
S1: population comments that Hanson has made. How does it differentiate itself,
17:39
S1: while also, I suppose, throwing a bone to or showing
17:43
S1: some sympathy for the people who adhere to those views,
17:46
S1: or who switched their vote from liberal to one nation
17:48
S1: because they can't alienate those people because they want them
17:52
S1: back to the Liberal Party. How do they toe that line?
17:56
S2: Well, uh, perhaps if I could tell them that they
17:59
S2: would pay me some money to be a consultant for them.
18:01
S2: It's it's difficult for them to do. Super difficult. And
18:04
S2: Paul's right I think I think what he's describing is
18:07
S2: a move rightward of the center of gravity of politics.
18:10
S2: So the um, and immigration linked to housing actually is
18:16
S2: one of those key, one of the key things, like
18:19
S2: the link between a lack of housing and a lack
18:21
S2: of young people being able to get ahead with immigration
18:24
S2: is a global trope. It's driven far right movements in Europe. Um,
18:30
S2: it's driving, you know, Nigel Farage to present similar problems
18:34
S2: to the Tories as one Nation is to the Liberals
18:37
S2: and Nationals here, and Albanese and others are reflecting that
18:40
S2: they are pushing rightward with where they see the center
18:44
S2: of gravity going. And, you know, the expression of that
18:47
S2: is on the streets with the marches, March for Australia
18:50
S2: rallies that we've seen. And they are very much anti-immigration rallies.
18:55
S2: And I think, you know, Albanese and others are certainly
18:59
S2: Taylor and the Liberal Party with Angus Taylor's comments this
19:03
S2: week about immigration and bad immigrants and people coming from
19:06
S2: bad countries and so forth, is designed to whistle at
19:12
S2: those particular dogs because they think that's where the electorate
19:17
S2: has moved to or is moving to.
19:18
S1: And of course, Angus Taylor and the liberals are about
19:21
S1: to put out their immigration policy. We did have this
19:24
S1: week a leaked immigration policy that was apparently Susanne Liese,
19:28
S1: the now defunct opposition leader's policy that she was going
19:32
S1: to put out. And that did notably have exclusions of
19:36
S1: immigrants from Islamic extremists controlled regions of 13 countries. So,
19:41
S1: you know, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, not the whole country, just
19:44
S1: certain areas within. So basically, I mean, it was a
19:49
S1: ban on Muslim immigrants from particular areas where terrorism is rife. Paul,
19:56
S1: do we have any sense of whether the Angus Taylor
20:00
S1: led Liberal Party will put out a similar immigration policy
20:04
S1: with bands from regions.
20:05
S3: Yeah, this was a kind of hilariously absurd moment earlier
20:08
S3: this week where a few days after Sussan Ley was toppled,
20:11
S3: people close to her leaked to our newspaper and a
20:13
S3: couple of others this migration plan that she was going
20:16
S3: to release this week. It was quite hardline. It probably
20:20
S3: would have been tested in the High Court, and it
20:22
S3: would have been a serious chance of it falling over.
20:24
S3: And it was an attempt by her allies to say, look,
20:28
S3: Taylor is going to shift to the right on migration.
20:30
S3: They're going to start countering One Nation. But we were
20:33
S3: going to do the same thing if you just gave
20:34
S3: us some more time. But then the absurd part was
20:36
S3: that the right wing Home Affairs frontbencher Jonno Duniam and
20:40
S3: the immigration spokesman Paul Scarr, who's not very right wing,
20:43
S3: came out and said they'd never seen this document.
20:45
S1: So they're either they're either sort of being slightly disingenuous
20:49
S1: or they're they were so uninterested in the immigration policy
20:52
S1: that was going to be released next, next week that
20:54
S1: they hadn't read it.
20:55
S3: Possibly. But I think it did. It did show it
20:57
S3: was it was a perfect encapsulation of the existing trend,
21:00
S3: which was Sussan Ley trying to pre-empt where her right
21:03
S3: wing would go. Just continually shifting that way and not
21:07
S3: really standing up for the values that she put in
21:09
S3: her first speech around maintaining centrist values, but just on
21:12
S3: where debates in the West are going on migration and batch,
21:15
S3: I take your point fully and agree there is there
21:17
S3: is clearly dog whistling going on, and there's no doubt
21:19
S3: that far right bad actors are using this in their cause.
21:23
S3: But I think it's worth pointing out that there are
21:26
S3: lots of centre left governments picking up sentiment in non
21:30
S3: racially motivated parts of the community on this, on this
21:33
S3: issue as well. And a really good example is the
21:35
S3: Canadian government under Justin Trudeau, who's kind of been a
21:38
S3: beacon of the of the left in the past decade
21:41
S3: or two. In 2022, he determined that there was no
21:45
S3: housing crisis, crisis in infrastructure and just generally the the
21:50
S3: Canadian society was feeling pretty uneasy about how the country
21:53
S3: was headed. He drastically cut immigration in the last two
21:57
S3: quarters of last year under Mark Carney, who's kept the
22:00
S3: same policies in place. They actually had negative population growth
22:03
S3: in Canada, house prices have gone down by 22% and
22:06
S3: the centre left government there, the Liberal Party, they're called,
22:09
S3: talks about getting back in control of the borders. Keir
22:11
S3: Starmer is in the same vein. Albanese is using similar
22:15
S3: language now, so I do wonder if it's a kind
22:17
S3: of revolutionary moment in Western politics where some of these
22:22
S3: talking points are no longer far right talking points. They're
22:25
S3: becoming much more mainstream and potentially with the support of
22:27
S3: the electorate.
22:28
S1: I guess, where I'm interested in the sort of I
22:31
S1: agree that it's become almost like a bipartisan position and
22:34
S1: with very sort of sensible logic behind it. I mean,
22:37
S1: if you believe in sovereignty, you believe in sovereignty, and
22:39
S1: you believe that we should be able to control our borders.
22:41
S1: But I just wonder, I'm sort of more interested, I suppose, in,
22:45
S1: in where that rhetoric that anti-immigrant or immigration rhetoric falls
22:49
S1: into more one nation territory, which is actually we just
22:52
S1: don't want immigrants from certain countries, and we don't like
22:56
S1: certain sections of the population who are here. And that
22:59
S1: seems to me to be a real borderland between some
23:02
S1: sections of the coalition right wing, perhaps, and the One
23:06
S1: Nation support group. But just quickly tell us about that.
23:09
S1: You talked before about the March for Australia rallies in Melbourne.
23:12
S1: You've attended a couple of those. What did you see
23:15
S1: at those rallies? What kinds of people were there? What
23:18
S1: kind of behaviour was witnessed.
23:20
S2: At the first rally I went to last year? That
23:23
S2: was the one that was led by neo-Nazis. And when
23:25
S2: I say neo-Nazis, I'm not using a, you know, a
23:27
S2: euphemism or an allegory. They are guys who wear H.H.
23:32
S2: Heil Hitler on their shirts. Right? So these guys goosestep
23:35
S2: and salute Nazi salute. They led the rally. They the
23:39
S2: rally moved to literally to their drumbeat. They had a
23:42
S2: drummer to move the rally around the city. Since then,
23:46
S2: they've kind of under the hate speech laws. They've kind
23:48
S2: of disbanded. But in the rally I went to recently,
23:52
S2: that was that was held around Australia Day. They were
23:55
S2: still very much in evidence, the same personnel, they were
23:57
S2: just in mufti this time. They were harder to recognize.
24:00
S2: They were dispersed, but they were there and the rally
24:03
S2: was a lot smaller this time. And despite it being
24:06
S2: Australia Day, and I think that perhaps the reporting around
24:09
S2: the Nazis had put some of the more mainstream people off.
24:14
S2: But yeah, it's very white, it's very outer suburban. And
24:17
S2: some of the rhetoric is incredibly hardline. I heard numerous
24:21
S2: racial slurs, aggressive, nasty, nasty stuff.
24:26
S1: You, um, you sent me a video of that you'd
24:28
S1: taken at the rally. Can you just describe for listeners
24:31
S1: what was on that video? I was really shocked by it.
24:35
S2: Yeah. There are a couple of kids, as police might say,
24:38
S2: of African appearance, who were sort of walking around with
24:40
S2: a microphone and a and a camera doing some kind
24:44
S2: of social media thing and trying to interview March for
24:47
S2: Australia participants. And a bunch of the marchers had gathered
24:52
S2: around them, yelling aggressively, send them back! Chanting, send them back.
24:58
S4: Send them back, send them back, send them back, send
25:02
S4: them back.
25:02
S2: And then using a variety of racial slurs, which we
25:06
S2: can't really use. But one of them, multiple, multiple times,
25:09
S2: was the N word. It was quite distressing. We we
25:13
S2: put it up on, we tried to bleep it and
25:16
S2: put it up online to show people what was going on.
25:19
S2: But the you know, the whole thing was a bleep basically.
25:23
S2: So we took it back down again. It's it's disturbing vision.
25:26
S2: And uh I hate to say it, but One Nation
25:29
S2: was addressing that rally as was a couple of kind
25:32
S2: of Nazi affiliated people. So you know, we I think
25:36
S2: we all agree that the center of political gravity has
25:39
S2: moved right on this issue. But the further right you move,
25:42
S2: the more you put people like you kind of privileged
25:46
S2: people like that who are who are right on the fringe.
25:49
S2: And I think that's we're at a slightly dangerous moment
25:52
S2: on this issue.
25:52
S1: Yeah, certainly. That's right. Happening openly and apparently legally on
25:56
S1: the streets of Melbourne, that two boys of African appearance
26:00
S1: are being rounded upon, yelled at, racially vilified and intimidated
26:06
S1: in a very, very hostile way. It's scary stuff. Guys,
26:09
S1: we've run out of time and you've been so interesting
26:13
S1: to talk to, and we'd love to have you back
26:14
S1: on again as things unfold. So thank you and thanks, Paul.
26:18
S3: Thanks so much, guys. Thanks, bash.
26:20
S2: Thanks. Thanks guys. It's been great.
26:28
S1: You can read all of our political news on our
26:30
S1: websites theage.com.au or SMS. Today's episode was produced by Kai
26:37
S1: Wong with help from Debbie Harrington and Cormac Lally. Our
26:41
S1: executive producer is Tammy Mills and our podcasts are overseen
26:44
S1: by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. Before you go, follow
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S1: Inside Politics and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify.
26:53
S1: I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank you for listening.