TRANSCRIPT - RN BREAKFAST WITH BARBARA MILLER - WEDNESDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2025
RADIO INTERVIEW
RN BREAKFAST WITH BARBARA MILLER
WEDNESDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2025
SUBJECTS: National Hate Crimes Database, National Firearms Register, Royal Commission into Bondi Beach Terror Attack
BARBARA MILLER: The Federal Government says both the Hate Crimes Database and the National Firearms Register are being accelerated after the deadly Bondi attack. It's announced sweeping reforms to clamp down on antisemitism and committed to strengthening gun laws with the States and Territories after the incident.
Tony Burke is the Minister for Home Affairs. Welcome back to Radio National Breakfast.
MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, TONY BURKE: Yeah, good morning.
MILLER: Good morning. Today you're launching what you're calling the first phase of the National Hate Crimes and Incidents Database. What is it, and what do you mean by first phase?
BURKE: Effectively every State has a slightly different regime on hate crimes, and what we're doing is starting to bring the information together on where convictions happen. So that's live now.
Effectively this allows us over time to be able to look at the effectiveness of how changes in the laws are working, but also to be able to look at which parts of Australia where hate crimes are becoming more pronounced.
This is a tool that will help with all the other work that we're doing, and this is where we've got the increased powers that we've been talking about with respect to hate symbols, hate crimes, hate speech, visa cancellation powers, all the different powers that we've got. This will also be able to give us effectively a bit of a metric over time to be able to see the extent to which we're making a difference on the horrific crimes of hate themselves.
MILLER: That information hasn't currently been shared between jurisdictions?
BURKE: Not in this sort of way. This came as a recommendation out of National Cabinet, and some States and jurisdictions had a formal process of making information available, but to be able to go to one place and to be able to start to see what's happening across the country, that's something that is only possible because of this new work that's being done.
But you asked earlier about why is this the first phase. Effectively at the moment it only deals with convictions where we're now working through how we can start to provide information earlier about charges as well, and also to be able to work out how we can start to tighten the data, for example.
At the moment the different forms of hate aren't separated out, and I think that would be really helpful information if we're able to get that. Every State has a slightly different legal regime, turning that into a national system. It's complex, but the first phase has now started.
MILLER: State and Territory leaders committed to the database in January. Why has it taken until now for it to be implemented?
BURKE: That's the exact reasons I just gave. Every State has a different system of laws and so being able to work out how do you codify different crimes into a constant database is something that had to be worked through carefully, led through the Institute of Criminology.
MILLER: But in retrospect you now say you're fast tracking this. Do you wish you had fast‑tracked it previously?
BURKE: Everything that we are doing in this area I wish had been in place 20 years ago; everything. We are moving as quickly as we can with anything where there's an IT build, there are some movable parts where there are limits on how fast you can go, but on everything, you won't find a single change that we're making where there isn't a view that we wish it had been in place decades ago.
MILLER: The Government's announced proposed reforms to gun laws and hate speech. How quickly do you hope to get draft legislation before Parliament?
BURKE: It's important that we deal with both. In terms of the horrific terrorism attack that took place in Bondi, we need to make sure we are dealing with both the motivation and the method, both of them matter. The hate crimes legislation deals with the motivation and then the gun laws issues deal with the method. That legislation and that work is commencing at pace, drafting instructions for parts of the gun laws issues are issued today. There are further drafting instructions that will come forward shortly after Christmas, and then we have already started work in consultation with the Jewish community in particular on the hate crimes legislation.
All of that work's happening. With all of this our constitutional situation is more complex than what the states have, so the states are able often on these issues to legislate more quickly because their drafting is simpler.
We are getting the work done now. Person after person who thought they might be going on leave is not, and the drafting work is being done as quickly as it can with the intention that as soon as the legislation is ready we want to be turning it into law.
MILLER: And what can the Commonwealth address on its own?
BURKE: Well, certainly the hate crimes issues I described are issues where that is specifically Commonwealth legislation. The states are also doing similar work, and some of them will be able to go more broadly than we can in terms of constitutional powers, but for example, on hate symbols, there are a series of hate symbols, whether they be terrorist flags or whether they be Nazi symbols, that we do not want in Australia. We passed legislation quite some time ago now, the Albanese Government did, on making those symbols illegal. We have not received the number of convictions that we hoped for. The Federal Police have given us advice as to how we might be able to make it easier to get convictions on those issues, and so those recommendations are being turned into legislation now.
Similarly with hate speech, people have all seen examples of hate preachers in particular saying things that fall just short of current legal thresholds. You know, they get on the right side of the law, but they are on the wrong side of every Australian, some of these comments. We are changing the law to make sure that those sorts of dehumanising comments that provide a pathway - they might not call for violence ‑ but they provide a pathway to it, and we want them to be illegal.
Similarly, organisations which have played a similar game for a long time of not quite being terrorist organisations, but clearly having an agenda that they hate Australia and want to attack Australians in different ways and attack the national fabric. Whether it be a group like Hizb ut-Tahrir or whether it be the neo-Nazis, we are changing the threshold so that the way they have been behaving is enough - even if it's not enough for them to be a terrorist group - it will be enough for them to be able to be outlawed.
MILLER: On Radio National Breakfast, my guest is the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke. I want to just play you a short clip from the former Secretary for the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo. He backs the need for a Federal Royal Commission, and he told us earlier it could be done at speed.
[Excerpt]
MICHAEL PEZZULLO: There's nothing to stop the Royal Commission being designed in terms of its Letters Patent to report more immediately; in fact I'd report more quickly than the end of April, which is the Richardson deadline, I'd come back with a Royal Commission report by the end of March on any immediate matters that need attention in terms of things like databases, Barbara, so are the relevant databases speaking to one another in terms of firearms, possession and licensing, in relation to movement alerts at the border? There's some media suggestions that both the father and the son travelled to Mindanao for instance. That could be gotten to the bottom of very quickly, I think, as a matter of just objective fact as to whether these databases are properly linked.
[Excerpt ends]
MILLER: That's the former Home Affairs Secretary, Mike Pezzullo. Is he correct? Could a Royal Commission deliver results within months?
BURKE: I'm not sure if there's been a Royal Commission in history that has gone at the pace that he's just described. The experience that we've had with every Royal Commission is they take years, they always ask for extensions of time and the best way to act with absolute urgency is not to have something chaired by a retired judge, it's to have something chaired by a national security expert.
Dennis Richardson has the complete respect across the national security community in Australia. Dennis Richardson has worked for - regardless of political persuasion - he has been there right back since the Hawke Government, dedicating his professional life to keeping Australians safe. His inquiry will get to the bottom of the issues that were just described in the clip that you just played, but will do it fast, and will give us the recommendations that we need.
There are some issues which we just spoke about a moment ago which we can deal with immediately, and we are. There are other issues where we need to have independent advice and we need that at speed and that will happen. Then the issue of a Royal Commission itself, New South Wales have already announced that they're having one, and we'll cooperate with that.
MILLER: And yet the pressure keeps coming, including from your own backbench. Is there a sense that you're pushing ahead, sort of you've wedged yourself by saying you're not going to have this, but there is a clamour for it. Do you think that the Prime Minister may eventually concede and launch one?
BURKE: I understand why people have been calling and asking in the way they have; I get that. Because people immediately go to, well, if that's the biggest, can't we have that?
Nothing will deter me from looking at what is the best way quickly to be able to deliver community safety, and that's what we are focused on. I think on reflection people would have a very dim view if the focus was anything other than that.
For community safety, anything that can be done immediately, we need to do immediately, and we are. For further recommendations, we want the shortest, sharpest inquiry conducted by the correct expert to be able to give us recommendations and give us recommendations fast.
And then on the issue of a Royal Commission, New South Wales has already said they will have one, we have said we will cooperate with that.
MILLER: Just on another matter briefly, yesterday the Prime Minister said he had recommended changes to family travel entitlements for politicians to the Rem Tribunal for consideration. We're about to speak to the Shadow Special Minister of State, Senator James McGrath. Yesterday, the Coalition said that tinkering with rules does not remove the need for a full and proper investigation by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet into whether the Ministerial Code of Conduct has been breached. What's your response?
BURKE: We have a system as to how you deal with these issues, which the Coalition might be saying that now but they voted for this to be the exact system, which is we have an independent authority. The independent authority, the government asked them for advice on how this could be pulled back to get closer to community standards. They have given their advice, we now have a Remuneration Tribunal which we pass those recommendations on to, which we've done with support.
I do not want a world where politicians make their own decision about what budgets they're given and what so-called entitlements they have. These decisions must be made independently, and that's the exact process that's being followed.
MILLER: You, yourself, though paid back more than $8,000 for a family trip to Uluru taken in 2012, acknowledging at the time it was beyond community expectations. Do the past weeks suggest that lessons were not learned from that incident?
BURKE: Every circumstance is different. You've raised mine. What I did at the time was did the formal checks that were available then, we didn't have the independent bodies I've just described back then in terms of IPEA, so I asked the Department of Finance back then to go through, for many years, anything with respect to me. They came back saying there everything was according to the rules and for the exact purposes.
I took a personal view that the community expectation was that notwithstanding that the rules had been followed, I took a personal view for myself. Everybody's circumstances are different, but that's what I did.
MILLER: Tony Burke, thank you.
BURKE: Thank you.
ENDS