TRANSCRIPT - RADIO INTERVIEW - ABC 702 WITH HAMISH MACDONALD - THURSDAY 30 JULY 2026

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW

ABC 702 SYDNEY + HAMISH MACDONALD

THURSDAY 30 JULY 2026

SUBJECTS: New laws proposing banning citizens from returning to Australia, Australian man detained in Syria for murder, community cohesion in Jewish communities, closure of MoshPit in Sydney.

MACDONALD: One Nation is planning to introduce new laws to federal Parliament to ban Islamic state-linked fighters and terrorists sympathisers from

returning to Australia. The laws have been proposed after news emerged that an Australian man linked to the Islamic State, Tareq Kamleh, is alive and inside an Iraqi prison despite previous reports that he had actually died. Kamleh is one of a group of Australian men linked to IS being held in that Iraqi prison. Now the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke has previously said he will not lift a finger to help these men if they attempt to return to Australia upon release. Tony Burke is also the Minister for Immigration, Multicultural Affairs, Cyber Security and the Arts, so there's a bit to ask him about. He's also the MP for Watson in south-western Sydney. Very good morning, Tony Burke.

TONY BURKE: G'day Hamish

MACDONALD: Can we start with these laws being proposed by One Nation; a 22-page protecting Australians from foreign terrorists, fighters bill as they call it. Pauline Hanson wants to create a foreign terrorist fighter exclusion order. This has been prepared following the return of the so-called ISIS brides and news that this Perth-born doctor is alive. Would you welcome additional powers to prevent these sorts of people from returning?

BURKE: The laws that we've already got go to basically the limit of what you can do under the Australian constitution. So on all the advice that I've had something like what's being proposed here would last about 30 seconds in the High Court. But there's a further principle that I don't think we've spoken about often enough which is there are people who you don't want back in your country, but every country in the world has to accept back its own citizens. Sometimes you can delay them for a bit but ultimately you have to accept your own citizens and sometimes you're able to charge them on arrival but you can't stop your own citizens from coming back in to your country. Can I just say; we would give away that principle at our peril as a nation because the flip side of this isn't the people we receive it's the people we deport. If you started with the principle that said countries don't have to accept their own citizens back… I deport in the order of and cancel the visas of about 750 people a year. You know they're child sex offenders, they're murderers, they're perpetrators of family and domestic violence, they're people who are here on a visa who have broken the law who should not be able to stay and their country of origin doesn't want them either but they have to take them back and I would be really surprised, really surprised if there's anyone, even the party that you're referring to, who seriously want to give away the principle that countries have to accept their citizens back.

MACDONALD: In any instance though Minister, One Nation is saying that they have drafted this with leading constitutional scholars, they believe that it would be constitutionally sound. Now are you saying this morning that you don't accept that, that your advice is different? Can you explain for listeners why you take a different view of that?

BURKE: It's just that the laws that we already have which were drafted under the previous government before we came to office go to the absolute limit of what you can do under the constitution, that you can delay for a little while the return of a citizen, but effectively the principle which the High Court has been - you know there's a whole series of decisions that the courts have been making over recent years where effectively it goes to things being punitive and effectively it means that for something like this you can delay on the grounds that you need to prepare, but once you are ready and your law enforcement procedures are ready you can't keep someone out the country if they're your citizen and Australia has an interest that principle because of the people we want to kick out.

MACDONALD: I understand that dimension of your argument. But is it problematic in your mind that public safety, public social cohesion does not override an individual right?

BURKE: I start with the principle that I don't want these individuals back in Australia.

MACDONALD: Sure, but that's what I'm getting at, as minister you must be frustrated that you can't stop them. Why not look again at this when presumably you must be quite worried about a man like this coming back to Australia?

BURKE: The charges - there are lots of people I don't want in Australia. Lots of people that you don't want in Australia. And you use every legal power that you

have but you are wasting your time, completely wasting your time if you're pursuing that principle that would actually make us less safe and effectively if we go down the path as a country of saying, countries don't have to accept their citizens back, then the people who we would be stuck keeping here are people who no one in the country would want here. There are other people who have committed horrific

crimes overseas –

MACDONALD: Understood.

BURKE: - who will either pay the penalty overseas or should pay a penalty when they return to Australia and you've seen people being arrested at the airport as a result of that.

MACDONALD: One Nation wants to make it a crime for anyone to organise or facilitate an unauthorised return. Obviously there's a cause of Dr Jamal

Rifi here in Sydney, he was involved in assisting, arranging the travel for these women and children that returned to Australia in recent months. Do you agree that

that should be criminalised?

BURKE: There was an attempt to draft these sort of laws that Angus Taylor introduced to the Parliament and it ended up also criminalising effectively the flight

attendants and pilots of commercial aircraft. That the person who has committed the crime –

MACDONALD: That's not quite my question though.

[OVERSPEAKING].

BURKE: No, no –

MACDONALD: Do you think it's a criminal act to facilitate their return or not?

BURKE: There's been an attempt to draft exactly what you've described but effectively you're talking about a situation where the crime is the person who has

engaged in horrific acts overseas. They're the people who should be criminalised and –

MACDONALD: But you don't think someone that assists their return home should be criminalised? It sounds like you're saying no?

BURKE: Well the implications - I've only seen one legal attempt at this and it also criminalised the flight crew. You know, it criminalised members of the United States military that have been trying to get people out of those camps. Like this sort of stuff, it's talking points, it gets a discussion going. Ultimately, what you want to do to be able to keep people safe is to make sure that the people who have actually engaged in harm are penalised –

MACDONALD: To be fair, Minister, I suppose my line of questioning this morning, I hope is more than about talking points, because I'm noticing that on the one hand you're saying you don't want these people in the country and that you would like to take every step possible to prevent that. But you don't want to

criminalise the act of trying to facilitate their return by a third party?

BURKE: The attempts that I've seen to do this, a whole lot of people who no one, no one, no one would possibly want to say were committing an offence. You end up when you go down this path of criminalising a whole lot of acts and the last attempt I saw at this was one of the most shoddy pieces of legislation I've seen in Parliament.

MACDONALD: Understood. Tony Burke is here, the Home Affairs Minister, there's news today that 20-year-old Gold Coast man Patrick Stevenson is

detained in Syria facing a possible death penalty for the alleged murder of another Australian, Abdullah Glen Burgess. What representations has the government made to the Syrian government on behalf of both of these Australians and their families?

BURKE: Yeah if I can start with the first, in the first instance as you'd expect offering condolences to the Australian family of the man who was killed and that's the first thing. Foreign affairs take the lead on any of this and they provide consular support to the family of the man who was killed and would also be in contact with the man, of consular support for the man who has been charged. But I really can't offer more than that.

MACDONALD: But would the Australian government in the normal course of events approach the Syrian government about this?

BURKE: Look, the Australian government opposes the death penalty in all instances and we make that clear everywhere, but this is handled by DFAT, not by

Home Affairs and I've given you the information that I have.

MACDONALD: And you have no information as to whether that point you just made has been expressed directly to the Syrian authorities?

BURKE: I've given you the information that I have.

MACDONALD: Okay. I want to ask you about One Nation; they've already been part of this conversation. But I'm particularly interested in your view of

this given the electorate that you hold. Labor elder Wayne Swan said last week, One Nation is the biggest threat that the Labor party faces electorally at the moment. At a rally in Perth last month, Pauline Hanson shared a hit list of Labor held seats that she wants to target –

[CLIP]

MACDONALD: I'm interested in how seriously you're taking that challenge in your electorate?

BURKE: Look, in the first instance I'd say I work on the basis that every election that before people vote everyone has got zero next to their name and you have to earn every vote, every time, I've never taken any election for granted and so - and I'm always respectful to anyone who runs against me. Second thing I'd say is I was surprised to hear it given that that particularly party and the person making that speech hate my part of Sydney and devote a whole lot of their public comments to saying how much they hate my part of Sydney. You know, I just hope as a nation we find our way back to just being a bit more decent to each other. As a country, we have been a, you know, stood out among the world as a country where people can leave hatreds behind from around the world and build something really valuable together.

MACDONALD: Do you think people are still leaving those hatreds behind?

BURKE: I beg your pardon.

MACDONALD: Do you think people are still leaving those hatreds behind? I mean I'm finding this more and more as we have conversation about whether it's migration or housing. The issues of, you know, global geopolitics, global conflict, come in to play in people's thinking right here in Sydney, and I'm just wondering about - I know it's a noble aspiration leaving that behind. I wonder whether that is still what happens?

BURKE: Yeah. Can I put it in these terms, Hamish. Overwhelmingly what I'm seeing - and obviously a lot of the worst actions that people take are issues that my

agencies look at really closely. The number of people engaging in the sorts of hatred you described who are born here is overwhelming and while politically - and

there will always be a national security element of making sure we are very careful about who comes across the border - but the more I have seen the more worried I am about what comes across the browser. The radicalisation or when we see that or when we see people with hatreds overwhelmingly we're seeing hatreds that are being fostered and radicalised online rather than ideologies that people already held when they came here. Increasingly we're seeing when we have arrests for people who are wanting to cause really serious harm that we are talking about people who were born here and people who are radicalised online and I do worry when we use immigration - and I'm not saying you are doing this, you are right to put the question to me - but I worry when the public debate has this whole focus on immigration as though that's how radical ideas are coming to Australia when overwhelmingly what we need to be looking at - and that doesn't mean you drop the checks you do at the border, of course you don't - but overwhelmingly we have a challenge in radicalisation online and what's coming across the browser.

MACDONALD: It's quarter to nine on 702 mornings. Tony Burke is the Home Affairs Minister. On the subject of community cohesion, we have been

reporting on calls this week to arm the community security group. It's a Jewish volunteer organisation known as CSG. They are armed already when guarding

things like Synagogues and Jewish schools. But there's been calls for them to be armed at public events. Dave Hudson from New South Wales police has said that he's rejected those calls, he said that it might in fact inflame distrust and community tensions. What's your view?

BURKE: Look, this is one of the things that have been put to the Royal Commission and so I'm not going to get ahead of the Royal Commission on these issues. There is an understandable concerns that comes from the Jewish community about just wanting everything possible to be able to be as safe as possible. There are also concerns that I've received and advice as well from police services about the heightened risk that can actually be there if something goes wrong when you don't know who is who and when people have been trained differently, and so the concerns from the police come from a very good place. I understand why the Jewish community is raising these concerns, the Royal Commission will be looking at this.

MACDONALD: But you've had advice –

BURKE: Everybody –

MACDONALD: That is…

BURKE: Sorry I can't hear you when I talk, I apologise.

MACDONALD: It's all right. You've had advice specifically on this, that raises concerns?

BURKE: Yeah, when I say advice I've specifically raised this in conversations with the police and asked them to sort of map out for me so it's not like I've received an official brief or anything like that. But I have asked about it and people have mapped out for me the concerns about if there is a crisis the risk, the heightened risk to community safety that happens when people don't know who is who.

MACDONALD: Tony Burke, you are also the Arts Minister. This is a bit of a gearshift. A much loved Sydney music venue, MoshPit in Newtown is shutting.

What more would you like to do to support venues like this; this is a pretty big part of the music industry of the night time scene in places like Sydney, and obviously a lot of people feel quite strongly about MoshPit in particular?

BURKE: Yeah, it's an important venue. It's actually one of the venues that we invested in through Revive Live and so we had hoped that the investment we'd made and it would have been enough to give that extra leg up because for artists as well and for people who love music. You know, with the advent where people don't buy albums the way they used to, where there's so much more streaming, live is a really important part of making sure that people can make a career in the music industry, so we want to be able to keep our venues going. I'm announcing later today – I guess I'm announcing it now actually - I was going to put this out later today – Revive Live where we invest in venues themselves, we're announcing another $12.5 million for that and effectively this is where… it used to be the view, well they're private venues, and you know why would you put public money after it. It really matters the live experience, it really matters, it's important for people who love music for there to be that real tangible… you are there in the room when the performance is happening and even though they're private venues every extra bit of assistance at the moment makes a difference. It is devastating when we lose one but we are determined to make sure that that live culture throughout the country is something that survives.

MACDONALD: Would you like some of that money to end up with MoshPit to keep it open?

BURKE: Look, we invest - it was more than $60,000 that we had invested in MoshPit. Businesses will make their own decisions. Some people would say, well does that mean we wasted the money because they've now gone under anyway. My view is live is so important, you've just got to take the risk and keep investing and keep providing because for a whole lot of venues that investment actually will be the difference. It keeps them going.

MACDONALD: Tony Burke, good to talk to you, thank you very much.

BURKE: All the best, see you.

MACDONALD: That's the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke and you heard it here first, that additional investment in live events and live music.

ENDS