MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN DRIVE
MONDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2019
SUBJECTS: Paladin; Asylum Seekers; Foreign Interference; Disability Royal Commission.
KARVELAS: Welcome to RN Drive.
DREYFUS: Good to be with you Patricia.
KARVELAS: So what do you make of the account given by the Department of Home Affairs around the awarding of this contract to Paladin? Are you satisfied that essentially they just didn't have a lot of options?
DREYFUS: It's only just starting in terms of the examination as were going to air. Some time between 4 and 5, questions on this matter started. Senators are still asking officials of the Department of Home Affairs questions about it. We've already learned some extraordinary detail, the first being that Home Affairs didn't approach any other businesses for the tender for service in PNG. A tender that ended up being worth $423 million of taxpayers' money. We learned that the Home Affairs Secretary, Mr Pezzullo, used special powers to authorise a closed tender, which means they could go straight to Paladin and Paladin only. That's this tiny company so tiny that they had to be given advance money to start providing the services. And were starting to enquire as to how much Mr Dutton knew. Last week Mr Dutton claimed he had no sight of a $423 million contract. And if that was so, it would be staggering incompetence. But it's actually not believable. And today we heard from Mr Pezzullo that there may have been a brief. Now both of them are just playing games with the Australian public. For the Secretary of the Department not to be able to answer Senators questions even as to whether or not there was a brief to his minister is breathtaking. And hes taken that on notice.
KARVELAS: OK, hes taken it on notice, and that of course means that the answer will be revealed but a delayed answer there. This appears to have been a last-minute process created by a PNG Supreme Court ruling that asylum seekers could not be lawfully detained. Prior to that, PNG had said they would run the facilities. Could this situation have reasonably been foreseen given this decision by the Supreme Court leaving the Department in a very difficult situation?
DREYFUS: Completely. The Department knew that the previous contractor, Broadspectrum, didn't want to continue providing it the service and they needed to make contingency arrangements. They haven't explained how it is that this vast contract - $423 million was entered into. Why couldn't some interim contract have been entered into? Just to provide services for a short time? And why indeed have they not explored, you might say, getting some of these people off Manus Island and Nauru to third countries? You would have perhaps thought that $100 million of the $400 million might have been devoted to that. This is a botched piece of administration.
KARVELAS: Because the Department of Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo testified that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had no involvement in the process. He has as you say taken something on notice, but he said he had no involvement other than to provide policy advice that Australia had an obligation to step in and provide services. Why aren't you satisfied by that?
DREYFUS: Because either we have a completely incompetent minister, so incompetent that he should be removed immediately because he didn't have any involvement in $423 million of Commonwealth taxpayers money being spent
KARVELAS: So you're saying hes incompetent whether hes involved or he wasn't involved.
DREYFUS: Absolutely. Or he is trying to conceal and run away from this mess, it's his own abysmal management of Australian funded processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru, particularly this contract arrangement with Paladin that Mr Dutton is trying to run away from. What about a simple answer to the question when was he briefed? Now that the Secretary of the Department is owning up to the fact that he was briefed when was he briefed and what about a simple answer to the question, why was Paladin, a tiny company with one of its principals who apparently cant even get into PNG, why were they the only company approached?
KARVELAS: Alright well whats also emerged is the unwillingness of large, multinational corporations who have provided these services in the past to take on this contract. That's a problem that you're going to have to deal with if you win government given you say that you support offshore processing. In fact I heard just today the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten say that you support Manus and Nauru being offshore processing centres. So how are you going to handle that?
DREYFUS: What we don't support is doing nothing, or just about nothing, for five years on getting third countries to take these people.
KARVELAS: Sure but I've asked you a specific question about how are you going to deal with the fact that multinational corporations have been unwilling to take on these contracts? Which is why the Department had to go, in their own answers, to Paladin.
DREYFUS: Well it's obviously a problem but we have not been provided with information by the Department.
KARVELAS: So you accept it's going to be a problem for you too if you were in government?
DREYFUS: Of course it will. This Liberal Government is leaving a vast number of problems for whichever party forms the next government.
KARVELAS: But isn't it an inherent problem because of offshore processing, which you support?
DREYFUS: Well, we do support offshore processing and we've tried to make it clear
KARVELAS: But this is a problem because of offshore processing right?
DREYFUS: When it comes to border protection, the border protection regime, there is no difference between Labor and Liberal and that includes offshore processing. But there is many differences in terms of how you might choose to provide offshore processing and a very important difference is whether or not you allow indefinite detention, which is what this Liberal government has allowed offshore processing to become.
KARVELAS: Would Labor leave the Paladin contract in place if you do win government?
DREYFUS: We don't know enough about it for me to even answer that question, because the details haven't been given to the public, they haven't been given to us. The details of how it came into existence haven't been provided to the public or to us. So I absolutely wont give a commitment either way as to what we will do in relation to ongoing contractual arrangements other than, obviously, incoming governments ought to try to respect ongoing contracts. Because that's the nature of our governmental arrangements. But I don't know enough, nobody knows enough. Were hoping that the Senate estimates process will produce some more details from this extraordinarily secretive government which hasn't been prepared to own up to even how the contract came into existence.
KARVELAS: Just on another issue, which is a big issue today, are you worried that another country is trying to meddle in our politics on the eve of a federal election?
DREYFUS: Of course, and the Prime Ministers statement today, particularly the term that he used that the hacking or attempted hacking of the Australian Parliament House system, and systems run by political parties, was by a sophisticated state actor, cant but be worrying. And the reason it's worrying is that although the Prime Minister said that there's no evidence of electoral interference, we've seen a range of examples in other countries think the French Presidential election, the British Brexit vote, the US Presidential election, in all of which there's some evidence that there have been attempts at electoral interference. That makes me very concerned that we need to be absolutely on guard to make sure there's no evidence of electoral interference here.
KARVELAS: And what kind of information is vulnerable here? Does Labor have information on its servers which would be of value to a foreign government?
DREYFUS: Well Labor's got, obviously, in electronic form the whole of the electoral roll, and Labor and the Liberal Party and other political parties have got data on people within electorates which potentially is able to be manipulated and used by malicious activity.
KARVELAS: If the investigation does identify the state actor responsible, should it be publicly revealed?
DREYFUS: I would say yes, because it's important that we stand up to threats. It's important that we stand up to malicious activity. And if it is possible to identify conclusively which country, which state, is responsible in my opinion that's something that should be made public.
KARVELAS: So if the conclusion is for instance that it is China that's behind this, you would support the government putting that on the record and taking the government on?
DREYFUS: Well you're offering that example, that's not my example, and Id simply repeat what I said before that if there is conclusive evidence that a particular state is involved, I think it's appropriate for Australia as a sovereign nation to say so.
KARVELAS: Just finally and briefly because I've been very greedy with your time on a couple of other issues but Labor and the Greens are pushing for a vote on establishing a Royal Commission into abuse in the disability sector. Do you want that up and running before the election? Because the former Disability Discrimination Commissioner Grahame Innes says it shouldn't be done before the election, it should be done after by the next government.
DREYFUS: I'm very pleased, it's welcome that the Government's had a change of heart on this but we need to get on with it. The disability advocates have been trying to get a Royal Commission up and running for over two years now, and it seems that the Prime Minister is saying which can only cause some further delay that there has to be discussions with the states. We need this Royal Commission up and running as quickly as possible.
KARVELAS: Mark Dreyfus, so many thanks for your time tonight.
DREYFUS: Thank you.
ENDS
