MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
MELBOURNE
WEDNESDAY, 1 MAY 2019
SUBJECTS: Jeremy Hearn; Neil Erikson.
MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The Liberal Party must sack Jeremy Hearn as the candidate for Isaacs immediately. His comments reported in the Herald Sun overnight are sickening. They are Islamophobic, they're divisive and they have no place in Australian politics. Whats extraordinary is that Jeremy Hearn was ever selected by the Liberal Party of Australia to run for a federal seat, a seat in the House of Representatives. He was unsuccessful, we've learned came in at number four in the contest for pre-selection for the seat of Higgins. I say again it's extraordinary that this Liberal Party thinks that someone who has expressed the kind of views that Mr Hearn has expressed could ever be regarded as suitable for election to the House of Representatives. It's absolutely symptomatic of the chaos that has engulfed Scott Morrison's Liberal Party. Mr Morrison has got a choice today. The choice is between showing that his party has shifted far to the right of Australian politics, has become a party that thinks cosying up to Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson is the right thing to do, that his party is a party that tolerates Islamophobia, or he can show that perhaps the Liberal Party of Australia is still something approaching a mainstream party. That's his choice today, and I call on Scott Morrison to make the right choice. For much too long, for some years now, we have seen the Liberal Party of Australia tolerating this kind of hate speech. In fact, wanting to allow hate speech. And that's what is represented by the attacks the Liberal Party has made on Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The Labor Party has been very proud to stand with ethnic communities right across Australia in resisting those attacks on Section 18C which would have allowed more hate speech. This has been a Liberal Party for some years now which thinks that the rights of bigots are more important than the right of every Australian to live in dignity, and to enjoy the respect and acceptance of their fellow Australians. So stand up, Mr Morrison, show us what you're made of. Show us that you properly set your face, and the face of the Liberal Party, against these kinds of repulsive views which we've seen expressed publicly and recently by this Liberal candidate Jeremy Hearn.
Any questions?
JOURNALIST: Jeremy Hearn has been sacked by the state admin is that a positive move?
DREYFUS: I'm very pleased to hear it I had not heard that before I walked in to this press conference. And if it's correct that Mr Hearn has been sacked by the Administrative Committee of the Victorian Liberal Party then they have made the right decision and Id congratulate them for it.
JOURNALIST: What do you make of reports that Andrew Hastie met with Neil Erikson?
DREYFUS: Well they're a bit more than reports that Mr Hastie met with Neil Erikson, who is someone else with repulsive Islamophobic views. Someone who is a convicted criminal. They are a bit more than reports because Mr Hastie's colleague, Mr Ian Goodenough, the Member for Moore in Western Australia met with Mr Erikson. Mr Hastie and Mr Goodenough have got some explaining to do, what was the nature of their meeting with Mr Erikson and they've also got some explaining to do about what they were doing at the rally Mr Erikson was at which was something to do with wanting to change Australia's immigration policy so as to give preference on the basis of race to white people. Because as I understand it that was the basis of the rally in Perth.
JOURNALIST: So the Victorian Liberals have dumped Jeremy Hearn as a candidate for the seat of Isaacs. Before that even happened he did apologise why is an apology not enough in this case?
DREYFUS: I think when were looking for fitness for office for people to be Members of the House of Representatives, and potentially part of the government of Australia just saying when you're caught out, just saying, when it appears on the front page of the Herald Sun here in Melbourne so that everyone in Australia can see what you wrote in prepared comments apologising then is too late. This man should never have been pre-selected for a mainstream political party in Australia in the first place. The Liberal Party has shown that it thought that it was OK to pre-select someone who had expressed these abhorrent Islamophobic views, and not just privately. These were views prepared material that Mr Hearn had submitted to magazines like Quadrant Magazine as recently as last year. And that's what is startling, that's what is worrying about the Liberal Party of Australia, to think that it was OK for someone with these abhorrent, Islamophobic views to be allowed to run for pre-selection in the blue ribbon Liberal seat of Higgins, which is the way it's sometimes been referred to, and then given pre-selection for another seat in south-east Melbourne.
JOURNALIST: Does that say something about the Liberal Party's vetting processes, that they let this through? Or they allowed it through?
DREYFUS: Well, these were publicly stated views by Mr Hearn. Id say again these were not views that were expressed on some private Facebook page, or a text to some of his friends, or something that he had said in private conversation. These were publicly expressed views that Mr Hearn himself wrote, and sent to Quadrant Magazine, and they were published in not only Quadrant but other publicly available sources. So yes, it's apparent that the Liberal Party doesn't vet very well or at all. But it's also apparent that many people in the Liberal Party thought that somebody who has publicly and recently expressed this point of view, that they thought he was appropriate for pre-selection.
Nothing further? Thanks very much.
ENDS
