This legislation is appropriate for the moment, but, as we saw in Israel, Islamic terrorists are innovative in how they murder, mutilate and kidnap innocents. This has been evidenced in a 43-minute video. Where was the disgust shown with regard to this by Senator Faruqi or the other Greens today? Nothing—absolutely nothing—was said about the clear vision of what happened to these men, women and children. You stand up for the Palestinians. You have no love in your hearts for what’s happened to the Israelis. All you want is to support the Palestinians.
Senator HANSON (Queensland—Leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation) (19:25): I rise to speak to the Counter-Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023, which One Nation will support, and I would like to say I fully support my colleague Senator Roberts and his comments in his speech that he’s just delivered. This legislation is timely, following the warning from ASIO director-general Mike Burgess last month that the risk of violence has increased following the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists in Israel. Those cowardly acts of murder, rape and hostage abduction show that none of us are entirely secure against the threat posed by Islamic terrorism. That is certainly the case in Australia, because the atrocities have also drawn out people here who actually support and defend this terrorism. Some of them even sit in this chamber. We just watched them make a stupid show of walking out of the Senate in solidarity with these terrorists.
For the record, I will say that public demonstrations in support of Islamic terrorists should not be allowed to take place in this country. It is un-Australian, and anyone who participates in them does not belong in our country. There must be absolutely no tolerance in Australia for these violent atrocities or the people who advocate or support them. They are a direct threat to the safety and security of Australian people.
The threat might not be as great if Australia had a better immigration policy that prevented the importation of Islamic extremism. The major parties can’t say they weren’t warned about it. One Nation has been warning the country for more than 25 years about the threat represented by imported extremism, which unfortunately makes legislation like this necessary. These warnings were ignored. As a result, we had people on the steps of the Sydney Opera House calling for the gassing of Jews. Where we seen this before? A local Islamic scholar is now being investigated over preaching violent jihad in our country. If you don’t know what ‘jihad’ means, it means war. How was this extremist preacher even allowed to come to Australia to spew his hatred? It’s this sort of rhetoric which inspires the violence that our police security forces must be equipped and supported to prevent.
At this point, I’m compelled to condemn the recent High Court decision allowing the convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika to retain his Australian citizenship. I hope that the Labor government is going to put in an appeal with regard to the decision by the High Court, because I cannot understand their ruling. They’re saying that he should not be deported. If he has dual citizenship, strip him of the Australian citizenship. He is not left stateless. Let him leave our shores and go back to his own country. We don’t want people like him here. This decision has devalued Australian citizenship, giving it to a maniac who plotted to kill thousands of us.
As I’ve said repeatedly in this place, we give citizenship out to people too readily. As I’ve said in the past, they should be here in this country for eight years to prove themselves worthy of Australian citizenship, so we know what they are and what they stand for. Yet you’re reluctant to do this. Some other countries even have up to 30 years. In other countries, you can’t even get citizenship. Yet you just bend over backwards to allow them. That’s why we have so many students coming into this country, purely as a pathway to citizenship. They enrol in our universities but end up being taxi drivers purely for citizenship, and you allow this to happen. Labor’s immigration policy is ridiculous.
That’s why we need these laws to ensure that they are well-meaning people who value our laws, the rights of this land and every other Australian, not peddlers of the bloody hate that they bring from their other countries. That’s why I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t want Islamic terrorists in this country; I want people to be vetted properly so that they will not be allowed into Australia. What is wrong with that? Every other Australian is calling for it. Other people want safety and security on our streets, but they don’t feel that it is.
The Albanese government must ensure that, the very minute his sentence is completed, this convicted terrorist is deported, never to return, or is otherwise locked up forever—but I’d rather not, because it costs the Australian taxpayer over $120,000 a year to keep him in our prisons. I’d rather get rid of him.
This legislation is appropriate for the moment, but, as we saw in Israel, Islamic terrorists are innovative in how they murder, mutilate and kidnap innocents. This has been evidenced in a 43-minute video. Where was the disgust shown with regard to this by Senator Faruqi or the other Greens today? Nothing—absolutely nothing—was said about the clear vision of what happened to these men, women and children. You stand up for the Palestinians. You have no love in your hearts for what’s happened to the Israelis. All you want is to support the Palestinians.
Also with regard to that, we must be ready to respond with stronger laws and measures if necessary. Why shouldn’t we? One Nation supports the extension of police powers in relation to terrorism, as proposed in the bill, and I’ve got to ask: where are the police on the streets to actually stop these protests? There shouldn’t be protest rallies in our streets over what’s happening in Gaza with Palestine. What’s it got to do with us here? We shouldn’t see this, and it’s happening around the world. This is orchestrated. And the antisemitism—it is disgusting that we see that happening in Australia. But where are the people who are responding to that? Where are they really speaking out against it? We’ve had six former prime minister who actually agree about what is happening and about support for Israel. That’s what we should be doing, because the people are defending themselves against the terrorism that was committed against them on 7 October, but the Greens and other people around this country don’t see that, because they’re peddling their own hatred.
We support the responsible minister having the power to declare a prescribed security zone to ensure additional security measures can be implemented when and where it is necessary to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. We note that the minister must give consideration to the impact such a declaration may have on the rights of Australians in the affected area. We’re forced to remind the Senate that no such consideration was given to fundamental human rights during the COVID-19 pandemic—nothing. We also note that the bill clarifies the need for parliamentary oversight of these declarations. One Nation supports the extension of the control order and prevention detention order to December 2026. We consider these absolutely necessary for the safety and security of Australian citizens because there is no compromise that may be reached with these maniacs or their treacherous supporters in Australia. We support the use of post-entry warrants, ensuring that police and other authorities can act immediately to prevent a terrorist attack that may not wait for a judge to make up their mind. One Nation strongly supports the use of post-sentence orders against people convicted of terrorist offences.
As I noted earlier, there is no compromise with Islamic terrorism. Have a look where is Islam has spread throughout the world. Look at countries such as Egypt and Iran. What’s happened to the people there, especially the women? They used to dress Western, like us. They’d show their arms, legs, hair, face and all the rest of it. That was about 50 years ago, in the fifties, sixties, seventies. Now every woman has to be covered up. She can’t show her arms or her legs. She’s controlled by the men. She has no rights over the children. She is just a—what can I say?—someone who’s there to bear his children. No control, and yet you don’t care about that here. We allow that to happen in our own country, the women here to wear the full burqa. Where are the feminists? Where are the people defending their rights? They are made to cover up by their menfolk, by their husbands, and here in Australia we’re heading down the same path of what it is like in Egypt and Iran. Women over there cannot even walk the streets without being accompanied by a male—can you believe that?—and in these countries like Afghanistan that is their ideology.
Hamas is an ideology. It is about wanting to control the world through their hatred and to get rid of anyone who doesn’t believe in their fundamentalist views. You don’t vet the people enough who come into this country. You don’t vet the refugees from some of these other countries enough. You allow them in. You are not hard enough on these women who follow their husbands over there, and you just want to allow them back into the country, the poor darlings, with their children. What has happened? You don’t care, because when they come here, they’re put in our suburbs where they live beside other Australians. These people will never work. They are going to be on the welfare system for the rest of their lives. They are unemployable. Their views are absolutely not in line with Australian values or laws, and yet you feel sorry for them. They don’t feel sorry for us, I can tell you. Remember the word ‘jihad’, and when the time comes they will call for it. But it won’t matter to you because you will be safe in your little nest in your little homes. You could not care less about the rest of the Australian people and what they have to suffer, as we have seen people suffering around the world.
We’ve seen the way the Jews have been treated around the world by these protesters, and it is deplorable and disgusting. I give my full support to the Jewish people. We see them being badgered, threatened and harassed; they can’t move freely in their own country, and what is happening to them is disgusting. I feel sorry for them. They are in a country where they thought they would be safe, but they don’t feel safe at all. And when I saw the stunt pulled today by the Greens, it made me sick to my stomach that people are actually supporting this regime. We heard Mehreen Faruqi’s disgust of Israel and what they have done to protect themselves. Through their retaliation they said: ‘We’ve had enough. We’ve have had a gutful of this,’ and now they are defending themselves. Good on them; I don’t blame them. But the fact is that it’s a pity that Mehreen Faruqi didn’t look at what Pakistan did to two million Afghan people there. They just went in, bulldozed their homes, said, ‘Go back to Afghanistan.’ What about those people? Where is the fear for them? Oh no, that’s right: Pakistan is the country that she came from, so we can’t criticise the Pakistanis, can we? No, not at all.
Senator Faruqi, I will tell you again: if you don’t see yourself as loving this country and abiding by the laws of the country, I have no problem. I will actually take you to the airport and put you on a plane and wave you away because that’s how people feel. They want to feel safe in this country. They want values. They want morals, and they want the people who come here to respect our country, abide by our laws and not spew their hatred on our streets and, especially to innocent people. I just want to say that these maniacs will always pose a threat to the Australian community, unless they are locked up for all time to die impotently in a bleak maximum security prison cell if we can’t get rid of them from our country or if we can actually stop them from coming here. But the government is reluctant to do that. They’re just handing out visas willy-nilly, and then they blame the previous government for all this. But we have got, 100,000-plus visa holders in the country, and we don’t even know where they are. You have got another two million people on visas in Australia, and then you have got over 600,000 overseas students in Australia. You have actually overloaded this country and you don’t even know who the people are. You have put more people on in Immigration to make sure their visas are processed more quickly to get them into the country, and that is what your government does. You have no regard for the Australian people. It is all about bringing as many of these people into the country as possible to harvest their votes. That is what it is all about. One Nation will always support the strongest measures being taken to prevent and eventually eliminate the scourge of terrorism. I commend this bill to the Senate.