PM Malcolm Turnbull to give frank advice to Donald Trump privately
MALCOLM Turnbull has been criticised for his silence on Donald Trump’s travel ban from Bill Shorten, who said the PM should stand up for Australian values.
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OPPOSITION leader Bill Shorten has continued to lash Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over his silence on the US travel ban in his speech to the National Press Club today.
Even if the US refugee resettlement deal was potentially on the line, Mr Shorten said there were some instances where a leader needed to stand up for Australia’s values.
“I absolutely support the American alliance but let’s be clear, sometimes there are issues where if the nation’s leader is silent, it can be interpreted as agreement,” he said.
“If the Germans can speak up, if the English can speak up, if the Canadians can speak up, then why are we silent?”
Mr Shorten said Australia’s alliance with America did not mean the nation’s leader had to agree with the US’s every action.
“In terms of my comments about President Trump, before the election, I seem to remember all sides of politics express some concerns about some of his views, and if you are asking me to apologise for criticising views which disrespect women, or disrespect people who come from different countries, how can I do that - because I don’t respect that,” Mr Shorten said.
MORE: The refugees who support Donald Trump’s travel ban
The Labor leader said the US-Australia alliance would continue and was stronger than individual personalities.
“Does anyone think that NATO is going to cease existing because the English, because the Germans disagreed with this [immigration] policy,” he said.
“Does someone suddenly think that the Canadian-American relationship is going to see a freeze because Prime Minister Trudeau disagrees?
“I just think when you’re Prime Minister of Australia, you have to stand up for what you believe and stand up for your values sometimes, and I don’t believe our alliance is sufficiently fragile that unless you are completely the shadow that somehow it’s not the right thing to do.”
TURNBULL’S ’FRANK ADVICE’ TO TRUMP
His comments come after Mr Turnbull said he will raise any issues of concern to Australia with US President Donald Trump in a private manner, and not discuss it publicly.
The national interest is “best protected by me giving private counsel to our number one ally, the United States,” he told media today.
“When I have frank advice to give to an American president, I give it privately, as good friends should, as wise prime ministers do, when they want to ensure they are best able to protect Australians and Australians’ national interest. Others can engage in commentary.
“I don’t comment on American policy publicly. My job is to get results for Australia.”
Mr Turnbull rejected criticism that he had failed to stand up for Australian values.
“Now Bill Shorten is not the Prime Minister,” Mr Turnbull said. “He wants to be, obviously. He will go out on anything that he thinks gives him the political advantage. He has no concern about our national interest and our national interest is best protected by me giving private council to the US, our most important ally, public refraining from commenting on their domestic policy, advancing the interests of Australia ... and that is what I have done.”
He told Sky News: “Our values are very, very clear: we have a non-discriminatory immigration policy, a non discriminatory humanitarian program. We have strong borders. We have a very sophisticated intelligence based border protection system, so we take great care over who gets into Australia.”
Mr Turnbull said confirmation that Australian dual citizens were free to travel to the US came from General Michael Flynn, the White House national security adviser, via Australia’s ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey.
He said Australia had been granted the exemption because of its “very strong” relationship with the US and the new administration.
When asked about a Melbourne schoolboy yesterday being told his visa would not be processed, the Prime Minister said “of course we don’t know all the facts surrounding that, but in the light of the assurance that has been given today, it may be that that case can be reconsidered.”
TURNBULL ‘REINFORCES SUSPICIONS’
Welcome To Australia chief executive Mohammad Al-Khafaji has told AAP that while the exemption was a good outcome, Mr Turnbull should have publicly criticised Mr Trump’s controversial policy.
“The disappointing thing here is that our government is supporting the policy in the first place and not condemning it like other political leaders in Britain and Canada who also were given political exemptions,” he said. “It reinforces suspicions of Muslim people and people of different cultures in Australia and it gives the green light to question people in Australia.”
Mr Al-Khafaji, whose organisation lobbies for migrants and refugees, is waiting to find out if his US visa application for a work trip in May is approved.
He was born and raised in Iraq before his family fled to Syria as refugees and applied to come to Australia, where they have lived since 2003.
Mr Al-Khafaji was invited by the US State Department to attend a three-week leadership program in Washington DC but says even if his visa is granted there’s an “extra level of worry” involved now in travelling to the US.
SCHOOLBOY IN LIMBO
The special exemption given to Australian dual nationals is also expected to allow Melbourne school boy Pouya Ghadirian - a dual Australian-Iranian citizen - to attend a space camp in the US in March.
The 15-year-old spoke yesterday about how he was refused an entry visa by US consular officials, dashing his hopes to join his classmates on a school trip to visit Orlando, Washington, and the US Space and Rocket Center in Alabama. “In the light of the assurance that has been given today, it may be that that case can be reconsidered,” Mr Turnbull told Sky News.
“There may be other factors, but that is really an individual case.” A statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said his case had been referred to the US Embassy in Canberra.
Meanwhile, leading astrophysicist Dr Katie Mack has offered to help Pouya in case he can’t get to the US.
The US scientist, who is based at the University of Melbourne, says she’s happy to tap her vast network of contacts to help Pouya learn more about space. “I’m an American and while I can’t do anything about my government or make the president change his mind, if I can make thinks a little bit less bad for one person that would be nice,” she told AAP.
NO PLANS FOR TRAVEL BAN: DUTTON
AS global condemnation of the travel ban grows, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says Australia won’t be following the US’s lead on border protection.
Mr Dutton said Australia had also been criticised for tough border protection policies in recent years and now needed to support its ally.
“I think we need to respect the fact that the US has just been through an election, this was a huge policy, a big debate in the US Presidential campaign, and President Trump would say that he is implementing the policy that he took the election,” Mr Dutton said on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program this morning.
.@GChristensenMP: National security should be the principle guiding Australia's immigration policy #auspol pic.twitter.com/sBK5I4f525
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) January 30, 2017
The Immigration Minister brushed off suggestions President Trump was going down an almost ‘White Australia policy’ route and playing politics by targeting some countries and not others, such as Saudi Arabia where a number of the September 11 hijackers were from.
“I think there will be all sorts of conspiracy theories around oil and all sorts of motivations,” Mr Dutton said.
“If it was a blanket ban against Muslims or against a particular religion, then that is the policy that they would have implanted.”
Mr Dutton said the Turnbull Government was not aware of any Australian dual citizens as yet who had been affected by the ban.
“I know there is a lot of pushback and a lot of concern about what is happening in other places around the world at the moment,” he said.
“From our perspective, from the Australian perspective, we have a good relationship with the US.
“We will work with the US on individual cases if problems arise.”
‘TRUMP HAS TAKEN THE REIGNS’: HANSON
Pauline Hanson has praised President Donald Trump’s travel ban, saying Malcolm Turnbull should implement similar policies to protect Australia from terror threats.
The One Nation leader took aim at the Prime Minister for being ‘too weak’ to make ‘tough decisions’ in an interview with Sky News last night.
Last night Senator Hanson was pushing for the Turnbull Government to take up similar policies to President Trump’s executive order to suspend entry visas for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Citing what she called growing social turmoil in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and England through migration, Ms Hanson said: “Do I want Australia like that? No way in the wide world”.
“There are other countries around the world now who are saying they’ve got it wrong with Muslims that have taken over,” Senator Hanson said on Sky News last night.
“Prime Minister Turnbull — he’s the leader of this nation and people are turning to him and wanting him to make the tough decisions,” she said.
“He may not always get it right.
“Like Donald Trump, he has taken on the reigns ... he’s making tough decisions and that’s all anyone is asking of our Prime Minister.”
Yesterday the Opposition was calling for the Prime Minister to join other world leaders in condemning the travel ban.
Mr Turnbull yesterday refused to comment, saying it was not his role to make a running commentary on another countries domestic politics.
Originally published as PM Malcolm Turnbull to give frank advice to Donald Trump privately
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