Morrison sets test for Shorten over security

Scott Morrison has vowed to make stalled foreign fighter laws a key priority of a returned ­Coalition government.

Bill Shorten with wife Chloe, centre, and deputy Tanya Plibersek at Labor’s anti-domestic violence policy launch yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith

Scott Morrison has vowed to make stalled foreign fighter laws a key priority of a returned ­Coalition government, demanding they be passed by both houses within the first week of the new parliament, setting up an election clash with Bill Shorten over ­national security.

The Prime Minister yesterday accused Mr Shorten of holding up the passage of legislation giving the government greater powers to prevent and control the return of foreign fighters, following the Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombings which killed 253 people.

“This is something that must pass in the first week of parliament,” Mr Morrison told The Weekend Australian.

“If we are elected we want to see it passed in that first week … It must be.”

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommended that the temporary exclusion orders laws be passed, with Labor’s support, in the final week of parliament.

The proposed laws were never put to a vote. Labor leader Bill Shorten rejected the accusation that it had dragged its feet on supporting the bill.

The national security challenge to Mr Shorten came as the Opposition Leader faced another difficult day on the hustings.

Late yesterday he was forced into agreeing to a third leaders’ debate despite refusing requests earlier this week from the Nine Network and ABC.

And Mr Shorten’s political ­attack on the government for ­cutting a preference swap with Clive Palmer backfired when the United Australia Party leader confirmed that ALP power­brokers had secretly approached him to secure their own preferences deal.

Mr Morrison yesterday called out Labor over holding up the foreign fighter legislation, prompting Mr Shorten to accuse the government of playing political games in the “shadow of the shocking Sri Lankan murders”, as the laws were never put to a vote due to a lack of sitting days.

“This bloke should be ashamed of himself,” Mr Shorten said.

The Weekend Australian has learned from intelligence sources that Islamic State played a direct role in the planning of the attack and the targets, raising fears that the terror group is tapping into networks outside Syria that are strengthened by the return of foreign fighters with hardened combat experience.

Mr Morrison attacked Labor’s record on national security laws, arguing that the government had been “endeavouring to bring in temporary exclusion orders” that would prevent an individual from returning to Australia for up to two years unless they were issued with a permit putting conditions on their re-entry.

The Prime Minister accused Labor of “dragging its feet” on the proposed foreign fighter legislation, which was introduced into parliament in February by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and referred to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security.

Mr Shorten hit back, saying: “He loves to be on the high ground, this Prime Minister, but he never fails to reach for the bottom of the barrel when it suits him.”

Labor Senate leader Penny Wong warned that Mr Morrison was the only Liberal prime minister who wanted to “open up a political divide on national security”.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said the government only had itself to blame for not passing its legislation to introduce temporary ­exclusion orders because there were insufficient sitting days.

“The bill lapsed at dissolution because the government never brought the bill to a vote in the lower house,” Mr Dreyfus said.

As Mr Shorten yesterday came under pressure over claims he was dodging election debates with Mr Morrison, ALP national secretary Noah Carroll wrote to the ­National Press Club proposing a lunchtime debate on Wednesday, May 8, with live feeds to all networks, to be “facilitated by a panel of ­journalists, including a representative from Nine, ABC and a ­journalist nominated by the ­National Press Club”.

The proposal, which came days before the first leaders’ debate in Perth on Monday, was quickly panned by Liberal Party federal ­director Andrew Hirst, who said the Labor leader “should be willing to agree to a prime-time television debate”.

“Bill Shorten will clearly do anything to avoid prime-time scrutiny,” Mr Hirst said.

“Mr Shorten either can’t or won’t explain his plans for higher taxes and hopes the Australian people won’t notice.”

Mr Shorten’s decision to agree to a third leaders’ debate came after both the ABC and the Nine Network revealed the Labor leader had turned down offers from both networks for a prime-time television debate.

The Nine Network’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, said Mr Shorten’s openness to a third debate yesterday appeared to be a “different message” from what the network was told earlier in the week.

“Labor told us last night that the answer was no,” Uhlmann said. “The clear impression we were given last night was that ‘no’ and that was final.”

ABC news director Gaven Morris also revealed that Labor had knocked back the public broadcaster’s offer of a leaders’ debate. “The ABC also invited the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to a debate to be broadcast in prime-time on radio and television and across the national broadcaster’s @abcnews platforms,” Mr Morris tweeted.

“The Opposition Leader declined the invitation.”

Mr Shorten also came under pressure after ALP frontbenchers Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke yesterday attempted to dispute revelations in The Australian that Labor had attempted to ­secure a preference deal with Mr Palmer’s UAP.

Ahead of the final three weeks of the election campaign, and with early voting commencing on Monday, Mr Palmer — who is expected to spend up to $50 million on saturation advertising in a bid to buy the balance of power — ­accused the opposition of lying.

“It’s not true that I wasn’t ­approached by the Labor Party; I certainly was,” Mr Palmer said.

“I had Senator (Anthony) Chisholm approach me … He called me on Wednesday, when he was with Bill Shorten. He said he’d been with Bill in central Queensland. And he said: ‘Is it too late to do preferences?’”

Campaigning in the seat of Melbourne, where he committed an extra $332m to combat domestic violence, Mr Shorten denied there were any preference negotiations with Mr Palmer.