Victorian premier also pushes back on Turnbull’s criticism of state’s moratorium on gas extraction, saying he won’t ‘smash up’ land integral to farming and tourism

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has defended his comment that people who aren’t in power have the “luxury” of complaining about police powers that infringe on civil liberties, saying effective political leaders must give police exactly what they need to combat terrorism.

He has also dismissed again Malcolm Turnbull’s criticism of Victoria’s moratorium on onshore gas exploration, saying geologists have said there are no proven gas reserves in Victoria anyway and he won’t be ruining the environment on which farmers rely.

Speaking on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, Andrews was asked if civil liberties had become a luxury in modern Australia, following his dismissal last week of concerns from civil libertarians about a uniform federal law that will allow terrorism suspects, including minors, to be detained without charge for up to 14 days.

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Andrews said last week: “There will be some ... who will focus on the notional infringement, the notional reduction in peoples’ rights and liberties and freedoms, the rights and liberties of a small number of people.

“Some people have the luxury of being able to have that notional debate. Those of us in positions of leadership don’t have that luxury.”

And on Sunday he didn’t resile from that remark, saying police had to have the powers they needed to protect Australians from terrorists.

“The luxury that no political leader in Australia has is to say no to law enforcement, ‘No, we won’t give you what you say you need, we won’t give you the technology that you need to keep us safe ... Please go and keep us all safe but we won’t give you what you need’,” Andrews said on Sunday.

“Law enforcement have asked very carefully, in a considered way, for additional powers, additional support, additional resources, and it’s the job of effective leaders in this country to give them exactly what is necessary.

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“Static laws will not keep us safe from what is a profoundly dynamic threat.”

State and federal leaders met at the Council of Australian Governments (Coag) on Thursday, where they agreed to give federal and state police real-time access to passport, visa, citizenship and driver’s licence images for a wide range of criminal investigations – not just identifying terrorism suspects.



Turnbull told reporters after the meeting the new facial biometric matching agreement signed off by Coag was not a Big Brother-style mass surveillance exercise, but a modernisation of existing data-sharing practices between agencies.

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said afterwards that governments needed to be conscious of individual rights and civil liberties, “however, public safety and security must come first”.

Andrews on Sunday rejected Turnbull’s criticism of the Victorian government’s moratorium on gas extraction, saying he was not going to “smash up” country used by Victoria’s dairy, wine or beef farmers, or its tourism industry.

“There are no proven or probable onshore conventional gas reserves [in Victoria],” he said.

“Drillers of course will say there’s a river of gas under there ... [but] experts, so geologists and others, their position as it stands today is there are no proven or probable onshore reserves.

“We have a fracking ban, absolutely, and I’d encourage Malcolm Turnbull to go down to [Liberal MP] Sarah Henderson’s electorate and have a chat to a few locals.

“Farmers, workers, environmentalists, mums and dads, the greatest political coalition we have seen in public policy for a very long time, people who perhaps don’t agree on much, but they agree on that,” he said.