Deputy PM appearance to accuse Labor of blocking bill that would permanently ban people from visiting Australia

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Barnaby Joyce has said he knows but can’t reveal the answer to one of the biggest variables of the US-Australia deal to resettle refugees – whether the new president, Donald Trump, will hold to the deal.

The deputy prime minister made the comments on ABC’s Q&A program during a wide-ranging discussion about the consequences of the US election and how it would impact on Australia, including a deal announced on Sunday for the country to take an unknown number of refugees from Australia’s offshore processing centres.

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The arrangement has been made with the Obama administration and there has been wide speculation about what Trump might do, particularly since he promised a ban on Muslim immigration.

Hosted by Virginia Trioli, the Q&A panel included Joyce, the national security expert Jennifer Hunt, the political analyst and author Helen Andrews, the security and diplomacy expert Joseph Siracusa, and the shadow minister for early childhood education, Kate Ellis.

Ellis said the priority was to end the indefinite detention of people held on Manus Island and Nauru as soon as possible. “We have no idea what Donald Trump will do when he’s president,” she said.

“I think it would be really tragic if there was hope given and then because of US politics or because of our government not securing the deal, that once again it was these vulnerable individuals who bore the brunt of that.”

ABC Q&A (@QandA) Will Trump take our asylum seekers given his anti-immigration stance? @herandrews & Siracusa #QandA https://t.co/WWtqkxlEs0

Joyce said the government had “kept mum about this” and had been working hard behind closed doors. He accused Labor of blocking a crucial piece of legislation, the proposal to permanently ban the cohort of asylum seekers and refugees from ever visiting Australia.

Asked if he believed Trump would honour the deal, Joyce replied: “Even if I do know and the problem with it is because I’m on the national security committee, I do know … I really can’t answer you.”

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Malcolm Turnbull has suggested Trump would not scrap the deal because the refugees were within the US’s regular intake, not extra, but said: “you don’t discuss confidential matters with one administration with a future administration.”

There is significant uncertainty surrounding the deal. Guardian Australia revealed on Monday that those on Manus and Nauru with questions were simply being handed slips of paper with the URL of a US government website about its general refugee admissions program. Many have reported feeling fearful because of Trump’s anti-immigration comments.

The Q&A panel also discussed whether the social conditions and backlash against established politicians that led to Trump’s victory could be repeated in Australia.

ABC Q&A (@QandA) Should we expect Pauline Hanson as our possible future prime minister? @KateEllisMP & @Barnaby_Joyce say no #QandA https://t.co/MmR8xoySKt

“I think we underestimated the white working class in the US,” Siracusa said. “We didn’t realise people who wore red hats and went to work in the heartland would be so faithful about voting and they voted about 80%. That was the clincher on the night.”

Hunt noted that it wasn’t just support for Trump, Republicans taking the Senate, the house, a majority of governorships and a majority of states.

“[White working-class voters] do feel abandoned by the Democratic party and the stories we’re beginning to see coming out of the postmortem of the Clinton campaign shows they were absolutely correct,” she said.

Andrews, who voted for and endorsed Trump, said Australia was unlikely to see a Trump-like phenomenon, because things were not as bad for people as they were in the US “rust belt”.

“This is depression and despair. I don’t think you have that. Even though people in rural Australia are doing it tough, not quite that bad.”

She said he spoke to issues which had been sidelined by the Republican establishment, and later added it was “absurd” to say he won on “some wave of racial resentment” when he got a higher proportion of black and Hispanic votes than Mitt Romney.

“The accusation that he’s a racist bigot is thrown about very casually. When you ask people what do you mean by that, what’s your evidence for this outlandish claim, it’s things like he wants to enforce the border. That’s not anti-Latino. That’s pro-sovereignty.”

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She disputed that Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration was racially based.

Ellis disagreed, saying: “There were a number of things Donald Trump said which were clearly racist. Saying Mexicans were rapists, coming across the border.”

ABC Q&A (@QandA) Good people need to fight for our values, says @KateEllisMP. @Barnaby_Joyce says we are not US of Australia #QandA https://t.co/MdLE5zguiP

Joyce urged Australians not to overthink the result in terms of Australian politics but noted parallels including a desire for strong borders and perceptions of what a number of conservative politicians and commentators have termed “the elite”, dominating political discourse.

“When people feel belittled and when they feel isolated from the political system they can still vote and they do and they turn up.”

He said politicians had a responsibility to temper the excess of those in the extremes of politics wanting them to move further to the left or right.

“We could bring back the death penalty and a whole range of things which may pass popular appeal,” he said. “I won’t be supporting it.

“There’s some sort of honour and purpose to political office that goes beyond just being a complete temperature gauge for whatever issue just happens to be running around that day.”