PATRICIA KARVELAS: Tony Burke is the Minister for Home Affairs, the Arts and Cyber Security, and he’s in the studio with me this afternoon. Tony Burke, welcome. 

TONY BURKE: Good afternoon. 

KARVELAS: Has Qantas advised the government how many customers have been affected and how the hack occurred? 

BURKE: Yes, so it’s in the order of 6 million customers have been affected. So everybody has received the first email, but those affected will receive the second email from Qantas letting them know the way in which they’ve been affected. The sort of information that has been compromised for people does not involve any of their financial information – so credit cards haven’t been sourced, passports haven’t been sourced. But other personal information, including people’s phone numbers and email addresses is now in the hands of these criminal networks. 

KARVELAS: Is it appropriate for Qantas to pay cyber criminals a ransom? 

BURKE: The government always advises against paying a ransom because it keeps – it keeps these characters in business. We also, last year, made it a legal obligation that if someone ever were to pay a ransom, they must advise the Australian government, and if they don’t do that, then it’s an offence. And we did that to make sure we can find out the extent to which people might be paying ransoms, because that gives us a sense of the extent to which we know that our advice is being followed or ignored. 

KARVELAS: The identity of the attacker is not yet known, but this group, called Scattered Spider ransomware group, have been targeting airlines, retail stores, I think, in the US and the UK. Have you confirmed that it’s them? 

BURKE: Look, I’ll wait for the agencies. I mean, I’ve been briefed, but I allow the agencies to make those sorts of announcements rather than them coming from me. The reality is that with these networks, they will go wherever they can find a vulnerability. Now, Australia’s major companies, they sit with me at a roundtable, they engage with the government. I know that Qantas have been doing a lot over time to uplift their cyber security. But, you know, any vulnerability is unacceptable. And so, Qantas had been working – I mean, I’ve spoken to the Acting CEO of Qantas twice today. I’ve spoken to Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, who’s the Cyber Security Coordinator. They are fully cooperating with the government agencies, including the Signals Directorate, at the moment. So what’s happening now is what you would want to happen. But there are some ongoing risks for consumers. And there’s two things, if I can quickly advise people of. Because emails and phone numbers have been compromised, if anyone gets a cold call from Qantas, hang up. They – if you’re going to talk to Qantas on the phone, use the published number and you make the call. If you get an email that is asking you to click through on a link in any way, don’t respond to it. The only way to deal with them digitally, work through the Qantas app is the way of doing it. The nature of the criminals is once they’ve got the information, they either sell it, or they use it, or they try to ransom it. But the best way they can be more powerful with this information is if people get a phone call and take it seriously. So, people just need to be on guard that whenever you get these cold calls, hang up, call the numbers that you know. 

KARVELAS: Look, one of the issues here, this is a big company. 

BURKE: Yep. 

KARVELAS: As you say, they’ve been doing lots of updates. Sure. But they’re exposed via a third party. And there’s a trend here – it’s the third party. Do we need to be rethinking the use of these third parties? 

BURKE: Look, my view – and I’ve said this to Qantas, I’ve said this to all the businesses – outsourcing, you can’t outsource your cyber security obligations. Your obligations to your customers, the people who work with you, all the data that you hold, the obligation is the same. And so if you choose to outsource in some way – you know, I’m not going to get into the commercial structures that companies choose – but people shouldn’t think, no business should think that they are then outsourcing their obligation. Now, I’ve got to say in the way Qantas has been engaging with the government, they haven’t been acting like they’re outsourcing the obligation. But the obligation is probably, you know, some would argue, more complex when you start using more third party companies. And that’s something that needs to be borne in mind. 

KARVELAS: And when you say you’ve been, you know, advising this, in your conversations, have you spoken to Qantas about this vulnerability since this incident? 

BURKE: Well, I’ve spoken to them twice today. 

KARVELAS: Yeah. And you’ve spoken to Vanessa Hudson? 

BURKE: No, no. Vanessa Hudson is on leave, so it’s Steph Tully who’s the Acting CEO at the moment. And so I’ve spoken to her twice. We’ve worked through the different communication they’re giving to people. I’ve been checking that they’ve been keeping closely engaged with both the Signals Directorate and the Cyber Security Coordinator, and they have been, and they’ve been doing – giving access and doing whatever’s asked. What - the stage that we’re at right now is making sure that a vulnerability was exposed isn’t enlarged. And that’s – 

KARVELAS: And are you confident it’s not going to be enlarged, to use that language? 

BURKE: Well, part of that is the message that I’m using your program as part of the way to get out to Australian consumers, that when criminal operators like this suddenly have your email address and your phone number, it’s not so they can publish a phone book; it’s so that they can use it for the next layer of fraud, and people should be alert to that. It doesn’t even mean that they’ll be pretending that they’re Qantas, but sometimes when this vulnerability happens, the call comes saying, “Oh, you might be aware that there’s a cybersecurity breach in this company– 

KARVELAS: Well, it’s when people are at their most vulnerable, too. 

BURKE: Exactly. 

KARVELAS: Would you say that this cyber hack is of the proportions of Optus? Is it one of our biggest? You know, is that how we’re classifying this? 

BURKE: Look, in terms of number of people affected, 6 million is highly significant. In terms of the personal nature of the information, we’re still getting through that. So the information that I’ve said there is not all that’s there. So, you know, there’ll be things like – that particular database will hold what special meals people have and things like that, which can lead to other information. So there’s – we’re getting to the bottom of every piece of data that may have been extracted because that adds a layer of concern.

KARVELAS: Minister, I want to change the conversation. There’s a breaking news story that the Lebanese Australian artist that was essentially cancelled from the Biennale, Khaled Sabsabi, has been reinstated by Creative Australia. Are you aware of this move?

 BURKE: Yeah, I received a phone call about 20 minutes ago from Adrian Collette, the CEO of Creative Australia, to let me know that the contract had now been settled and Khaled Sabsabi and, as well, Michael Dagostino as the curator have been recommissioned for the Venice Biennale. There’s a few steps to explain how they got here. My position has always been these are arm’s-length decisions. When they made the decision to appoint, I said I supported it. When they made the decision to terminate, I said I’d support that. I addressed the board the day that this report came in, and this was last week. And I said to them, “Whatever you decide, I will back you.” But I also said to them, “I will also be very upfront that whichever way you go, the due diligence previously had not been done.” Part of arm’s-length funding is the minister doesn’t make the decision, but if you expect the minister to defend the decision, you need to provide the minister with the information about what’s likely to come so that we’re able to defend. Effectively there were two works that were – that should have been in a brief to myself, should have been in a brief to the board as well. They were both about 20 years old, which the review has now worked through, and I read the review this morning. The works are quite explicable, but at first glance, both of them looked quite deeply offensive. 

KARVELAS: Let me just get you on that, because there are some people who will say they still are offensive. 

BURKE: Yeah. 

KARVELAS: They will argue that. You know, like I can predict that’s happening right now. 

BURKE: Yep. 

KARVELAS: What’s your answer to that critique, that this work is inappropriate and he’s not appropriate to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale? 

BURKE: Okay, I’d say a few things. First of all, I don’t put myself out there as an art critic, but when the criticism that was done at the time said these were not pro-terrorist works, and the artist himself says there is nothing in this that’s meant to in any way endorse terrorism, then I don’t think politicians can say, “Well, you’re wrong and it is.” Might I say, if an artist actually was actively promoting terrorism in a work, then I think it’s completely reasonable where you draw a line and you say, “Well, government’s not going to fund that.” But where somebody is doing work which for people who, you know, this might not be – they haven’t pursued a career as art critics, they look at it and might have a first reaction, when that’s clearly not what the work is about then you can’t just say, “Oh, we’ve cancelled the wrong person.” And so the decision to recommission -- 

KARVELAS: Reinstate. Well, it is a huge decision, and really, the decision itself when he was cancelled rocked the art world. Does it have an ongoing chilling impact, I think, on the arts, because the decision in and of itself really, really collapsed public confidence, particularly in Creative Australia. 

BURKE: Yeah, and the – I think Creative Australia – and the report makes this clear – effectively the report has the same view about the due diligence they should have done that I put to the board last week, which is to say that you can’t say we’ll defend the artists without arming people with the information to be able to defend the artists. And effectively, the big mistake that Creative Australia made was these two works, historic, 20 years old, you know, one of them when he was still at university, when Khaled was still studying, and works that had been – the other one had been public at a gallery in Sydney for years, never controversial, they still should have seen, okay, if people criticise this and say, “Hang on, what’s going on,” what is the response? Instead, we find out all that information weeks and months later. 

KARVELAS: Do you have confidence in the Creative Australia board? 

BURKE: Yeah, I do. 

KARVELAS: Still? 

BURKE: Yeah, I do. 

KARVELAS: Even after this reversal, which really was humiliating for him publicly as well? 

BURKE: Yeah. 

KARVELAS: The trauma on the artist himself, and now he’s going again, it seems quite remarkable. 

BURKE: Yeah, my view with all of this – because some people said, “Oh, why don’t you sack the board?” I think the moment you say they make a decision I may or may not like I’m going to get rid of them, at that moment, you have given up on arm’s-length funding. At that moment, you have put the elected politicians in charge of the decisions about what art gets backed and what doesn’t. There are some countries of the world that do that. They’re not the sort of countries we like to compare ourselves with. 

KARVELAS: Are you surprised he wants to still represent Australia? 

BURKE: I’ve – I remember from the reaction – and I’ve seen some of his social media – he’s made clear the whole time that he still wanted to do this work. I was Arts Minister back in 2013 when we had the funding and Simon Mordant, a philanthropist, had really led it to build this beautiful pavilion that Australia has in Venice for the Biennale. There was controversy two years ago, and I was being encouraged by some people to cancel the artist because of his social media posts. Now, that was Archie Moore. He ended up winning best art work in the world. 

KARVELAS: He certainly did. 

BURKE: The Golden Lion. And Australians then, all the culture wars suddenly disappeared and people were really proud --

KARVELAS: Do you expect a culture war on this now?

BURKE: I work on the basis that that will still come. But I also work on the basis that the Creative Australia board have done what a lot of boards often don’t want to do, which is they get a report that says, “You’ve made these mistakes, this is how you should consider it.” They then reconsider it, work out a pathway forward, and, you know, the trajectory that we’re on now is much better.

KARVELAS: Minister, I’ve got a few other questions. The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has personally appealed to you to overturn a visa cancellation of an Israeli-American tech advocate. His name is Hillel Fuld. Have you responded? 

BURKE: Can I say, I saw the media about that email. We searched the email accounts – we never actually got it. 

KARVELAS: Right. 

BURKE: But that’s – so, I don’t know what happened there. But in terms of the principle of that email – of that visa, we have a problem in Australia with antisemitism. We have a problem in Australia with Islamophobia. We have a problem with a range of forms of bigotry. The particular applicant you refer to has publicly put in writing that Islamophobia is rational. Now, if someone argued that antisemitism was rational, I would not let them come here on a speaking tour. And if someone has the same view of Islamophobia, I don’t want them here when the purpose of the visa is to give public speeches. So I draw a – and the law draws a stricter line when you think of what the purpose of the visa is. So most of the visas that have been cancelled under this section have been where someone was seeking to make a public speech, public advocacy. There would only be one – the only one that I can think of where it wasn’t for public advocacy, the visa, but we cancelled anyway, and that would be Kanye West. 

KARVELAS: Right. Kanye West. 

BURKE: Yes. So he’s been coming to Australia for a long time. He’s been making – he’s got family here. And in his – he’s made a lot of offensive comments. But my officials looked at it again once he released the Heil Hitler song, and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia. 

KARVELAS: So that’s it? Kanye West, not allowed to come to Australia? 

BURKE: Well, he had a valid visa. He no longer has a valid visa. 

KARVELAS: Okay, so no concerts for him? 

BURKE: Well, it wasn’t a visa even for the purpose of the concerts; it was a lower level. And the officials still looked at the law and said, “If you’re going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don’t need that in Australia.” 

KARVELAS: I don’t think that’s been out there has it? Have we known about Kanye West being cancelled? 

BURKE: I’ve had – there’s been – I don’t think it has. There’s been very few -- 

KARVELAS: I mean, I feel like this is the first time I’ve heard that Kanye West has a bar on him, unless I – and I’m quite across the news. It seems extraordinary. He’s pretty popular. You think that that’s sustainable? 

BURKE: I think that what’s not sustainable is to import hatred. Like, you know, some people say, “Oh, don’t you believe in freedom of speech?” And for Australian citizens, yeah, you’ve got full freedom of speech. But we have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry. And so, there are some visas where people have Islamophobia, and I say no to them -- 

KARVELAS: So just to confirm if he wanted to do a tour here, there’s no actual -- 

BURKE: Well, every visa application gets re-assessed by my officials each time, so I’m not taking away the way the act operates.

 KARVELAS: Yeah, but your view – 

BURKE: But even for the lowest level of visa, when my officials looked at it, they cancelled that following the announcement of that song. 

KARVELAS: That’s an extraordinary story. Just two quick ones if we can, your – the Shadow Immigration Minister, Paul Scarr, has said that you should change the law on prevention, preventative detention laws, because you admitted they’re not working. Are you prepared to change the laws? 

BURKE: I don’t think Paul Scarr, when he said that, understands at all what the problem is. The legal threshold is because of the Constitution. You can’t pass a law that evades the Constitution. The High Court made a decision that we argued against. We didn’t want that Chapter 3 principle of the Australian Constitution to make it so difficult for people who’ve had their visas cancelled to be put into detention. And that’s why I’ve kept trying to get people over that threshold. I haven’t given up, I’m still trying to get people to reach that threshold for preventative detention. I’ve got officials working on it. But it’s a while now, and we haven’t got anyone close. But last year, I changed the law so that we would have another option to be able to have some people just deported altogether. Effectively, if you don’t have a visa in Australia any more, you don’t have the right to remain here. And if detention is not going to be the possibility, then deportation should be. 

KARVELAS: Minister, just finally, the childcare legislation for this emergency we’re seeing in particularly Melbourne has been put forward by your shadow – your counterpart Minister, Jason Clare, who’s working on it. Just to be clear, is that now going to be the first order of business when parliament comes back? 

BURKE: I don’t know how long it will take to draft. So, the drafting of that, I’m not sure when it will be introduced. It all depends on when it’s ready for that legislation. In the current order of business that we’ve got, we made a commitment that the first thing that we’d introduce – and that doesn’t, you know, determine how quickly they’re fully gone through – but the first one that we’d introduce would be the reduction in HECS debts, the 20 per cent -- 

KARVELAS: But this is now a pretty significant -- 

BURKE: Yeah, but if it’s not ready to even introduce, it’s not ready. And the order of introduction doesn’t necessarily match the order of getting something across to the Senate and making it law. 

KARVELAS: Okay. Minister, thank you so much for joining us. 

BURKE: Great to be here