Topics: Ben Roberts-Smith arrest, ISIS brides’ arrival, Labor’s budget

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Senator Dave Sharma, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and the Shadow Assistant Minister for International Development in the Indo-Pacific, was part of the questioning of this in estimates, and he joins us now. Dave, good morning.

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DAVE SHARMA: Good morning, Stephen. Good to join you.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Look, most of us have questioned the nature of Ben Roberts-Smith being perp-walked when his lawyers had offered for him to surrender at a previous time. We've seen the ISIS women who have been repatriated given every courtesy and every opportunity to avoid media scrutiny. This has now been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. This was— look, plenty comes out of estimates every time we have estimates, but this would have to be the most explosive thing that's come out of it this week.

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I was certainly shocked to learn it, but I also was somewhat relieved because I was glad to hear that this wasn't authorized and that the office of the Special War Crimes Investigator didn't agree with it. Because I think, what we saw was an attempt to publicly humiliate Ben Roberts-Smith. And this is someone who is entitled to the presumption of innocence, is one of our most decorated ever soldiers. I think they deserve— whatever the— however the court case plays out, they deserve our respect and presumption of innocence in the meantime. But it was, as you said, a perp walk with cameras alerted, as I heard at Senate Estimates. They obviously knew that there was a leak somewhere in their operation because they knew that there were a lot of media around at the time of Ben Roberts-Smith's arrest. And I think they've done the right thing by referring this to the NAC because they believe there was an unauthorized leak within their own operation which tipped off the media to this fact.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But do we— I guess that reading between the lines here, we've got to believe that some junior person either within the AFP or ASIO or the New South Wales Police leaked this without the knowledge of their superiors. Now, the fact that the footage was online within— or the stories were written within minutes well, actually, before the arrest even happened, I think the first story went up online on one of the Nine newspapers. I can't imagine that senior people in the operation didn't know this was going on at the time.

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DAVE SHARMA: I think that's a fair presumption, and it may well not have been someone junior who leaked it. It may well have been someone senior. I guess we don't know, but we should find out because this shouldn't have happened. It compromised the integrity of the operation, but it also, I think, added an unnecessary degree of public shaming to what is already, I think, quite a difficult and sensitive issue for Australians to deal with.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: If we put the media circus aside, did you get any indication from the authorities why they determined that this was how Ben Roberts-Smith had to be arrested rather than allow him to surrender himself to a police station somewhere, as he had allegedly offered to do?

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DAVE SHARMA: No, he didn't, to be honest. We did ask those questions and we were told it was for operational reasons and operational judgment. And, look I didn't find them particularly compelling, but nonetheless, I'll respect our people in uniform when they cite operational reasons. But it wasn't a particularly, um, convincing answer, I don't think, about why the method and manner of the arrest had to take place in this way.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The contrast between how the ISIS, so-called ISIS brides, have been treated and how Ben Roberts-Smith was treated is stark for most people to see. Was any of that discussed in Estimates this week?

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, the ISIS brides, their return to Australia, what Australian authorities should have and could have done to prevent them, why they were all issued passports, why there was only one temporary exclusion order issued, what steps were being taken to assure the community about their safety, what investigations were already underway. Those were certainly all asked. But I think the contrast, as you say, is quite stark. These are people as well who are entitled to the presumption of innocence, done a fair bit to overturn that through their conduct, being, making sure they were kind of handled with as much discretion and privacy as possible. And the contrast, I think, with Ben Roberts-Smith is pretty stark to any Australian watching the two sets of images.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how all this plays out. I mean, most legal experts are saying it's going to be a problematic— well, I guess both cases, Ben Roberts-Smith and the ISIS brides, the prosecutions are going to be somewhat problematic. Now I want to Talk about something else that, now I saw you in the background while your colleague Senator James McGrath was asking questions about this, but Ali France, the member for Dickson in Queensland who defeated Peter Dutton in that seat at the last election, there's now been allegations that she's enrolled, her enrolled address on the electoral roll is a vacant block of land.

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DAVE SHARMA: That's right. Look, Senator McGrath, and I can't vouch for this, but he's my colleague, showed pictures of a vacant block of land which he claimed showed what is her enrolled address. Now, the AEC did not seem to be aware of this, and they've given us assurances that they would go off and investigate, because to state the obvious, you can't be enrolled to vote and say you're residing at a vacant block of land.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: No, and from what I saw from the pictures, there were no autumn leaves for her to throw in the air and dance around in on social media either.

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DAVE SHARMA: No, it's a pretty sparse block of land.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Yeah, look, I say this all the time, Dave, that Question Time has become somewhat farcical, but Senate Estimates is where we really get a forensic look at what's going on in the country at the moment, and this week hasn't painted a fantastic picture.

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DAVE SHARMA: No, I don't think so. Look, we've got Treasury next week where we'll be unpicking some of the far too optimistic assumptions that are in the budget. I mean, the budget that's been revealed needs a lot more scrutiny yet because there's a lot of— you've already seen from the public there's a lot of unintended consequences, whether you're a small business owner or retiree, someone with a discretionary trust to protect the assets if you've got underage children, whether you've got a private healthcare policy and you're over 65. All these, I think, issues need to be highlighted for Australians, and Senate Estimates next week will provide us an opportunity to unpick pretty terrible budget.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Will there be questions about whether giraffe and zebra are actually qualified to comment on the budget?

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DAVE SHARMA: To get financial advice?

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Yeah, that's right. Dave, good to talk to you. We'll catch up again soon.

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DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much, Stephen.

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STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: All the best. Senator Dave Sharma.

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[ENDS]