LAURA JAYES, HOST: Let’s talk about trade with the Assistant Trade Minister, Tim Ayres. He's very patiently waiting at the desk with me here in Sydney. Tim, great to see you.

SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: Good to be here Laura.

HOST: First of all, you had a front row seat to the splashdown. Quite extraordinary.

SENATOR AYRES: Yeah, it’s a reminder about how exciting all of this is. Decades and decades of deep public research, activity and there are just these moments where we get to see history being made. And it was, you know, our segment here has been a bit delayed but I was very privileged really to be sitting in a front row seat for history being made. It's fantastic.

HOST: Well, I am glad you feel that way. Let's get to some domestic politics as well. Today we have the Coalition and some of it's, I guess policy or ideas driving the agenda and that is I want to go to the citizenship issue about whether if you want to become an Australian citizen, should you be asked about your antisemitic views? Is there anything wrong with that?

SENATOR AYRES: Well, can I go to the substance of it and then the politics quickly? I mean the citizenship test has been changed from time to time. I don't think that the Albanese Government's going to be making sharp changes on the run, making announcements about the evolution of the citizenship test over time and all of the other architecture of it. We’ll take the advice of the agencies, we'll listen carefully to public sentiment, will take advice of the security agencies. But what's really going on here is Peter Dutton announcing policy on the run, sort of policy. Yesterday it was—

HOST: That’s what everyone does in a short election campaign though, don't they?

SENATOR: No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

HOST: But you’re saying you need to take the advice of security agencies. But this is not a security issue per se, this is a values issue.

SENATOR: Sure. Yeah, that's what I said. We listen to people, listen to the agencies more broadly and of course the security agencies as well. But where is the policy from Peter Dutton? Like, this is a thought bubble today, it's in response to yesterday's thought bubble, a half billion-dollar constitutional referendum sinking like a lead balloon. The day before that it was divestment policy that they couldn't get agreement on. These guys can agree on one thing only. They hate the Labor Party, and they hate the Government, and they believe everything we do is wrong. But the moment that they advance a position as weak and unstable as the position is, they all start disagreeing amongst themselves and that's because they've left the policy development process too late.

HOST: Over the last couple of months, when it's come to Anthony Albanese's views on antisemitism. He's also said, oh, it's up to the States. It's a state policing issue, so we're going to leave it up to Chris Minns and others.

SENATOR AYRES: I don't think that's right, Laura. I think the Government's been very consistent right through what progress has been made on antisemitism. We've been focused actually on the security questions and on the social cohesion questions. Now, for Peter Dutton, it's all about the politics. The moment, for example, this caravan was discovered in Dural, the Government sees that as a security issue and an investigation issue and leaves it to the agencies. Peter Dutton and James Patterson are out there yahooing all around the country. But what they should have done was waited for the security agencies and the AFP and the NSW Police to do their work. That's what a responsible. If you're actually concerned about security, you focus on—

HOST: Hang on, let’s take a step back. You had a terrified Jewish community with a caravan of explosives and an investigation that was not yet concluded, but a clear antisemitic focus and angle and intent, I mean, they had to say something.

SENATOR AYRES: Well, they just shoot from the hip and say anything in a reckless and arrogant way. The message from the Government was have confidence that the police and the security agencies need to do their work. That's what this Government will do. Now, Peter Dutton, either he hasn't got the policy ready to go, in which case it's a shambles, or he does have policy and he's keeping it a secret from the Australian people. Either is completely unacceptable.

HOST: Politicians talking about politics is somewhat hard to take sometimes. But look, I hate to cut you off, but I did get the last word in there. We've got to take you back to Donald Trump and then we're going to hear the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Thank you.

ENDS.