TV Interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise - 20 February 2026

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Let’s bring in our politicians to discuss the issue. Health Minister Mark Butler, and Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume. Good morning to both of you. Mark, what is the Australian Government’s reaction to Andrew’s arrest?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: As the King said, the law must follow its course. There’s not much we can appropriately say about the potential for charges, but Nat, what a fall from grace. A man we knew for decades as Prince Andrew, His Royal Highness, is now just a man in his 60s from Norfolk. I think all of our thoughts as human beings, not members of government or the opposition, all of our thoughts as human beings go to the girls and the women who were caught up in this hideous network of powerful men that Jeffrey Epstein pulled together, and we’re starting to see some accountability for those awful, awful years.
 
BARR: Yeah, is he the first to fall. Jane, should he immediately abdicate from the line of succession?
 
SENATOR JANE HUME: Well, that's really a conversation for the monarch himself. Look, I'd support Mark's comments here. I think that this is an extremely disturbing fall from grace that we've seen from Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The misconduct in public office is a very serious allegation. We should let the full course of the law take its place, but it's also a reminder that nobody is above the law.
 
BARR: OK, let's move on. The Prime Minister says he has nothing but contempt for the ISIS brides trying to return to Australia with their children. The opposition leader says he's prepared to work with the government to tighten the legislation that, you know, he was in the government that brought in. Mark Butler, the opposition says an application for a passport can be refused on national security grounds. Is that the case?
 
BUTLER: That is the case, but the grounds are very specific and they're very tight and they're determined ultimately by our national security agencies. These are, of course, the same passport laws that operated under the former government when about 40 people came back from Syria, not just women and children, but also fighters themselves. And I'm sure Angus Taylor knows that there are very strict constitutional limits on what any government, Labor or Liberal, is able to do in the area of citizenship and passports.
 
Of course, we're open to suggestions and discussions constructively with the opposition, but I think they know that it's not that easy. It's not as easy as they seem to be suggesting over the last 24 hours. These laws have been in place for some years and they are very strict for good constitutional reasons.
 
BARR: OK, because a lot of people would be saying that going and fighting with a terror group or going overseas and supporting a terror group, that could be national security grounds, But does that not cut it?
 
BUTLER: That ultimately is a matter we all take advice from our national security agencies about, both governments. The former government would have done that. We do that. We take that advice very seriously and we act upon it. But the point I guess I'm making is that those strict national security grounds are not determined by politicians or other people. They are determined by our national security experts. That is why, for example, a temporary exclusion order has already been issued in relation to one of the women who are apparently involved in this story, but those have been the laws for some time and there's frankly limited ability for governments to go outside of those strict constitutional limits that are in place around issues of citizenship and passports. I think Angus Taylor understands that, or he certainly should understand that.
 
BARR: Yes. Jane, Angus Taylor says the door should be shut. He's said that many, many times. He was actually a cabinet minister in the Morrison government that created these laws that he's now criticising. So are those laws inadequate?
 
HUME: Nat, the first responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe. It hasn't been made clear whether these women and their children are potentially a risk on our shores. They actively went and joined a terrorist organisation, a heinous ideology that seeks violence and hatred on everything that we hold dear. Now, if there's been one of those women that's been identified as a threat by our security agencies, I think Australians should rightly question what the risk assessment has been of the other women. We know that governments have the ability to cancel people's passports. Well, why on earth they wouldn't use the power to reject passports for people that potentially pose a risk to Australian citizens? That's something that I think that all Australians would rightly expect an explanation for.
 
BARR: OK, thank you very much. We'll see you next week.