June 17, 2024
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson has declared Chinese cyberattacks and meddling in Australian institutions had "never been more prolific", as top intelligence officials raise fears about state-sponsored hacking group Volt Typhoon.
As Labor spruiked a stabilised relationship with China previously harmed by the Morrison government's aggressive rhetoric, Paterson said Volt Typhoon had been targeting Australian power, water and transport networks "for the purpose of future sabotage". Australian officials held deep concerns about Volt Typhoon because intelligence suggested the group was "prepositioning for the purposes of disruptive impact" including sabotage, according to Abigail Bradshaw, head of the Cyber Security Centre at the Australian Signals Directorate.
Bradshaw made the previously unreported remarks at a Senate estimates hearing this month alongside directorate chief Rachel Noble, who said China's "voracious" appetite to spy on MPs and other highprofile Australians was "growing in its scale".
The opposition questioned Labor's "disagree where we must" approach to Chinese relations on day one of Premier Li Qiang's Australian visit, as the government insisted deft diplomacy did not equate to "kowtowing".
"It's up to the prime minister to explain how you can have a stable relationship with an authoritarian power that is determined to threaten our critical infrastructure assets, interfere in our democracy and intimidate Australian citizens into silence," Paterson said.
The criticism from Paterson, who receives high-level briefings on parliament's intelligence and security committee, reflects unease in some sections of the Coalition and intelligence establishment about Labor's posture towards China given recent aggressive behaviour towards Australian military personnel, signals on the invasion of Taiwan, and the suspended death sentence handed to Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun.
Highlighting the sensitivity of politicising relations with the rising superpower, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton declined to attack Labor when asked about the first visit by a Chinese premier in seven years. "The short answer is no," Dutton said on Sky News when asked if he would "shirtfront" the premier in his meeting today.
"To be good friends, you need to have an honest relationship where there are concerns, and there'll be concerns that the Chinese have that they'll want to raise with us as well."
James Laurenceson of the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute said China hawks like Paterson were right to call out foreign interference but failed to grasp that "China isn't just about foreign interference or military threats".
"They are also about trade, family and friendship ties, and global challenges like climate change. And the way you manage all that is through calm and professional diplomacy of the type being shown during Premier Li's visit," he said.
But Mike Pezzullo, the former secretary of the Home Affairs department, advised caution. "Abstractions (such as 'stabilised relations' and 'disagree where we must') have become the framing references for our China policy," he wrote in a recent article for pro-US think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
