April 20, 2023
Thursday 20 April 2023
Interview with Paul Murray, Paul Murray Live
Subjects: Foreign interference through social media, border protection policies
PAUL MURRAY: Let's talk to James Paterson, who is without doubt, in my view, the best thing that has happened about the reshuffle. Jacinta Price was amazing. That was the obvious slam dunk. A bit of a surprise to some, but none of us that have been paying attention is the now Shadow Home Affairs spokesperson and he joins us now from Melbourne. Oh, sorry, from Canberra, I should say. Great man. Firstly, most importantly, congratulations. You've done the hard yards. You're an excellent advocate for common sense, standing up for national security. And I'm so pleased that you're there.
JAMES PATERSON: Thank you, mate. Only with your encouragement and support and of your viewers as well. Thank you.
MURRAY: God love you. All right, now. There is this Lowy Institute report that I want to talk about a little bit, because on the political side of things, the Liberal Party absolutely needs to reconnect with the 1.4 million Australians of Chinese descent. But equally it gives us an insight into the information sources that much of this community is getting some of their news from. They're not getting it from the establishment media all the way from the ABC through to, you guess the website. They're getting it from the Chinese language, which we know has been compromised by Beijing or WeChat, which we know was weaponised against the former Prime Minister. So how does one walk the tightrope of being able to say, obviously you need to know what's happening back home, but when it comes to politics, it's coming with a twist?
PATERSON: Paul, I thought the Lowy Institute research was fascinating because it really demonstrated the Chinese Australian community, as we all should know it is, to be quite a diverse, quite a complex, quite a nuanced community that has a range of views on geopolitical and other issues. I mean, on the positive side, it showed increasing affection and identification by Chinese Australians with Australia. It showed increasing support for democracy being the best form of government among Chinese Australians. But it's certainly also equally true that significant proportions of the Chinese community have a much more optimistic view about the state of the bilateral relationship between China and Australia than you or I might have. And they're much more hopeful that China's rise will be a peaceful one, whereas I fear that that might not be the case. But nonetheless, it showed that diversity in the Chinese community. You're right to point to information sources though. It does show that WeChat and other Chinese language dominated platforms that are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party are the dominant sources of news and information about the world for Chinese Australians. And that is of a concern because these are platforms that are heavily censored,that are heavily surveilled, that are rife with foreign state disinformation and which do contain a lot of information, which is not consistent with Australia's national interest. So that is a very difficult public policy problem that we have. And as you are aware and you talked about earlier in your program, I've been leading an inquiry today in Parliament House into this matter and we did go over that, that issue of the treatment of Scott Morrison on WeChat, and that remains an unresolved outstanding, very concerning issue with that platform.
MURRAY: And to underline all of it right, now, I think this federal government thankfully is not as bad as we thought they may well have been in terms of the acquiescing to all that the CCP may want. But they've signed up to AUKUS, they're pulling out the security cameras, they've banned TikTok, they're doing all of those things that still keep us in the same position where we were under the previous government. But because, of course,the personality issues, China did what it did. China, of course, responded as it did to trying to be called out about the pandemic and we saw that, surprise, surprise, the people who had voted for Scott Morrison to be Prime Minister in 2019 didn't in 2022. And you can't pretend that the information source wasn't the thing that changed.
PATERSON: There's no question that the Chinese government has been trying for years to try to shape the whole information system in Australia to influence the behaviour of all Australian voters and all Australian political actors so ultimately, they can get our political system to make decisions which are favourable and consistent with their national interest and not with ours. And that's not limited just to elections, but it's throughout the whole electoral cycle and trying to influence governments to layoff on the criticism of their human rights record, be quiet about what they're doing in the South China Sea, not stand up for our sovereign interests. I think there's no question that the new tone between the Chinese government and Australia in recent years is down to the Chinese government's new assessment of its national interest. It realised its economic coercion campaign against Australia was not working. It needed an off-ramp, and a new government presented it an off-ramp to do that. Nothing fundamental has changed in my view. Its strategic objectives are exactly the same and its expectations of Australia are also the same. It does think because they are our major trading partner, that they have an entitlement to direct our domestic public policy settings and it is very important that this Government recognises the risk of that assertion over our sovereignty and doesn't give an inch towards it, because if they do, the demands will get worse and worse and worse.
MURRAY: Absolutely. Look, there's Mark McGowan, there's a whole bunch of other things. But just quickly before we go, part of Home Affairs, of course, is border protection. We saw this week information which told us that there's plenty of problems with the planes. In fairness, Kristina Keneally was making the same point in Opposition as well, because the numbers are bigger than the boats, but because the arrival source is different, people have a different emotional view to it. But about border protection and obviously this is your front and centre about what you want to achieve as the Shadow Minister in part is making sure that Labor does not weaken it at all.
PATERSON: Human trafficking is a misery, Paul. It is a shocking exploitation of innocent people. And it ruins their lives and puts their lives at risk. And Australia, as a developed country that upholds human rights and the rule of law and liberal democracy cannot be party to encouraging and facilitating that. And I do worry that the abolition effectively of temporary protection visas and the incentive that that might pose to people who want to come here by illegal and dangerous means might restart that trade. Now, it hasn't happened yet, but we have to be ever vigilant because if it does, it will be very hard to stop again.
MURRAY: Good stuff. Thank you, Senator. Perfect timing for me as well. Appreciate it. All right. Congrats again.
