February 13, 2022
Sunday 13 February 2022
Sky News: Sharri
Subjects: Ukraine, Richard Marles’ secret China speech, espionage and foreign interference
SHARRIMARKSON: For more on this unfolding situation, I'm joined by the Chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security, James Paterson. James, thank you very much for your time tonight.
SENATORJAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you, Sharri, thank you for having me.
SHARRI: Now the world is bracing for imminent war in Ukraine. We've just heard the United States say that it could be as soon as Wednesday. What more could we be doing right now to deter Putin from taking this course of action?
SENATORPATERSON: I listened very carefully to your editorial and you and all the people that were featured in it are absolutely right to be very concerned about the possibility of conflict in Ukraine, of Russian aggression in Ukraine. All the media reports and open-source reporting indicates that that's likely,if not certain. And it's very important that we do everything we can to discourage that and make very clear there’d be very severe consequences for that. One area I disagree with you, I assume we might have disagreement on, is Australia's role. We do have a limited role to play here because it is a very long way away. We have a supportive role to play with our friends and our allies. And if that was the case that Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine,I would strongly support Australia joining our allies in very severe sanctions.I'm pleased we now have Magnitsky style sanctions which we could deploy, which passed the Parliament last year. But a military engagement by Australia on the other side of the world is not something that I think would be in our national interest.
SHARRI: Yeah, and to be clear, I wasn't arguing for Australia to take that course of action as well. I was questioning whether America and Joe Biden is doing enough to stop this situation from unfolding. And you know, which brings me to my next question to you. Do you think the threat of economic sanctions is enough to stop Putin at this point?
SENATORPATERSON: Well, the United States does have an incredibly important leadership role to play, but so too does Europe. The European Union and NATO's members who live and work in Europe have a particularly important burden to bear. And I encourage them to do everything they can within their power to discourage Russia from taking this action, not just the United States. I mean,it has been publicly reported that within the European Union, Germany, for example, is less enthusiastic about imposing sanctions on Russia because of their reliance on Russian gas. I hope that's not the case. I hope that the EU is united in instituting punishing sanctions on Russia if it's the case that they do choose to invade Ukraine.
SHARRI: Yeah, and that is such a cause for concern that a country like Germany can be beholden to Russia for its energy, for its gas and so therefore is in this situation where it's not going to stand up and say, you shouldn't take this action, you shouldn't invade Ukraine. James, we saw revelations this week by the ASIO boss Mike Burgess that Chinese influence operations were targeting potential Labor candidates. He didn't specifically say Labor candidates – that emerged in subsequent media reports. This, of course, prompted Peter Dutton to say in Parliament that the Chinese Communist Party wants Labor to win the federal election. Is this your understanding that China would prefer a Labor government?
SENATORPATERSON: It's obviously not my role to comment on classified intelligence, and there are many good reasons not to do that, including that people who have been previously accused of foreign interference have sued successfully for defamation. So I don't want to put myself, yourself or your network at risk by going down that territory –
SHARRI: – we don't need to name any individuals. It's just generally speaking. Do you think China wants Labor to win the next election?
SENATORPATERSON: Well, a lot of commentators in the last 24 or 48 hours, Sharri, have said that there's no difference between the Labor Party and the Coalition on China, and of course, five minutes before an election, the Labor Party is trying to cover up any differences between the government and Labor,trying to indicate that there's no differences because they know that national security is a strong suit of the government. But I think if you have a slightly longer memory and you look back to earlier in this term of parliament about the comments and interventions that Labor MPs made, it'll show something very different. For example, Richard Marles, who was then the Shadow Defence Minister and remains today the Deputy Leader, went to Beijing in September2019, where he delivered a speech at a Beijing University where he called for closer military relations between China and Australia. And in that speech, he criticised the Australian government and implied that it was the Australian government's fault that the China relationship had been taken a backward step.Now, interestingly, before coming on your program, Sharri, I went to Richard Marles website to try and find this speech, and it's a very comprehensive website. It has years’ worth of speeches and media interviews, but curiously,this particular speech by Richard Marles has been taken off or is no longer on his website, so I wonder why that might be the case? I wonder why the Labor Party, just before the election, is trying to cover up its previous differences with the government on China?
SHARRI: Yeah, but James, I just want to ask you, is Dutton right? Is it true that China wants Labor to win?
SENATORPATERSON: Well, look, it's impossible to know what's in the mind of Xi Jinping in the Chinese Communist Party, but it is clear over a long period of time that the Labor Party has opportunistically criticised the Australian government and blamed us for the downfall of the relationship with China.Richard Marles, again on Insiders, last year promised that if Labor was elected that they would have better relations between Australia and China. David Speers, to his credit, asked Richard Marles what they would do differently to the government if they were in power and how they would improve relations with China. All Richard Marles was able to say was they would do diplomacy better.Now Anthony Albanese has walked away from these claims. He said that there wouldn't be a change of relationship between Australia and China if Labor was elected. But of course, he would say that, because again, we are five minutes before a federal election, there's nothing the Labor Party fears more than a contest of national security. So, I'd ask the press gallery to take a little bit of a longer-term view to refresh their memories a little bit. It wasn't that long ago that Labor was promising a closer, better relationship with China than we could deliver.
SHARRI: Yeah, and with China's military in particular which is highly concerning. James, ASIO also said that foreign interference and espionage is now a greater threat in Australia than terrorism. Do you expect to see in the months ahead more attempts at foreign interference ahead of the election?
SENATORPATERSON: I absolutely do, Sharri. And Mark Burgess, the ASIO Director General, has been clear for a number of years now that the trend is pointing towards this. He’s forecast that this would possibly be the case that foreign interference and espionage would supplant terrorism but for the first time this year, he's confirmed that that is the case, that it now effectively is our principal security concern beyond terrorism. That's a very troubling thing. The good news is that our agencies, like ASIO, are better equipped with powers and resources than they ever have been to combat that threat. And as Mike Burgess talked about last week, they've been successful in disrupting those efforts, and that's a very welcome thing. But we need to all remain very much on guard.
SHARRI: Yeah, look, the meetings of the Quad have just finished in Melbourne. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was here for three days. He spoke about the threat from China to our region and in an interview with The Australian he said China's ultimate goal was to dominate the world in military and economic power.He also said that we've seen China acting more repressively at home, so domestically, and more aggressively in our own region. Is his assessment of the situation right, do you think? And do you agree with his assessment that China's ultimate goal here is world domination in terms of military and the economy?
SENATORPATERSON: Yes, I think Secretary Blinken's assessment is unquestionably correct. And I completely agree with it. And if you're looking for a longer form version of that, I encourage your listeners, your viewers to read Rush Doshi's book The Long Game. He's actually the Director of the National Security Council China Policy for the Biden administration. He wrote the book while he was at the Brookings Institute, a think tank in Washington DC. And it comprehensively documents the long-standing plans of the Chinese government to supplant and surpass the United States as the world's most dominant superpower, first in its own region and ultimately in the world. It's a very sobering read and a very important one for those of us involved in national security policy.
SHARRI: James Paterson, really appreciate your time this evening. Thanks.
