March 6, 2024
Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson has called out former prime minister Paul Keating for an extraordinary statement targeting Australia's intelligence chiefs, labelling his remarks a "serious attack".
Mr Keating issued the scathing comments on Tuesday, following a joint press conference between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong in which the latter expressed support for AUKUS and urged China to drop its remaining trade sanctions on Australian products.
It also came days after ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess used the agency's annual threat assessment to reveal a former politician had "sold out" the nation to foreign agents, with reports later confirming the spies had been working for China's Ministry of State Security.
The revelations threatened to overshadow Australia's hosting of the ASEAN conference, with divisions among the members of the bloc over how to approach relations with Beijing
Addressing delegates at the opening of the conference, Foreign Minister Penny Wong spoke at length about "destabilising provocative and coercive actions" being taken by some countries in the region, but avoided naming China directly seemingly to avoid inflaming tensions.
Despite this, Mr Keating issued a broadside against Senator Wong and Australia's intelligence chiefs, accusing them of "mindless" support for the United States.
"It doesn't take much to encourage Penny Wong, sporting her ‘deeply concerned’ frown, to rattle the China can – a can she gave a good shake to yesterday (Monday)," he wrote.
"But before she did the rattling, the resident conjuror, Mike Burgess, who runs ASIO, gave us a week's worth of spy mysteries - only for us to find out via a leak to the Herald and the Age that the mysterious state running the spying was, you guessed it, China.
"The anti-China Australian strategic policy establishment was feeling some slippage in its mindless pro-American stance and decided some new China rattling was overdue."
The former prime minister went on to suggest the Albanese government should have dismissed Mr Burgess, along with Office of National Intelligence head Andrew Shearer, accusing the ASIO head of running a "goon show" and displaying "utter contempt" for efforts to stabilise ties with China.
Mr Keating's scathing assessment has drawn strong criticism from the opposition, with shadow home affairs minister James Paterson telling Sky News Australia on Tuesday evening it was "not fair" for the former prime minister to make claims about the pair as they could not publicly defend themselves.
"This is a very serious attack by a former prime minister on two very professional, very highly regarded public servants in our intelligence community, and it cannot go unanswered, and it particularly cannot go unanswered by our own government," he said.
"This is not the first time Paul Keating has done this. Last year at the National Press Club he attacked the intelligence community and Penny Wong, as Foreign Minister, and the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, rushed to the public defence of Penny Wong, the one person in that group who's perfectly capable of defending herself.
"Our intelligence community leaders can't defend themselves. They're public servants and work in the intelligence community. They can't respond to Paul Keating.
"So it's incumbent on the Prime Minister and the Ministers for those intelligence agencies to publicly back them against Paul Keating's attack, because these are very dedicated public servants, professional public servants.
"It is not fair to have their reputations besmirched by Paul Keating and not responded to by the government."
Senator Paterson then called on Mr Albanese to publicly rebuke Mr Keating for his statement, claiming it was important to back the nation's intelligence leaders as they worked to protect the country.
This is the second time Mr Keating has caused an outcry with his comments on China, with the former prime minister condemning Australia's involvement in AUKUS and arguing it would destabilise the region.
He also won praise from Chinese media for his criticism of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, labelling him a "supreme fool" for attempting to foster deeper ties with Asian nations.
In addition to his blistering commentary on Australia's intelligence chiefs, the former prime minister's statement also backed remarks from Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim who had accused the nation of forcing issues with China onto other ASEAN members.
Mr Keating suggested Mr Ibrahim's view demonstrated "supplicants" like Australia, who championed the US, were therefore "at odds" with the regional view on Beijing.
"Yesterday (Monday) Anwar Ibrahim, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, dropped a huge rock into Wong's pond by telling Australia not to piggyback Australia's problems with China onto ASEAN," he said.
"Anwar is making it clear, Malaysia, for its part, is not buying United States hegemony in East Asia – with states being lobbied to ringfence China on the way through.
"That difficult task, the maintenance of US strategic hegemony, is being left to supplicants like us.
"What this week's ASEAN meeting makes clear is that Australia and Australian policy is at odds with the general tenor of ASEAN's perceived strategic interests - that is, interests which relate to China and the United States and relations between them."
