February 29, 2024
GARY ADSHEAD: Liberal Senator James Paterson, the opposition's Home Affairs spokesman. He was that speech last night by Mr. Burgess, and he says it's a reminder that all politicians are potential targets. And he joins me on the line, thanks for your time, Senator.
JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you.
ADSHEAD: Do you know who this former politician is?
PATERSON: I have a fair idea, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to publicly speculate, given how I've come to know that.
ADSHEAD: So why do you think Mr. Burgess has sort of gone so far, but not all the way on this.
PATERSON: Well, I strongly support the Director-General making the comments he did. I think it's really important he's done so for two reasons. One is, Director-General Burgess has been saying for years now that foreign interference and espionage is our number one security threat. It's supplanted terrorism as our number one security threat. And yet, today, people seem to be surprised that someone, an elected politician, was prepared to betray their country. Well, that's exactly what happens when we have foreign interference in espionage. Unfortunately, there are Australians, including politicians, who are willing to betray our country. And I think it's important that he shook Australia out of a bit of complacency and naivete that some people clearly still have on this.
ADSHEAD: You know, I suppose though the average person saying, well, we might we probably are aware that, you know, foreign entities would try and recruit from within Australia. But don't we have a right to know who that is and whether they've been punished, prosecuted, what they do today? I mean, that could be for all we know, they're an ambassador overseas somewhere.
PATERSON: Well, the Director-General has said that they weren't able to be prosecuted. And the reason for that is that their conduct occurred prior to the passage of the foreign interference and espionage legislation, which passed the parliament in 2018. So it's conduct that occurred before that, and there weren't charges available to be brought against them until those reforms are brought through. And those reforms were not retrospective. As to whether we deserve to know who they are. I can understand the interest in the public. But it's not an easy thing for the Director-General to stand up and name someone because he would be exposed to very serious defamation risk. And if this was to be in the courts, he would have to produce evidence which would be relying on ASIO's confidential sources and their secret methods to prove, who this person was in a court in response to a defamation proceeding. So it's not as easy as some might say to just simply name someone like that.
ADSHEAD: Well, you were at odds with your leader then Peter Dutton, because this is him not long ago.
[CLIP] I think it is unfair on, a lot of former MP who are patriotic, as 99.9% on both sides are. And if there's one that they've identified who's not then frankly, that person should be ousted and shamed.
ADSHEAD: What do you say to that?
PATERSON: No I am not at odds with Peter Dutton at all. I think Peter is very clearly saying that it's the job of the government, if they choose to, to use the benefit of parliamentary privilege to come in and name that person today, it's up to the government if they want to do that.
ADSHEAD: Should they?
PATERSON: Well, they've got a consideration to make today. They would be in possession of the relevant facts. They can choose to do so if they think it's in the public interest, in the national interest.
ADSHEAD: All right. Now, the former Liberal treasurer and ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, he's been even more strident, saying that Burgess is wrong to sort of tease out the case study but then leave the actual identity of this spy hanging. Have a listen to him.
[CLIP] Mr. Burgess has to now name that politician. Otherwise, everyone who has ever served in politics is impugned. It's as simple as that. You can't make an allegation, a statement about someone being a traitor, and then expects that no one will ask questions. And the suggestions that a politician or a former politician is a traitor and behaved like a traitor and did it deliberately and then is allowed to be forgiven and walk off into the sunset is unacceptable.
ADSHEAD: He's right, isn't he? He's actually spot on.
PATERSON: No, look, I have great respect for Joe Hockey and his service to our country. But no, I don't agree. It's ridiculous to say that every former politician or every serving politician is under doubt. I think the vast majority of Australians understand it is a very small, very select group of people who could have been compromised in this way. And the Director-General did provide quite a lot of details about this person's activities without identifying them, including that they led delegations and academic conferences in China. Now, I can tell you, the number of politicians who have done that is vanishingly small, and the vast majority of us have not involved in any of those activities.
ADSHEAD: So do you know whether it's a Liberal, Labor, Nationals, Independents, Greens?
PATERSON: As I said before, I have a fair idea, but it's not something I can disclose.
ADSHEAD: In all honesty, Senator, don't you think that Australian people will be wondering? It's all well and good for ASIO to put this out there, but what the hell's happened to the person that took us to this situation?
PATERSON: Absolutely. And I share that frustration. And for years I have been saying it is not good enough that we have not prosecuted enough people under our Espionage and Foreign Interference Act. It passed five years ago. Only one person has been successfully prosecuted. But I point out that's not ASIO has responsibility. It's the Federal Police's responsibility to charge, arrest and ultimately prosecute someone. One person has been prosecuted successfully, another person has been charged, and that mater will be soon before the courts. And that's a good thing. But frankly, there are people out there who have done the wrong thing, who have not been charged, and I think they should be.
ADSHEAD: So I suppose what I'm getting at is that you said, and you're right, that it's up to the Australian government now, if they wanted to walk into Parliament under privilege, as you said, and actually lay bare who this person is. But the politics of that would suggest they wouldn't do it if it was a Labor MP, would they?
PATERSON: Well, my view is we should put our country before our party at every opportunity, and I don't actually care whether this person is a Liberal, Labor, National, crossbencher, Green, whatever. Anyone who's betrayed their country, should face the consequences of having done so.
ADSHEAD: All right. And just to the seriousness of what this person has done, according to ASIO, where would you rate it in terms of what they were trying to do, what they had achieved? What could you glean from the speech last night?
PATERSON: Well, the good news is that their attempts to undermine our country were successfully disrupted by ASIO. And the Director General has said that they have stopped engaging in those activities. And if they were in any doubt about whether it would be a good idea to resume those activities, I guarantee you after last night's speech, they won't be doing so. So we can take some comfort from that. And ASIO does regularly, successfully, disrupt foreign interference in espionage attempts by foreign governments, a whole range of foreign governments and that's very welcome. But, absolutely. This is a live and ongoing challenge for our country and politicians. Their staff, their family members, their associates are getting approached all the time with offers and inducements like these. And that's why it is important that this is publicly disclosed, put on the radar so no one can say they didn't know.
ADSHEAD: Have you ever been approached in any way, shape or form?
PATERSON: Yes, I have been approached. And when I have been approached, I've reported that, through the appropriate channels.
ADSHEAD: Can you give us an insight into the kind of approach that gets made, how they go about it? And I know that, Mike Burgess obviously outlined some of the methods overnight.
PATERSON: It wouldn't be appropriate to talk about my individual circumstances. But more generally, there are a range of ways that foreign intelligence agencies and their proxies approach people. They can do it online through social media platforms like LinkedIn. They can do it in person, in country. They can do it when you're travelling overseas on a delegation. And they might approach you in a way that's fairly obvious where they coming from. Or they might approach you in a way that is completely oblivious. The person might not appear to have any connection or links to the country which is ultimately trying to influence you and who's pulling their strings. And that's why we have to be very alert to all unusual and suspicious approaches and report them accordingly.
ADSHEAD: Yeah. Well, for our listeners, we're very keen to hear whether you think a person whose details of have been given, but no name, to identify the person, whether you think that's right or wrong. Just finally, if that scenario was right, that the person we are talking about here on behalf of a foreign spying network known as the A-Team, if they were also trying to bring a member of the Prime Minister's family into their orbit, wouldn't that former Prime Minister want to know? Or would they know about that?
PATERSON: The ASIO Director-General has previously said that when a foreign interference or espionage attempt is made against a member of a political party, that he would inform the leader of that political party, whether that was the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of a minor party. So I have no reason to believe that that protocol wasn't followed in this instance.
ADSHEAD: And so if we look at the fact that it was prior to 2018, do you think.
PATERSON: Yes, we know it's prior to 2018 because it was before the espionage and foreign interference laws passed.
ADSHEAD: Okay. But we don't know how early on before 2018 it was. So we don't know whether we're talking, Tony Abbot, Scot Morrison. You know, we don't know which Prime Minister?
PATERSON: No, we don't, and I won't speculate.
ADSHEAD: Malcolm Turnbull? We don't know.
PATERSON: I wouldn't speculate either way.
ADSHEAD: All right, well, like I said, an interesting one. You said you're not at odds with your leader, but he says that they should be named and shamed.
PATERSON: Well, it's a question for the government they've got the opportunity to do that if they want to today.
ADSHEAD: Okay. Thanks very much for joining us Senator.
PATERSON: Thanks, Gary.
ENDS
