November 6, 2023
HAMISH MACDONALD: Well, Senator James Paterson has raised concerns around China's ongoing attempts at foreign interference, he is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister and joins me now. Good morning to you. Welcome back to breakfast.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning, Hamish.
MACDONALD: Do you want the Prime Minister to raise those issues with President Xi Jinping when they meet later today?
PATERSON: Yes, I think it's important that the Prime Minister raises the full range of issues in the bilateral relationship with Xi Jinping, including the foreign interference and espionage in our democracy, but also the ongoing detention of an Australian citizen, Dr. Yang Hengjun, the ongoing unjustified sanctions against the Australian economy and many other challenges.
MACDONALD: Can Australia and China work together effectively in partnership, given all of those challenges that you've just articulated?
PATERSON: I hope so, and the Coalition has provided bipartisan support for the government in stabilising the bilateral relationship between Australia and China. But very importantly, I think we have to be honest and recognise that this is not just another bilateral relationship, it is not a normal bilateral relationship. It's not normal with a country that you have a comprehensive strategic partnership with for them to be engaged in massive cyberattacks that are state backed. It's not normal for them to be engaged in industrial scale theft of intellectual property or indeed espionage and foreign interference at a number one level.
MACDONALD: Do you see China as a threat to Australia's interests?
PATERSON: Well, I think they certainly do pose national security challenges to Australia in terms of foreign interference and espionage, in terms of state backed cyberattacks, in terms of intellectual property theft, but also in terms of the malign conduct they're engaging in, in the South China Sea. I mean, the Chinese Coast Guard vessel ramming a Philippines naval vessel engaged in a resupply of a Philippines vessel in the South China Sea, was extremely dangerous, escalatory behaviour that threatens the interests of all peaceful nations in the Indo-Pacific.
MACDONALD: So, what's your view then on how Australia should respond to China asking to join the CPTPP, the regional trading bloc? Should it be a flat, no?
PATERSON: In my view it would be absurd to admit as a member of one of the highest standard agreements in the world, a country which until recently had engaged in up to $20 billion of economic sanctions against a bilateral free trade agreement partner. If the Chinese government is not able to abide by the standards it voluntarily agreed to enter into under the China-Australia Free Trade agreement, why should we expect that they would behave any differently in the future if they're admitted as a member of the CPTPP?
MACDONALD: I'm interested in your view though, of how Australia in the longer term balances our relationship between China and the United States. You're saying you do believe it's possible for Australia and China to work together. Obviously AUKUS and the agreement with the United States and the UK on that has caused some concern on the Chinese side. Just interested in your view of the certainty around AUKUS given the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House? New polling overnight in the US shows that there's majority support for Trump over Biden in five of the six important battleground states. Do you think Australia needs a plan B when it comes to our security?
PATERSON: Hamish I've visited the United States on five occasions in the last two years and every element of those trips has had an element of AUKUS in relation to it. I've met with Congress, the administration, with defence industry, with the intelligence community, and I'm in absolutely no doubt at all about the United States commitment to AUKUS. It is bipartisan, it is deep, it is broad.
MACDONALD: It is it is bipartisan? The Republicans have an issue with the funding and particularly the implications for their own domestic security industry.
PATERSON: Some of the US senators who’ve publicly raised concerns about AUKUS, I have directly, personally, privately met with to discuss these issues and they have reassured me about their very strong support for AUKUS. I understand why they are concerned it because they have a very significant task on their hands of ensuring that the United States Navy has the submarines it believes it needs to conduct its deterrence operations in the Indo-Pacific, and that's a shared concern. We want the United States to have the naval vessels they need, and they want us to have the ones that we need. And that's one of the reasons why the Australian government has committed billions of dollars to support the expansion of the domestic manufacturing industry in the United States to make sure that both of those missions can be completed and just in the last few weeks, the Biden administration has matched that with its own significant injection of billions of dollars into that supply chain. So, I'm very confident that this is a solvable problem.
MACDONALD: What about the unpredictability and the isolationism of Donald Trump? I mean, you haven't mentioned that.
PATERSON: My sense is the people that would serve in the Trump administration, some of them I count as my friends who served in the previous administration who I've talked to, are utterly committed to this and that he would be surrounded by people, including in the Congress, but also his own administration…
MACDONALD: Respectfully, Senator Paterson, I think we can all think of examples where Donald Trump has totally ignored everything that his advisors and supporters and staff tell him.
PATERSON: Well Hamish, I don't think Donald Trump would want to damage the relationship between Australia and the United States, nor do I think he would do anything that would aid the Chinese Communist Party in its ambition to force Taiwan to unify with the mainland. I don't think he would want to do anything that would send them a signal that that was a good idea or that they should try that and the collapse, or the failure, of AUKUS would be a very big signal of that. And it would send shockwaves, through all US allies, particularly in our region. I mean, this is an agreement which is too big to fail. It absolutely cannot fail. And I believe Donald Trump would agree if he was in office.
MACDONALD: Turning to matters relating to Israel and Gaza, there's obviously concerns about social cohesion at home here in Australia and New South Wales. Police are investigating reports that a preacher in southwestern Sydney who delivered a sermon calling on Muslims to wage jihad. What's your reaction to that?
PATERSON: I'm deeply concerned by those reported comments. They are incredibly inflammatory and incendiary, and I really worry about the impact that would have on our social cohesion. Rhetoric like this is utterly toxic to our pluralistic liberal democracy, and we should have no tolerance for it and no place for it. I'm glad that New South Wales Police are investigating. I also hope that the federal government is investigating whether or not this person is here on a visa and if so, if they have violated the current provisions of that visa.
MACDONALD: The Council of Imams, though, said this is a fringe cleric doesn't represent their views that don't want to give his views more oxygen. What's the role of politicians in reducing the heat and toxicity around these issues? Obviously, people of Muslim background, faith, are saying that they are feeling it at the moment. Jewish Australians clearly feeling it as well, and plenty of examples of anti-Semitic rhetoric and posters even in parts of Sydney. What can politicians do to bring the temperature down here?
PATERSON: Well, firstly I really welcome that statement from the Imams Council. It's critically important that religious and civil society leaders take that leadership role by demonstrating when people are outside the bounds of acceptable public conduct, as this preacher has engaged in. So that's very welcome. Politicians like me and others have an obligation to be measured, to be calm, to be clear, and to say what is acceptable and what is unacceptable when really unacceptable conduct like this occurs or as you say, some of the vilification of others in our community, it has to be called out and we have to use the full range of powers available to us to make sure that that behaviour is stamped on and not encouraged.
MACDONALD: Do you think all politicians are being responsible in their rhetoric around these issues?
PATERSON: That's really a matter for any individual politician to assess themselves, I'm not in the business of running a commentary on other colleagues or assessing their comments. For me, I try to be measured and calm and clear about these issues.
MACDONALD: Do you support this growing pressure for a cease fire in Gaza? What's your position on that?
PATERSON: I do understand why many people are watching the horror of what is happening in Gaza want to see the violence end. Unfortunately, I don't think a ceasefire would deliver what they're seeking. A ceasefire would just allow Hamas to regroup. It would allow them to continue to hold more than 200 hostages and it would allow them to again prepare for another attack on Israel. And the truth is that neither the people of Gaza, the Palestinian people, nor the people of Israel, will be safe as long as Hamas is in power in Gaza and so their removal is a legitimate military objective, which Israel is proceeding with. Having said that, it is, of course, important for Israel and the IDF to do what they can to minimise civilian casualties, and that is what they have done in previous conflicts and that's what we expect them to do in this conflict.
MACDONALD: But given the enormous number of civilians who have been killed in Gaza, do you think Israel is actually delivering on that?
PATERSON: That's a direct result of the military strategy that Hamas has adopted in this conflict, as they have in previous conflicts. They have built a network of tunnels which go underneath hospitals, underneath schools, underneath mosques. They hide among the civilian population. They hide even in refugee camps.
MACDONALD: So, under international law, though, Israel, though, is obliged to avoid the killing of civilians, notwithstanding those circumstances.
PATERSON: You're right, Hamish, even though Hamas engages in this reprehensible contact, the IDF still must show restraint and frankly, I think if you compare them to almost any other military in the world that do so, they make operational sacrifices to make notification in advance of their intended operations by dropping leaflets, sending text messages, warning people to leave the area. Most of the militaries wouldn't be willing to make those operational sacrifices and give their opponent an advantage.
MACDONALD: Respectfully, they're obliged to do that under international humanitarian law.
PATERSON: Well, I think it's admirable that Israel does so, and I think it does contribute to reduced civilian casualties. But let's be really clear about this. The party which is morally responsible for those civilian casualties, are the people who put those civilians in harm's way and Hamas is not just holding 200 Israelis hostage, they're holding two million Gazans hostage as well. They are using them as human shields because they're trying to protect themselves operationally, but they're also trying to make sure there are civilian casualties because they use that as a propaganda weapon against Israel in international public opinion.
MACDONALD: We'll have to leave it there. James Paterson, thank you very much.
PATERSON: Thank you Hamish.
ENDS
