August 1, 2023
LAURA JAYES: Welcome back. Liberal Senator James Paterson has accused the Chinese embassy of making complaints about a Senate inquiry into foreign interference on social media. Chinese social media giant WeChat was the only platform which declined to appear and refused requests to front the committee. Let's go live now to the Shadow Home Affairs Minister and Cyber Security Minister James Paterson. Good to see you. What does this amount to? Is this attempted interference from China, do you think?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, good morning, Laura. Obviously, irony is not lost on the Chinese embassy attempting to interfere with an inquiry into foreign interference. But in my seven years in the Senate, on no occasion am I aware of any instance of any foreign government making representations to DFAT about a parliamentary inquiry or of DFAT raising those representations with a Senate committee. It is extremely unorthodox and unusual, but it will not deter the Senate Select Committee from completing our work in any way, shape or form, and it certainly will not deter us from making some pretty robust recommendations when we table our report later this afternoon.
JAYES: What will those recommendations be?
PATERSON: Well, Laura, as you probably know, I'm not going to commit contempt of the Senate myself by disclosing the recommendations, but they'll be comprehensive and they'll be informed by the principle which you would have seen through the Senate hearings, which is that transparency is the best disinfectant when it comes to the problem of foreign interference through social media platforms.
JAYES: So the problem here with platforms like WeChat, there is really no transparency. If WeChat went before the committee, would that have been a big symbolic move, do you think? An important one?
PATERSON: I think if WeChat had agreed to appear before the committee, that would have demonstrated some respect and some appreciation for the role that the Parliament has in our system of democracy and the scrutiny that we are entitled to apply to these important public policy issues. Their refusal to appear, I think, does indicate they have contempt for our system of government. This is an app which has hundreds of thousands of users and which independent experts testified before the committee is a platform that engages in censorship and surveillance of its users and was described by one expert as a "narrative machine" for the Chinese Communist Party. So, its unwillingness to front up and answer questions reflects very badly on the company and its willingness to comply with Australian law and regulations.
JAYES: But some other companies have demonstrated that even if they do show up, they don't come armed with the answers that are required or there is a level of obfuscating. We've seen that with TikTok. A lot of questions had to go on notice. Did you finally get the answers that you requested from TikTok?
PATERSON: You're absolutely right, Laura. Appearing is one thing, but actually honestly engaging with the committee and answering our questions is another. And although TikTok had the pretence of participating in the inquiry, it wasn't, in my view, a sincere and genuine participation. They came and tried to spin their corporate PR talking points to get through the inquiry and really refused to substantively engage with the serious questions that the committee had for them. You might remember that during the hearing TikTok was not able to answer where their corporate headquarters of ByteDance is located. Well, taking that question on notice and spending a week considering it didn't improve the answer at all, they basically came back and said, we still don't know where the corporate headquarters are. We don't have a corporate headquarters. What a ridiculous proposition...
JAYES: Do you believe that? I mean how could they not know?
PATERSON: They themselves in testimony before other committees, in submissions to other committees, in court filings have described themselves as a Chinese company, as a Chinese parent company, and as a Chinese headquartered company. So, it's something that they don't want to talk about anymore because it's become a political risk for the company. As we know, their talking points were previously leaked to the media and they were advised,
where possible, to downplay their connection to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. And that's what they were trying to do. But it didn't wash at all with the committee, and that will be reflected in our report and our recommendations.
JAYES: It's also been revealed that TikTok paid an Australian academic, Nigel Phair, $70,000 for an independent report. How can a report be independent if such a large sum of money is being paid for it?
PATERSON: Laura, I don't have any personal issues with Nigel Fair at all, but we have on the one hand, his report, which as you say, was paid for by TikTok, the terms of reference for that report was set by TikTok and it was promoted by a PR agency engaged by TikTok on the one hand. And on the other, we have every signals intelligence agency in the Western world, including the Australian Signals Directorate who do believe that it represents such a serious espionage and data security risk that it has been banned from government devices in dozens of jurisdictions, including Canada and the United States and the European Union and New Zealand and Australia. I mean, they can't all be wrong and Mr Phair be right, and I think your viewers will be able to make their own conclusions about someone who's been paid for and commissioned by TikTok to run a report which exonerates them and downplays their security concerns.
JAYES: James Paterson, thanks so much. We'll see you soon.
PATERSON: Thanks, Laura.
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