August 1, 2023
PETA CREDLIN: I had Shadow Home Affairs Minister and Shadow Cyber Security Minister, Senator James Paterson on the program recently to discuss the Senate inquiry into Foreign Interference on Social Media that he organised. Well today that inquiry has handed down its findings and joining me now to discuss it all is Senator Paterson himself. Senator, thank you for your time and I know it's hectic there in Canberra. I'm pleased to talk to you as soon as that report has landed. First, tell us about the detail of your recommendations but also your claims that the Chinese embassy made contact about this inquiry. It wasn't happy it was happening in the first place.
JAMES PATERSON: Peta, you're right. It's hot off the press, just tabled about an hour ago in the Senate. And thank you for your interest throughout the inquiry on these really important issues. You're right the Chinese embassy made a complaint about the committee to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who then made representations to the Secretariat of the committee to find out whether or not we have the power to compel the WeChat to appear before our committee or to answer our questions given WeChat does not have any Australian presence. This is one of the very concerning developments during the inquiry that these very influential global social media platforms have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Australians have no physical, legal or personnel presence in Australia and therefore effectively fall outside the scope of a lot of our laws and regulations. That's why one of the recommendations we made in the committee report was that as a bare minimum
they must have an Australian presence so that in future they are subject to the Parliament and our regulators and our courts.
CREDLIN: Alright, give me the thrust of your report.
PATERSON: The key principle behind this report Peta, is that whether we like it or not, the social media platforms are now in the public square. They are where issues are debated, where news breaks, where decisions effectively are shaped and made, and foreign authoritarian states know that. They're weaponising both Western headquartered social media platforms as well as those platforms they control more directly like TikTok and WeChat, because they're based in countries like China. And so the health of these forums relates very closely to that health of our democracy and we must fix it. The most important principle underlying the committee's report is transparency, not censorship. We believe that users of these platform should be informed about how the platforms conduct themselves and the content they interact with on the platform. So that means you shouldn't have to censor any content on the platform in order to protect users because they'll be better informed to make their own decisions about it.
CREDLIN: Alright, I'm going to pick up some of the stuff we're talk about now and a related issue that was in the media this morning. Meta, this is the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Google, they admit that they are now hiring engineers and developers in China for most of their products, mobile products or smart home products, and rightly we are concerned sometimes about these Chinese nationals and these big companies. But here in Australia we've got the Albanese Government pushing to give all of these same companies the power to censor social media content in this country that they deem, these social media companies, not a government or an Australian entity, that they deem harmful to minorities. That's a concern.
PATERSON: That's right. Two really important issues here, Peta. I mean, one of our critiques of companies like WeChat and TikTok is that because they have China-based employees, the data that they have on their platforms are at risk. If Western social media platforms like Google and Meta are going to employ China based employees then they're opening themselves up to the same criticism and the same concerns. So, I'm worried about that.
But I'm very proud that the Coalition today has said that we're going to oppose Labor's so-called misinformation and disinformation bill because it is going to weaponise and turbocharge the censorship that already happens on most platforms so that Australians legitimate political speech is going to be silenced. My colleague David Coleman was on your colleague Sharri Markson's show earlier outlining our very deep and profound concerns about this and the way in which it could be manipulated for partisan political objectives and really threaten the freedom of speech rights for all Australians which is our most fundamental right. So, we will fight that bill to the very end.
CREDLIN: I want to stay with this other issue of control and Beijing's influence. Reports out of Britain suggests that Chinese officials will have the ability to remotely paralyse electric vehicles in other countries. Why does Beijing have those powers, what sort of threat does that pose, and how credible do you think these claims out of Britain are?
PATERSON: Peta, it sounds like something out of a movie. It sounds really farfetched, but unfortunately, it is plausible and it is possible. The reality is that most electric cars today are manufactured in China, and many of them are by Chinese-owned companies or controlled companies that export all around the world. And these are basically computers on wheels. They are Internet connected devices. And any Internet connected device made by a Chinese company can be ultimately controlled or is at risk of being controlled with cyber security vulnerabilities in Beijing. Most companies will do what the Chinese Communist Party tells them to because that's what Chinese law says they must do. But even if it wasn't Chinese law, that's what every Chinese businessperson understands if they want to continue to run their businesses. And so it is unfortunately, yet another technology-enabled cyber security threat that we face. And as Western societies, we have to really step up to these threats and protect ourselves much better. Otherwise, if conflict did originate, particularly in the Indo-Pacific in the next five or ten years, we would be leaving ourselves extraordinarily vulnerable to this kind of interference.
CREDLIN: On that terrifying note, James Paterson, I have to leave it there. I'm out of time. Thank you for your time this evening.
ENDS
