November 7, 2023
PETA CREDLIN: A new audit has found that the Future Fund, that's Australia's sovereign wealth fund, has investments in at least 50 high risk Chinese companies that pose serious human rights risks and national security concerns. This includes 22 companies associated with the Chinese Communist Party, or the People's Liberation Army. 14 companies linked to the oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and 14 companies linked to investments in countries which Australia has sanctioned, including Russia, Iran and North Korea. Joining me now to discuss these, shadow home Affairs Minister James Paterson, who has drawn attention to these findings. Senator, welcome. Thank you for your time. I have to say, I was surprised to find that the Future Fund has this volume of exposure to these Chinese investments, explain to viewers at home why these concerns you as much as it does Senator Paterson
JAMES PATERSON: Good evening, Peta. Well, look, I was disturbed to find these results as well, 119 investments in China, 50 of which are high risk. And to give some flavour to your viewers, one of the companies is Baosteel. That's a company which has been a beneficiary of the Chinese Communist Party's intellectual property theft campaign against Western interests. It's a company which supplies the People's Liberation Army and like many other companies that operate in China, it's been implicated in human rights abuses against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, including the use of forced labour. It's not the kind of thing that you would hope that Australia's retirement savings or indeed our taxpayer dollars are invested in. But to be fair to the Future Fund, all they do is invest consistent with the law and seek the best returns on behalf of their shareholders, which is taxpayers. The problem here really is that the Albanese government provides no guidance and indeed imposes no restrictions at all on any outbound Australian investment, even by the Future Fund, let alone our superannuation industry and it's resulted in this very risky exposure that means that our money could be inadvertently aiding a potential future adversary or be complicit in a serious human rights abuse.
CREDLIN: And not even in sanctioned countries, James?
PATERSON: Well, that's right. I mean, one of the group of companies that the Future Fund is heavily invested in is Chinese finance industry, including Chinese banks and the behaviour of the Chinese banks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine is very illustrative. They’ve significantly increased their exposure to Russia, and they are facilitating trade between the rest of the world and Russia, possibly helping them circumvent international sanctions. Now, Australian citizens and our taxpayer dollars shouldn't be profiting from that kind of malign conduct. That is contrary to our foreign policy objectives of isolating and punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. And yet they're doing that, and not just with Russia, with Iran too, who we know is a malignant force in the Middle East and behind many of the attacks on Israel. With North Korea, a country that we've sanctioned for years and years and years because of its behaviour. And yet these banks that the Future Fund is invested in are involved in transferring funds to these countries.
CREDLIN: What about the investigation, in the Financial Review today and it reported the rest of the world seems to be waking up to Chinese property investments as Singapore was a quoted Market, Canada, but in Australia, if Chinese citizens got a child here on a visa studying let's say, they could buy a home in Australia and there's no sense that when that student leaves, if they do that, that home will be sold up as supposedly is the rules. Surely, we've got to rethink this exemption to don't we.
PATERSON: Well, certainly Australian investors in China or Australian citizens living in China don't find it anywhere near as easy to buy property there or even rent property without approval from the Chinese government. It's extremely strictly enforced and at a time when we have a rental affordability crisis, a housing affordability crisis, and a generation of young Australians who believe they'll never be able to enter into the property market, having cashed up foreign buyers, particularly those who are really just looking for a store of wealth offshore because their own country is not a safe place to store their wealth, that really it doesn't add up to me anymore. And that is the case with Chinese foreign investors often are trying to get their money out of China to a safe jurisdiction where they can keep it. Frankly, I'm not sure all of that money was earned appropriately, and I think there should be much greater scrutiny on that money and on that investment.
CREDLIN: I think we both know what we can't talk about, but we both know what our intelligence agencies might be doing in and around some of these hate speech filled mosques in our capital cities. But for the last two nights, I've played some pretty shocking footage out of a particular mosque in Sydney. Hate filled preachers, anti Semitism, urging jihad. This is in two separate Imam commentaries. I've not seen the Home Affairs Minister, Claire O'Neil, come out and condemn this. I'm not saying any sense that they've got this under watch, under control, as some of these preachers are calling Hamas, a listed terror organisation I might remind people, 'freedom fighters', you're the Home Affairs Shadow. What should the government be doing?
PATERSON: Three weeks ago, Peta, when we saw those awful scenes at the Sydney Opera House and young men chanting horrible things like gassed the Jews, some Australians asked, where does this come from? Where did they get these ideas from? Well, now we know exactly where it's come from. It's come from centres like this which preach extremist, radical ideology which should not, and is not, and will never be under at least a Liberal government, welcome in this country. And I don't understand why the Home Affairs Minister hasn't been out there publicly condemning this behaviour. We should all be very concerned about the impact this has on social cohesion. We should all be very concerned about the impact it has on our Jewish community who feel under siege, who feel unsafe, and those men who are responsible for this rhetoric should be under very close examination right now to see whether they've violated any federal laws, any state laws or if they're here on visas, the character grounds under the Migration Act, which gives the Minister for Home Affairs the the power to cancel their visas and send them home. And if they're not sent home very, very soon then frankly, I wonder what Claire O'Neil has been up to.
CREDLIN: And do we know how many of them get government funding or tax deductibility from some sort of charity status? Because that's the other thing that concerns me about these mosques.
PATERSON: I share that concern, Peta, and I hope that is also being looked at very, very closely. I'm equally concerned about fundraising that some of these groups may have been doing on behalf of organisations in the Middle East connected with Gaza, including Hamas and Hezbollah. We have to make sure that Australia's terrorism laws and our anti terrorism financing regulations are being rigorously enforced because we do not want any Australian money going to fund any of this horrific activity in Gaza and the Middle East.
CREDLIN: Your former government brought in rules that would cancel the citizenship of anyone dual nationals convicted of terrorism. We know that there was a loophole in that legislation has been exploited. A convicted terrorists in prison at the moment, for the moment, Abdul Benbrika. He's gone to the High Court. He has had his Australian citizenship restored. Federal Government, labor, said that they will fix this loophole. I can't say that they have. What's happening?
PATERSON: Peta, this is the second successful High Court challenge against laws of this nature, and we knew it was vulnerable and we've been saying to the government for months now, get ready to fix this law if it fails again. The Senate is sitting this week. If the government had done the work drafted the legislation and had it ready, it could have passed the Senate this week and then passed the House of Representatives next week to make sure that those laws are put back in place on a strong legal footing, we can act against people like Benbrika. But as far as I know, the government has done nothing on this at all. We haven't been offered any briefings. We haven't been told that any legislation is coming and the clock is ticking. I mean, there are a whole series of terrorists who are under detention right now who are up for release and we need to have a proper system in place for controlling them and getting them out of this country if they're not citizens or if they're dual citizens and we can cancel the Australian citizenship.
CREDLIN: I tell you what, James, you're a smart guy. I suggest you shame the government in the last two sitting weeks, put your own bill in and get this fixed, because we've got 70 odd of them in prison soon to come out. Thank you for your time. James Paterson.
ENDS
