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June 15, 2023
Thursday 15 June 2023
Interview with Peter Stefanovic, First Edition
Subjects: Senator Thorpe, Senator Gallagher, the risk of foreign interference in the Voice referendum
PETER STEFANOVIC: Let's go to Canberra now. Joining us live is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson. James, good to see you. We'll start with our top story this morning. As you just heard, Lidia Thorpe has accused Mr Van of sexual assault, then backtracked. What's your reaction to all of that?
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning, Peter. Well, the allegations that Senator Thorp made in the Senate last night are very serious. Senator Van denies them and, as you point out, Senator Thorpe has withdrawn them. She has also foreshadowed that she'll be making a further statement in the Senate today and without the benefit of what she's going to say in that statement there's not much more I can really add to that.
STEFANOVIC: Have you spoken to Senator Van at all, your colleague?
PATERSON: No. Other of my colleagues have sought him out and done a check on his welfare.
STEFANOVIC: Is there any idea where this allegation came from?
PATERSON: I'm really reluctant to comment in much detail here, Pete. These are serious allegations. They have been denied. There is to be a further statement today that may shed further light on the matter. I don't know what Senator Thorpe intends to say.
STEFANOVIC: Sure. It was said under parliamentary privilege, but if it's not true, I mean it's fairly damaging to Senator Van. I would have thought. Could he sue?
PATERSON: No. The protection of parliamentary privilege is a very important right of parliamentarians, which we exercise on behalf of our constituents so that we can conduct our responsibilities representing them without any fear that there'll be legal repercussions for it. I myself have used parliamentary privilege in the past to say things that I thought needed to be said that needed to be brought to public light that I could not say while sitting here on this desk in your studio talking to you, because it would have the risk of defamation. That comes with important responsibilities. The reason why the Deputy President and then the President asked Senator Thorpe to withdraw those allegations is that Senators are governed by standing orders, which dictate what we can and cannot say about each other in the chamber. And that is a check, an important check on parliamentary privilege to make sure that it's not abused.
STEFANOVIC: Yeah, I mean, the cat's out of the bag now when it comes to an allegation like that. And as Pauline Hanson said, I mean, it's pretty serious. That kind of stuff perhaps should have been said outside or to the police or whatever, not inside the Senate. Is that a point that you would agree with or not?
PATERSON: Well, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of the incident that Senator Thorpe referred to or whether it occurred. I was not a witness to it. And so, I'm notin a position to judge whether or not that matter should have been taken to police, whether it met a criminal threshold or not.
STEFANOVIC: Okay. It's been a fairly loud week for a number of different reasons. James, your colleague Andrew Bragg yesterday was pretty damning of the Senate and that includes some of the actions within your own party over behaviour surrounding the Brittany Higgins allegations. What do you make of his comments yesterday? And is he right?
PATERSON: Well, look, I think, certainly no one comes to Parliament and runs to represent their community in the federal Parliament to go over issues like this. But there are very important issues of public interest that are being explored here. Senator Gallagher made an unequivocal statement before the Senate a couple of years ago where she said no one had knowledge about this matter. She did not say I only had knowledge for four or five days. She did not say I had knowledge, but I didn't do anything with it. I didn't tell anyone about it. She said no one had any knowledge. She's now a minister of the Crown and an allegation that a member of the Senate has misled the Parliament is a serious one and it needs to be pursued. And let's not forget that when similar matters were raised in relation to Senator Reynolds and Senator Cash, there was no hesitation from the Labor Party in pursuing these issues and asking these questions. And when they did so, there was a pending criminal trial and they did not accept as an answer to the questions they asked, that we can't answer these questions because of a potential criminal trial and the prejudice of that trial. There is no pending criminal matters anymore in relation to this matter that anyone is aware of. And so there is no excuse for Senator Gallagher or her colleagues to not answer the questions that have been put to her about this matter.
STEFANOVIC: Okay. A final on the Voice here, James, which according to several polls, has the No vote ahead now. That's being drowned out this week by the Katy Gallagher storyline, but you have concerns over the integrity of the referendum from a foreign interference perspective. Why?
PATERSON: Well, the government has just put in place the business-as-usual protections for foreign interference in this referendum like any other electoral event. And I think that's complacent. We know from events in Canada in recent years that the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign states are highly interested in the outcomes of elections, not just when it directly affects their interests, but when it presents them an opportunity to internally weaken and destabilise democracies. They think when we are divided and fighting each other, we are weaker and less able to challenge them, and this referendum presents them with a unique opportunity to do so. This is going to be a tightly fought, divisive issue on a sensitive range of topics. And so, we need to be doing more than just business as usual. A Senate inquiry recently revealed that the government has taken no proactive steps at all, has not reached out to social media companies, hasn't instructed our agencies to take any special steps to prepare for this. And I think that is dangerous and complacent, and I fear the consequences if they fail to step up.
STEFANOVIC: Senator James Paterson, appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon.
ENDS
