June 6, 2023
PAUL MURRAY: In Melbourne tonight where members of the Australian media are not welcome. This is the reporting of the Herald Sun, where the Herald Sun tried to turn up at a forum at the Park Hyatt with a tape recorder in hand, was turned away from the super secretive talkfest, ostensibly about navigating Chinese trade markets and opportunities to appease the Herald Sun, along with other Australian media, was left off the invitation list. A lady at the front desk said, "Chinese media only." James Paterson is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister. Now, every now and then there are moments where the media aren't necessarily involved in everything. But if the Chinese-speaking media is allowed to turn up, the English-speaking media should be allowed as well, right?
JAMES PATERSON: You would have thought for a forum that is being held in Melbourne and not in Beijing, that that would be a fairly basic courtesy that the Australian media would have at least equal access to Chinese media to an event, but not in this case. And this was a pretty complicated tale, Paul. Briefly background for your viewers, this is what sounded like at face value pretty innocuous business forum about trade and investment. It's about post-pandemic, economic recovery and opportunities in China. Sounds fair enough, but it's a bit more complicated than that. One of the co-sponsors for this business forum is a group called the China Innovation and Development Strategy group. It's a think tank in China. And again, sounds pretty innocuous and anodyne even. In fact, that's a group which Alex Joske has demonstrated in his book, Spies and Lies, has intimate connections to the Ministry of State Security. China's principal foreign intelligence collection agency, the equivalent of China's CIA. So why is a front group of an intelligence agency sponsoring a business forum in Melbourne? And why is Daniel Andrews speaking at it and locking out the media?
MURRAY: I mean, again, you know, Andrews will say, well, here's all the upside, right? Because the special message it goes back to the diaspora is Andrews is all in and the evil sort of Liberal Party is out there saying there's something nefarious and bad. No, no. There's a central principle here, which is if you want the world to play by better rules, that you have to try to enforce them at home. Now, because I've been around for a while and this is one of the many reasons why lefties just love our conversations, as I'm old enough to remember when Sam Dastyari sold out the national security of this country to guess what? Chinese language media only because the assumption was he could trickle a message into that community and the rest of the wider population wouldn't be able to learn about it. Now, because that's happened in the past, that makes us suspicious of what's happening here today, not the Chinese media, the people who want to talk to them and not let us listen.
PATERSON: Well, exactly right, Paul. And Daniel Andrews says, well, it wasn't his event. He didn't organise it or set the rules for the media to attend. But he did have control over one very important element of the event, and that is his own speech. And unlike in usual practice, when politicians deliver speech, either their prepared remarks are mailed out to the press gallery so they can report on if they wish or a transcript of their remarks, if it's off the cuff is mailed out. Well, in this instance, his office hasn't done either. So not only were the media barred from attending to listen to it, his office hasn't engaged in the basic principle of transparency of providing the speech. Now, this is a speech that apparently went for 30 minutes. So it was obviously a very substantive speech before a large and influential, well connected audience. He wanted them to hear what they had to say, but he didn't want the Victorian people to hear what he had to say. And you have to wonder what was it that he said they didn't want the Victorian people to know?
MURRAY: Yeah, exactly. And then also I know they hate when they say this, but if you get the same superannuation as the rest of the public service and it's as hard to sack you as the rest of the public service, you're part of the public service, and that being SBS and ABC, yet they have decided they're not going to hand in their drones which are made by China. That should only be the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, despite the fact that it's all government connected.
PATERSON: That's right, Paul. After I started asking questions, the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Border Force and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have all agreed to ground their DJI drone fleet. These are drones made by a company closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party who have been sanctioned by the US government because they're secretly controlled by the People's Liberation Army and because they are directly involved in the mass surveillance and oppression of human rights against Uyghur people in Xinjiang. And yet the ABC and SBS are using these drones extensively and have made no commitment to stop using them, unlike all the other arms of the Australian Government who I've identified so far.
MURRAY: It's just madness. I'm very glad you're there. Thank you so much, Senator. We'll keep talking in the next little while because, doesn't matter what language we speak in, you can translate anything, it's always common sense. Thank you, mate.
ENDS
