July 11, 2023
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning. I'd like to make some initial comments on a few topics and then I'll be very happy to take any questions.
Firstly, the Opposition welcomes reports in The Age this morning that the Prime Minister is considering delaying his visit to China from this year to next year. The Opposition has provided bipartisan support since the election for the government's attempts to stabilise relations between Australia and China, and we are supportive of the Prime Minister visit China but it has to occur at the right time and in the right circumstances. And following the decision of the Hong Kong government at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party last week to issue bounties and arrest warrants on the heads of an Australian resident and an Australian citizen, it really does call into question whether now is the right time to travel. This, of course, follows the continued detention of two Australians, Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei, and the unjustified continued imposition of tariffs and sanctions on Australian imports. In these circumstances we agree that it's right for the Prime Minister to consider whether this year is the right year to travel to China. Of course, it is open to the Chinese government to resolve all of these issues, which of course would pave the way for the Prime Minister to visit China more quickly.
Secondly, I want to welcome the announcement the Prime Minister made in Germany overnight of a Wedgetail surveillance aircraft to be deployed for the next six months with 100 Australian personnel to assist the supply of humanitarian and military assistance to the people of Ukraine in their ongoing war against Russia's unjustified and illegal invasion. This is a very welcome and substantive announcement and makes a tangible contribution to the war effort and the Opposition again provides bipartisan support for this commitment, as we have for every package of assistance that the Albanese government has provided since the election. However, we do call on the government to continue to engage more directly with the Ukrainian government on their specific requests for Bushmaster, Hawkeis and Abrams tanks and any other measures of support that the Australian government can supply to Ukraine, and to reconsider its decision to force the Department of Defence to continue to provide this assistance from within the existing defence budget, which we learned at Senate Estimates has already been cut by $1.5 billion.
Next, I'd like to move on to the hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media today. Firstly, it's very welcome that a number of leading government consulting firms have announced new bans today on TikTok for their employees, particularly those who are working on government contracts. TikTok represents a very serious espionage and data security risk and that's why the government earlier this year finally agreed to ban it from government users' devices. However, Australia is not safe if contractors working for consulting firms don't also have that ban apply. The unfortunate thing, though, is that this ban has come about as a result of letters that I wrote to the consulting firms and not a decision by the Albanese government and they need to make this consistent and apply across the board and I'm calling on them to do so.
Finally, WeChat and its parent company, Tencent, continue to show contempt for the Parliament of Australia by refusing to appear before the Senate Select Committee, despite being now invited on four occasions. Because they are not based here and do not have a legal presence in Australia, it's not possible for me to use the powers of the Senate to compel them to attend, but every other social media platform who has been invited has agreed to appear and it reflects very badly on WeChat and Tencent that they continue to refuse to do so. Compelling evidence has been put to the committee about their behaviour, including their surveillance and censorship and permissiveness for foreign interference, and we have serious questions to put to them that can only be asked in the public hearing. If they continue to refuse to appear, then the committee will have to draw inferences about them and their conduct.
I'm very happy to take questions.
QUESTION: How real a threat is social media companies and the use of their platforms being weaponised by foreign governments? How real a threat is that?
PATERSON: Unfortunately, we know that this is not a theoretical threat. It's a real threat. We've seen recent examples in Canada, in the United States and elsewhere in the world where authoritarian states, particularly Russia and China, have sought to weaponise both Western headquartered social media platforms by pumping their systems full of
disinformation and weaponising the algorithms to try and interfere in our elections, and also authoritarian headquartered social media platforms like TikTok and WeChat, which have had narratives that are critical of the Chinese Communist Party suppressed, which have had propaganda proliferate, and which are engaging in mass data harvesting on Western citizens, including Australians. So, it is a very serious threat and that's why the Senate is taking it seriously with this inquiry continuing today and tomorrow.
QUESTION: Bill Shorten flagged last night on 730 that it does appear from this Robodebt report that there is a possibility that former Coalition ministers involved in it could be sued by individuals and that there's some specific wording in the report which indicates that could indeed be a possibility. Is the Coalition bracing for this? Do you expect it to occur, and it could happen?
PATERSON: The entire Robodebt affair is an incredibly regrettable event. It should not have happened and it's important that the Royal Commission has made some substantial recommendations about ensuring that it does not happen again. We've welcomed the report and apologised to the victims of Robodebt and we've taken it very seriously. If the government wants to bring forward measures to address it to prevent it from happening again, we will consider that in a bipartisan way. What action individuals choose to take as a result of this inquiry is a matter for them and I'm sure will follow the usual legal processes involving government proceedings.
QUESTION: Do you believe that the announcement that the Prime Minister made about Ukraine kind of precedes further announcements that he will make at NATO or meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, for example? Do you think that this might signal even further support, given that the Coalition has been calling for further military aid and assistance there for Ukraine?
PATERSON: We would certainly welcome any further announcements from the government about support for the people of Ukraine, particularly ones that respond directly to the requests of the government of Ukraine, which are for more Bushmasters, Hawkeis, and for Abrams tanks or for any other measures of support that the government can give. We are in an unfortunate situation because the government has made a policy choice that the assistance that we give to Ukraine must come at the expense of the Australian Defence Force. And so, it's not a surprise that the ADF, when asked to provide assistance, is rummaging around the back of the cupboard and looking for some frankly pretty low tech stuff to support the Ukrainians. That's why the most recent package a couple of weeks ago was so anaemic. We think the government should make a different policy choice, not make the Department of Defence pay for these things and then hopefully the assistance that Australia can provide would be more tangible and more directly respond to Ukraine’s request for assistance.
QUESTION: You said it is right for the PM to consider delaying travel to China. Under what conditions, what are the things that you need, do you think need to be ticked off before you consider that? I mean because there are so many issues that need to change. So, at what point is it okay to travel, and at what point is it better to negotiate in person?
PATERSON: Ultimately, this is a decision for the Prime Minister and the government, and only the government is in a position to weigh up all the factors and has access to all the intelligence to make a decision like this. But in light of three particular issues, we've asked the government to continue to consider when the right time would be for Mr Albanese to travel there. The first is the continued detention of two Australians, Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei. This is an arbitrary and unjustified detention, and they should be released. The second is the ongoing sanctions against Australian industry, in particular barley, wheat, wine, so many categories that really should have been lifted by now and have not been. And the third is these bounties that have been placed on the heads of an Australian citizen and an Australian resident. It really is an untenable situation to pretend that this is a normal relationship, to shake hands and to smile in Beijing with Xi Jinping when these things are happening. And it is open to the Chinese government to deal with all of these matters that would of course, smooth the way for the Prime Minister to attend on a much sooner timeline. And we urge the Chinese government to consider doing so.
QUESTION: If those arrest warrants aren't withdrawn, don't go?
PATERSON: Well, again, as I said, it is a matter for the Prime Minister, but it would seem pretty extraordinary to pretend that there's a normal bilateral relationship here when Australian citizens engaging in freedom of speech in Australia and political activism in Australia are being pursued for the rest of their lives and all around the world, in the words of the Hong Kong government. That's an extraordinary thing and it makes it very difficult to have normal bilateral engagements.
QUESTION: Are you concerned over the diplomatic agreements, including a police cooperation deal that have been signed between China and the Solomon Islands?
PATERSON: The Solomon Islands is a sovereign country and has the right to make decisions that it deems to be in its own national interests. It is not Australia's position to tell sovereign countries what they can and can't do in other bilateral relationships. We have always stood with the people of the Solomon Islands and provided support to them whenever it's requested. We're very proud of the assistance that we've provided to them, and we believe Australia is very well placed along with our other partners, including New Zealand and others, to assist the Solomon Islands with any security and policing needs that it has.
QUESTION: What policy considerations is the committee considering to make Australia a hard target for foreign interference?
PATERSON: That's the key. We have to make ourselves a hard target for foreign interference through social media. Frankly, it has been too easy for authoritarian states to intervene in our democracy. And I am worried in the lead up to a divisive referendum on including a Voice in the Constitution that that would be an opportunity for foreign states to
seek to intervene and harm our democracy. We know that an objective of foreign states is to simply weaken democracies by getting involved in divisive issues like this. And they know that they are sensitive issues for democracies. So really what we need is a much more proactive behaviour, both from the government and from the social media platforms to proactively identify and weed out this kind of conduct, particularly when it's happening from foreign states. Equally, it's important that we protect the rights of free speech for all Australians. This is a democratic contest and all Australians have the right to participate in that, and I don't want to see Australians inadvertently censored as a result of overzealous actions by social media platforms or the government.
QUESTION: Meta's been saying it's been cancelling billions of accounts, so they're trying. But I mean it's prolific. What more can be done?
PATERSON: Look, I believe most social media platforms are quite sincere in their attempts to weed this content out often of their platforms. The coordinated, inauthentic accounts in particular that are made to attempt to game algorithms and try and force content into the feeds of Australians is a serious problem that the platforms for some time have been trying to tackle and they've got sophisticated technical means of doing so. They need to continue to do that. They also need to proactively identify the accounts that they know are representing states. Now, for example, it used to be the policy of Twitter to do so, but recently that has been wound back and now you have people acting on behalf of the Russian government and the Chinese government that used to have their content proactively labelled and it is no longer labelled. And that is a real concern because it makes it more difficult for Australians to tell who is trying to influence our active political debate.
QUESTION: And just back to those Robodebt victims, do you think that their situation has somewhat been resolved? Obviously, you had the class action in the past. Do you expect that for that to truly be resolved then we could see legal action in the future. Do you think that would be justified?
PATERSON: You're right, there has been action, there has been compensation already, but that doesn't close off the legal avenues that Australians have, and it wouldn't be appropriate to discourage or dissuade them from doing so. They have every right to take any legal action that they believe is appropriate.
QUESTION: Is Kathryn Campbell's position untenable?
PATERSON: I note that it was the Albanese government that appointed her to that very important, very sensitive role of the AUKUS coordinating function. There's no more ambitious or important national security priority for our country over the coming decades than securing the AUKUS agreement. It was their judgement that she was an appropriate person for that role. If they have changed their mind in light of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, then it's up to them to reconsider that and to make the appropriate announcements.
QUESTION: One for me just finally. When it comes to those people Bill Shorten's speaking about that they haven't absorbed the fact that people like Alan Tudge, Scott Morrison, that they could face future court actions in the future. Do you think they've absorb that? Do you think they've really understood the weight of what has occurred?
PATERSON: It's not for me to comment on their behalf. I can say for myself and I know my colleagues in the shadow cabinet with Peter Dutton, we take this issue extremely seriously and it is incredibly regrettable that this occurred. It should not have occurred. And we're very determined that it not occur again in the future, and we're happy to support any sensible changes the government brings forward to legislation or policy to ensure it doesn't happen again. We have to learn these lessons. It was a government that I was a member of, and I really regret that it happened.
QUESTION: Are you supportive of NATO setting up office in Japan?
PATERSON: That's a matter between the government of Japan and NATO. But what I will say more broadly is that NATO's engagement and interest in the Indo-Pacific is a very welcome thing for Australia. We want our friends and allies in Europe to take an interest in the stability of our region because it affects us and because it affects them. I think one of the things we've learned in recent years is that we can't confine the fight against rising authoritarianism to one theatre, to say it's just a European problem or it's just an Indo-Pacific problem. It's a problem all around the world, and the "no limits" partnership between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, which was announced on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, is a very powerful demonstration of that. So, it is a very welcome thing that they're considering further engagement in the Indo-Pacific. The exact form of that engagement is a matter for NATO's members and in this case, Japan.
QUESTION: Just on TikTok, some of those bans that you talked about this morning about from some of those consulting firms, is it too little too late when we're talking about, you know, banning these social media sites that have been on these phones for a while now?
PATERSON: The reason why TikTok has to be off the phones of people working at firms that consult the government is the same reason it has to be off the phones of people working in the government, which is it represents a serious data security and espionage risk to the sensitive government information that is on those devices. It took a long time for the government to take the decision to ban it from government devices. They should have taken that decision much earlier when our friends and allies did around the world, but they finally did so, and I welcomed when they did. It's now welcome that the firms have taken the same decision, but it shouldn't have been in response to a letter from me. It should've been in response to a directive from the Albanese Government. There's still time for them to do that and any step they take will still have protective benefits for Australians' information.
QUESTION: Your concerns which include concerns about the Voice being a flashpoint for disinformation, have you started seeing that already and how bad is it going to get?
PATERSON: That's a question that we are going to be asking the social media platforms today, whether they have any evidence on their platforms of attempted foreign interference or coordinated inauthentic behaviour. I don't have any evidence of that personally, but it is a risk and it's one that both the platforms and the government needs to take seriously because after it's happened, it will be too late and we need to proactively identify and weed out this kind of behaviour to make sure that this is a referendum that Australians can have complete confidence in the result of whatever way it goes. Thanks, everyone. Cheers.
ENDS
