June 7, 2023
SHARRI MARKSON: Australian media were barred from covering a speech he gave at a Chinese forum on Monday night. Herald Sun reporters were turned away at the door from the China Chamber of Commerce event. And to make matters worse, the Premier has now refused to hand over his speaking notes.
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DAN ANDREWS: Well, there was a speech, I had some notes, I didn't necessarily refer to those in great detail, but I simply made the point that the China-Australia partnership and the China-Victoria partnership is critically important to jobs, to exports, to international education, to food, wine, to every sector really. No, idea. It wasn't my event. I was there, the Lord Mayor was there, Andrew Robb was there. Top 300 people were there, some of them from China, some of them who are from here and do business in China.
SHARRI: In Senate Estimates, Senator James Paterson quizzed foreign affairs officials after discovering what he said are links between this forum being sponsored by one of China's top spy agencies. Have a look:
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PATERSON: One of the sponsors for this event is the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy. This is a group which in Alex Joske's book Spies and Lies, he says there's very strong links between the Ministry of State Security, China's principal foreign intelligence agency, and this body. Mr Joske didn't have the benefit of parliamentary privilege when he wrote his book, so I can go a step further and say it's a front group for the MSS.
SHARRI: A front for the MSS. Well, let's bring in Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson now. James, thank you very much for your time. Look, a front for the MSS. This is the Ministry of State Security in China, its top intelligence agency. If this is true, how is it the case that the Ministry of State Security could indirectly be sponsoring a forum in Australia where the Victorian Premier is giving a speech?
PATERSON: Well, just to expand on that for your viewers, Sharri, one of the points of evidence that Alex Joske points to in his book is that one of the senior advisors at this institute is formerly the director of operations for the Ministry of State Security in North America. In other words, he's the chief spy for the Chinese government in the United States, running operations against the US government and trying to steal their secrets. He's now an advisor to this group, and this group is a sponsor of this forum. And the vice chairman of this group was a key speaker at the forum. So, the links seem pretty clear to me and that's why I said what I said in Senate estimates last week. What's particularly troubling is that Australian politicians, no less than the Premier Victoria, felt appropriate to participate in this forum, safe in the knowledge of this information. Thought it was appropriate to deliver a speech, even though there was no Australian media allowed, although we've learned that Chinese media were allowed. And then didn't even release the transcript of the speech after it was delivered, which is just one of those basic, you know, transparency measures that all politicians should engage in. It's deeply, deeply worrying.
SHARRI: I mean, the bigger point here is our very values of freedom of speech, freedom of our media and sovereignty, whereas you come up against the Chinese Communist Party system where they don't have any freedom of the press. So, you know, when Daniel Andrews travelled to China, media weren't allowed to go along with him. Again, we're seeing this example, but on Australian shores in Victoria. Does it seem like the Victorian Government is just kowtowing to the values of the Chinese Communist Party?
PATERSON: The Victorian Government under Daniel Andrews has a very long track record of very poor judgment when it comes to its engagement with China. Daniel Andrews is all in on China and at one point of his government, required all of his ministers to travel to China every year no matter what their portfolio, no matter what the relevance was. And we saw the fruits of that excessive and exuberant engagement with China with the Belt and Road Agreement, which Daniel Andrews signed in contravention of very clear advice from the federal government and a whole new act of Parliament had to pass so the federal government had the power to cancel that agreement and prevent Victoria from contravening our national security interests, which is just a disastrous thing for state government to be placed in a position to have happened to. So there's a long track record of poor judgement here. He clearly doesn't have the expertise to make these decisions, doesn't have the advice to make these decisions, clearly doesn't feel the need to consult the federal government on it. When I asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade about this at estimates last
week, they had no idea about the forum. They said that the Premier hadn't sought their advice about it, hadn't asked their permission to be involved in it. And so, if he's not getting advice from DFAT, who is he getting advice from when it comes to its engagement?
SHARRI: Very good point, and these are questions that need to be answered. I want to ask you about another really concerning story today. Victoria's Coroner has ruled that the state, the state's corruption body, this is IBAC, effectively has blood on its hands after it didn't clear Casey Mayor, Amanda Stapleton for almost two years. That they'd interrogated her over two days. She was worried she was going to face jail over corruption issues. She was 58, a mother. She had mental health consequences as a result of this, according to the coroner, and she then ended up taking her own life. A very tragic story, a 58-year-old mother. Coroner now ruling that IBAC played a role in exacerbating her mental health. This is a similar problem for corruption agencies nationally that they just take too long to clear people. They put them under such pressure in many times public pressure. But this is just so sad and so outrageous, James.
PATERSON: I knew Amanda Stapleton. She was a wonderful, warm, community minded person. She was a wonderful mother and carer for her adult son who has disabilities and he is now without her and has to go on life without her. And we have lost her to the world and it is an awful, awful tragedy what happened to her and it should never happen again. And this is a very, very salutary reminder about the dangers of concentrated power, and untravelled power, and the lack of due process. And her death did not need to happen. And it is an extraordinary tragedy that it did, and I hope some very deep reflection is occurring at the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission in Victoria and that legislative changes considered to make sure that this doesn't happen to any other family ever again.
SHARRI: Alright, James Paterson, thank you very much for your time.
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