November 6, 2023
MARKSON: Shadow minister for home affairs, James Paterson, joins me now. James, welcome to the program. Look, at the start of the show I played comments from the Prime Minister when on Thursday he was asked a very specific question about the rising anti-Semitism we're seeing, and he turns answer into one about Islamophobia. We're seeing such hate towards the Jewish community. Just this latest example, the South-West Sydney preacher today. What do you think about the Albanese government's approach to this? Are they showing enough leadership on this crisis that we're facing in Australia?
PATERSON: Well, Sharri that excerpt you just played from those preachers remarks are deeply disturbing and I know will chill the bones of many Australians watching, but none more than the Australian Jewish community who feel under siege, who feel abandoned, who feel unsafe, even here in Australia, and that's appalling. Every Australian is entitled to not just be safe but to feel safe, particularly in their own country. And when I have Jews who are constituents of mine tell me they are worried about sending their kids to a school which is identifiably Jewish, they think twice about whether they wear Jewish paraphernalia, clothing like a kippah out in the streets because that will identify them as Jewish, that's a terrible state of affairs and I don't think Albanese government is doing enough to address it and I don't think the Prime Minister is committed enough to addressing it.
MARKSON: Yeah, completely agree, now, I want to ask you about what national security compromises the Albanese Government has made in order to secure this visit with Beijing. With President Xi Jinping.
PATERSON: Well Sharri, in your editorial you outlined five and those of that I talked about with your colleagues on Sky News yesterday, Kieran Gilbert, they include the lease of the Port of Darwin for 99 years to Landbridge Group. They include Confucius Institutes, which Penny Wong has said there should be no more of but she will permit existing 11. That can include sanctions on Xinjiang officials responsible for abuses against the Uyghur people. That includes failing to speak out on the malign behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party in the South China Sea towards our friends and allies like the Philippines. It's across a whole range of issues Sharri where it appears to me that concessions have been made in exchange for a better relationship with China. Now perhaps the Albanese government will argue that those concessions were worthwhile, that they got out of it what they hoped that they would. But if we don't even concede and accept that those concessions have been made, that we can't have a proper conversation about them.
MARKSON: Look, we saw that just on Thursday there were 500 people who'd been living in Gaza who were finally allowed to leave to be given safe passage through to Egypt and they were foreign nationals. So that's a good thing that innocent civilians have been moved to safety. But I spoke on Thursday night how it's essential that security assessments were done on these, some of them there were about 23 Australians from Gaza to ensure that we aren't importing terrorism into the country, just like assessments were done before anyone came into the country from during the war on ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The Home Affairs Minister, Claire O'Neill, gave me a response where she indicated that security assessments were going to be done. But then we saw these Australians from Gaza arrive home last night. So do you have concerns, James Paterson, that their checks have or haven't been done to ensure that there aren't any affiliations with Hamas or any terror organisation on Australian citizens, residents or their family members before they're coming right into the heart of our country, right from the front line of a war zone into our country.
PATERSON: Unless they're subject to a temporary exclusion order, an Australian citizen has an unrestricted right to come home, but their family members who are not Australian citizens don't have that same right and it is appropriate that any non-citizen be very carefully checked before they come into this country to make sure that they don't pose a security threat to this country. And in the case of Gaza, there is reason to believe that those security checks are necessary. This is a region of the world which is controlled by a terrorist organisation and some in the population are supportive of that terrorist organisation, many are not and many of them are victims of it. But it's appropriate for the Australian government to put Australia's national interest and our national security first and make sure all those robust checks are taking place. The first group of Australians came home last night. If they were all Australian citizens, perhaps those checks were not legally required. But if any of them weren't, they absolutely should have had those checks happen and because they are brought here so quickly, I'm a little bit concerned that might not have taken place. So, I am looking for reassurance from the government that all of the appropriate checks have taken place and that they will continue to take place as any more people return from that region to Australia.
MARKSON: And you will be continuing to raise this issue?
PATERSON: I certainly will.
MARKSON: Now just finally on another topic, you know, we're seeing Anthony Albanese in China at the moment. Do you think he should be asking questions about the origins of COVID-19? Should he be demanding access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology on behalf of the World Health Organisation, on behalf of international investigators? We've had no transparency still, three and a half years on when it comes to the origin of the pandemic that killed millions of people around the world that upended all of our lives. Is this an issue you think he should be raising?
PATERSON: As you know better than anyone, Sharri, there has been a total absence of accountability and transparency from the Chinese government about the origins of COVID-19. And the world still does not know the final answers as to how and why and when this virus emerged. And we will not know that unless the Chinese government removes the obstructions that it has put in place to a proper independent investigation of the origins of COVID-19. And I think it reflects very badly on the Chinese Communist Party that to this day it is still unwilling to do so because, as you point out, its cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars and fundamentally affected the lives of many others by the response to COVID-19. And so it's entirely appropriate that we get to the bottom of that so that we can put in place mitigations to prevent it or reduce the risk of it happening again. And so I certainly hope that the Prime Minister raises this among the many other issues he will have to raise with Xi Jinping, including detained Australians, including espionage and foreign interference, including cyberattacks and including unjustified trade sanctions that remain in place against our country.
MARKSON: He's not going to raise any of them, is he James?
PATERSON: Well, I certainly hope that he does. It would be disappointing if the Prime Minister wasn't robustly advocating for Australia's national interest at full throated way in putting the case for our national security when he meets with Xi Jinping, it's an important opportunity to do so.
MARKSON: And that meeting happening in just a couple of hours’ time. James Paterson, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, thank you very much.
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