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November 20, 2023
TOM CONNELL: Lets go to Mr. James Paterson for more on what we just heard from Andrew. Senator, appreciate your time today. So, I'm not sure if you heard in your ear, but Andrew Cornell is reporting the Prime Minister did raise this issue of the Chinese naval ship and the incident there with the Chinese president, but it won't be publicly commented on because it was a sideline, not official bilat meeting, and that is the normal convention. You accept that?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, there's a lot of questions that come out of that, Tom, which is why has it taken the government 48 hours before they disclosed this? We've been asking questions about this ever since the statement was released by the Deputy Prime Minister on Saturday morning disclosing that this incident occurred. And the Prime Minister's office, as I understand, has been refusing to comment to journalists in that time as recently as this morning - when they were asking them about it, they said they wouldn't be commenting at all. So, what's changed? Why are they commenting now? Why have they disclosed this? And what exactly did the prime minister say if indeed he did raise this with Xi Jinping and what did Xi Jinping say in response? This is a really important matter of genuine public interest and concern and I think the Prime Minister can't continue to hide from the media from his return to Australia. He needs to front up and answer questions about it. He didn't do a press conference yesterday. This was, of course, released on Saturday after his press conference at APEC. He hasn't done a press conference today. When is he planning on showing his face and answering some questions?
CONNELL: He'll be up at some point, I'm sure. But is it true, do you agree with that convention that there are these official bilateral meetings? We get readouts, we ask what topics were discussed. If its informal, leaders need to be able to bring things up and know that they at that point, there is a conference between the two leaders. Do you agree with that convention?
PATERSON: Well, the Prime Minister comments on his bilateral meetings when it suits him and he doesn't comment on them when it doesn't suit him. He was very happy to talk about the content of all of the meetings he had when he was in Beijing representing Australia on that delegation. He has not been happy until now to even disclose that this issue was raised and if he's happy for his office to now disclose that it was raised after initially refusing to do so, I don't see why he can't go into any further detail about this. And I think it's a pretty fine distinction which is being drawn about the nature of the meeting, which seems pretty conveniently to line up with the Prime Minister's political interests, which is to refuse to have to answer questions about this.
CONNELL: All the same, though, that convention, we know leaders have these official meetings. We know with other conventions; I've been to plenty of them. They're called "pull asides". You know, they literally won't talk to someone for two minutes of the they're always answering every question for the media and the opposition on that. There's not going to be much honesty in that conversation, is there?
PATERSON: Well, Tom, the Prime Minister himself spoke about at his press conference on Saturday in San Francisco at APEC about the length and the depth and the warmth of his exchanges with Xi Jinping and the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. So that was okay to talk about and to disclose, and this is now okay to disclose but not talk about. I mean, I really do think we've got shifting explanations from the government here which are contradictory, and which do seem to line up with their political interests, not the national interest. I think the public deserve to know. I mean, I believe this is the first instance in which Australian Defence Force personnel have been harmed by the People's Liberation Army since the Korean War, 70 years, more than 70 years ago. And so I think the public has a right to understand exactly what the Prime Minister has done on our behalf.
CONNELL: It has been condemned, obviously, by people within the government that have spoken in person. Do you think it would have been worth doing that more publicly at APEC, during the official meeting, whenever it might have been? If that risks the relationship, is that exchange if you like, worth it?
PATERSON: The Prime Minister's first and most important responsibility is to the safety and security of Australians and none more so than our men and women in uniform. The contract that we have with our own defence forces is they put themselves in harm's way for us, but we support them in turn and it's critically important that all political leaders, especially the Prime Minister, provide that support to our men and women in uniform for the sacrifices that they and their families make for our country. And so the bare minimum, I think we can expect from the Prime Minister is some transparency around this. There's been no transparency and it's frankly not good enough.
CONNELL: What does the incident show around what we can trust in terms of China's saying it will be a better global citizen, to paraphrase and still how its military is acting.
PATERSON: Unfortunately, Tom, it is totally contrary to the supposed spirit of friendship that we saw in Beijing, particularly in the Great Hall of the People. It's very easy to lay on thick platitudes in those diplomatic exchanges. But if while we're having those diplomatic exchanges and pretending that everything is fine and that we are friends again, at the same time, the PLA is taking deliberate steps to put Australian service personnel in harm's way and to injure them, then I think that says more about the relationship than those diplomatic exchanges. And what it requires of us is to be very clear eyed about who we are dealing with and what we are dealing with. This is the Chinese Communist Party. This is the Chinese government. It is incredibly assertive about its interests in the region. They don’t have too many concerns about our interests and it's happy to ride over them on occasion and we need to accept the reality of that and respond accordingly. It's why our government initiated the AUKUS agreement and it's why this government needs to double down on AUKUS and actually deliver the funding it needs to make it a reality, because ultimately, we know that the Chinese government respects strength and despises weakness and it is only strength that will get them to respect Australia.
CONNELL: Want to ask you about this High Court ruling that, of course, has made a bit of a scramble as to what happens to those detainees, those people who have been held indefinitely. The minister on the weekend said that she was actually told by the department, you'll likely win this case because it's so highly litigated against essentially, you can't be, you know, bringing forward legislation all the time for things that haven't happened yet. Do you accept that explanation that the department maybe made the wrong calling?
PATERSON: Tom, it's almost certainly true that the department provided that advice to the Minister, but that's not an excuse for the government because the Department would not have said it is a certainty that we're going to win and you do not have to worry about the prospect that we might lose because we're definitely going to win. Like all legal advice, that would have been very carefully couched. It would have said on the preponderance of probabilities, we think we are probably going to win. But there's always a risk with the High Court that we might lose. And whatever the legal advice said, which the Minister has now disclosed, which I look forward to them now releasing publicly, whatever the advice said, any prudent and responsible government would be prepared for the possibility that you lose. You cannot go to the High Court to argue a constitutional case without understanding there's a possibility that you lose. And if you lose, you need to be prepared to act on that. And it's very clear this government was completely unprepared.
CONNELL: But if it's happening so much, there's so much different litigation. Is it a bit much to be constantly preparing legislation for cases where probably in plenty other circumstances they did win?
PATERSON: Tom is very kind of you to have a go there. But let's be really clear about this. Yes, the department is litigated against very often, but it's not every day that they're in the High Court challenging the constitutional basis of a fundamental protection of our border protection system and community safety. This is a big one. It shouldn't be treated like a trivial federal court matter. This is very substantial.
CONNELL: Finally, and briefly, any thoughts on the resignation of the of the Optus CEO?
PATERSON: I'm not surprised that the CEO has stepped down. I think many Optus customers will welcome that because their performance during both the cyber attack last year and the outage that we had this year has left a lot to be desired. I hope Optus can move on because we actually do need strong carriers in this country. We want a competitive telecommunications market. It is not in our interest for Optus to not succeed and I hope they can rebuild from here.
CONNELL: James Patterson, appreciate your time today. Thank you.
PATERSON: Thanks, Tom.
ENDS
