June 17, 2024
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SHARRI MARKSON: Let's bring in now Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson. James, thank you very much for your time this evening. Look let's start with that outrageous body blocking of Cheng Lei and Albanese’s response to it today as well, where he said he wasn't aware of it. Do you think his response is good enough? And what do you think of the fact that Chinese officials felt emboldened to act like that in Australia at Parliament House?
JAMES PATERSON: I don't believe the Prime Minister unless every one of his 11 media advisers are guilty of the most serious professional malpractice of allowing the Prime Minister to go and face a press gallery press pack, including Cheng Lei, and didn't bother to tell him about the serious incident involving Cheng Lei only an hour earlier in Parliament House upstairs. It's simply not a credible explanation. Frankly, I'm worried that the Chinese delegation will be laughing tonight because not only did they get away with it, but they didn't even cop the mildest rhetorical rebuke from the Prime Minister of Australia after they engaged in body blocking and intimidation of an Australian journalist. And one, you know, in no small point had recently just spent several years in incarceration unjustly in China. This really is a very disappointing episode. The Prime Minister has one last opportunity to clear this up tomorrow. He should seek an explanation from the Premier for the behaviour of his delegation and an apology, and he should front up the press tomorrow and answer questions about it.
MARKSON: Now, I think no one would disagree when it comes to the importance of stabilising the relationship, getting rid of all the tariffs that have been really hurting Australian businesses and exports. But when it comes to how this has happened, has it been because of our silence? Has it cost us standing up for our sovereignty? Do you believe that there are areas where the Albanese government is now failing to speak out on, just to appease Beijing?
PATERSON: The tragedy of this Sharri is that the Chinese government is unwinding the economic coercion campaign they launched against Australia because it failed, and they were always going to unwind it against Australia, because it had done them great damage in the region and around the world. We didn't suffer the economic hit that they thought we would. We stood up behind our public policy settings, and other countries who were watching didn't take the message China hoped they would - which is never take on China - they took the opposite message, never to be dependent on China. And so the change of government was just a plausible offramp for the Chinese government and a face saving way of unwinding these things. And actually it didn't require any concessions from Australia. But I think there have been concessions and particularly they have been rhetorical. This government has virtually ceased all public criticism of China's serious domestic human rights abuses, all public criticism of their malign conduct in the South China Sea, and all public criticism of their foreign interference, espionage and cyber attacks on our country, which are occurring on a daily basis.
MARKSON: What you say it's mostly rhetorical, but as you recall, one of the items on China's list of 14 demands to Australia was that ASPI a pro-American think tank be shut down. There is now a review into Think Tanks, which covers ASPI, and there are concerns that it might be defunded or have its funding reduced.
PATERSON: Sharri, I share your concerns and the concerns of others about this and I made a submission to the Varghese review. ASPI is Australia's most globally influential and respected think tank. It has had impact that far outsized its funding and position in the scheme of things. It's been remarkably successful and particularly the work done over the last decade on things like the abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, on Chinese military universities and way they're taking advantage of our universities, really has changed public policy, not just in this country, but around the world. It would be a grave mistake for the Albanese government to give in to China's pressure and to wind back even $1 of ASPI's funding. I'll be watching very closely.
MARKSON: Look, if you were in government and you are Shadow Home Affairs Minister, how do you think you would handle the China challenge? How would you handle standing up for our sovereignty while still having a relationship? With our largest trading partner.
PATERSON: Well at a macro level. We will always stand up for Australia and will always put Australia and its national interests first. We will never compromise our national security in the pursuit of bilateral relations, because we view bilateral relations as a means to an end, not in an end in itself. It's about securing our national interest. And in my own portfolio, we'll complete the agenda on foreign interference and espionage by bolstering the cyber vulnerabilities that we now face in that realm. This government has done nothing to combat the very serious foreign interference risk that's cyber enabled through platforms like TikTok and WeChat, and it's crying out for action because our elections could very easily be interfered with. And our public discourse right now is being interfered with. And that's not good enough.
MARKSON: You mentioned TikTok. That's yet another area where the US and the UK, our Like-minded allies, are taking action, but Albanese doesn't want to know about it. He doesn't want to even be asked questions by journalists at press conferences, as we saw on Thursday, where he shot down a question. James Paterson, thank you very much for joining us this evening.
ENDS
