November 5, 2023
KIERAN GILBERT: Lets go live now to the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security, James Paterson. Senator Paterson, thanks for your time, do you welcome the fact that this visit is happening as we speak this morning and happening without any significant concessions from the Australian side?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, good morning Kieran, and it certainly is welcome that again, we can have a very senior political delegation led by the Prime Minister visiting Beijing and conducting those bilateral conversations that should have been happening in recent years. We always said it was unfortunate that the Chinese government refused to engage in those conversations post 2020 with Australia. I wouldn't agree with the characterisation, though, that there haven't been any concessions been made in the bilateral relationship. There have been some concessions. Let me run just a few of them through with you. The withdrawal of our complaints on barley and wine through the World Trade Organisation are concessions. Now the government will argue that they are justified concessions because they will lead to the lifting of sanctions in those industries. But they are very important concessions for China, because it portrays itself to be as a country that upholds the international rules based order. While we might recognise that as a false claim, nothing would be more powerful than an adverse ruling of the World Trade Organisation which proved that wasn't the case. So Australia withdrawing our complaints or pausing our complaints under those mechanisms is an important concession, very much welcomed by the Chinese government and there have been others too. I mean, the Prime Minister was highly critical when he was in Opposition about the 99 year lease, to the Landbridge Group for the Port of Darwin. When given the opportunity to do something about that, when he became Prime Minister, he decided not to. Even on rhetorical questions, the government has been much more muted in its criticism of China on human rights grounds. They've been much more muted on their criticism of China in relation to its malign activities in the South China Sea. It was only a fortnight ago that a Chinese Coast Guard vessel rammed a Philippine Navy vessel and it wasn't until the Prime Minister was in Washington in a joint statement with the Biden administration that the Australian Government made a formal statement at the ministerial level about that. This is just another example of those concessions that have been made to get us to this point.
GILBERT: Do you think that they've got the tone wrong then in terms of the way they communicate their concerns about China's aggressiveness?
PATERSON: Look, it's really a matter for the government to weigh up all those competing considerations, and I appreciate it is a fine balance, and they are the ones in possession of the latest advice and intelligence from our agencies about how to make that balance. But let's not pretend that this stabilisation that we've seen in the relationship, which we have provided bipartisan support for, and which we welcome, has fundamentally changed anything underneath the surface. Certainly it appears very different on the surface, but beneath the surface, China is still the number one source of espionage risk for Australia. They're the number one source of foreign interference in our democracy. They are the number one source of state backed cyber attacks on Australia and just last month, the director general of ASIO, Mike Burgess, disclosed that they are also the number one source of state backed industrial espionage theft, intellectual property theft, and that is unparalleled in history. So the fundamental tensions remain in the relationship. What has changed is China's tactical approach to Australia, not its strategic approach to the region or the world.
GILBERT: You mentioned that comment by Director General Burgess, the head of ASIO, and I ask you this question about this reset we're seeing is it a more clear eyed version of our relationship with China, given Burgess said, and I'll quote him exactly what you alluded to there, The Chinese government are engaged in the most sustained, sophisticated and scaled, theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history. He said that just a couple of weeks ago, and in that context, the Prime Minister heads to China. This is one of our top officials making that clear. And this is a more clear eyed reversion of our bilateral relationship with our biggest trading partner isn't?
PATERSON: Kieran, Some in the business community and the university sector, for example, have called for a reset. But I agree with Foreign Minister Penny Wong when she has said in the past we're not seeking a reset and that a reset would not be in Australia's national interest. Because that would be requiring us to ignore what had happened over the last five or six years in that relationship and the way that China has fundamentally changed and changed its approach. So we shouldn't be seeking a reset, we're not having a reset and we do need to be clear eyed, as you say, about the way in which China operates today. We now have the benefit of understanding exactly what the Chinese government has done in Xinjiang to the Uyghur people. We've now seen what they've done in Hong Kong. We know what they've threatened to do against the people of Taiwan. And if we were to ignore that in the pursuit of a reset, that would be fundamentally damaging to our interests and I'm pleased that the government is not doing that.
GILBERT: Despite the low points over the recent period, the last few years and certainly during the Morrison government, it's probably started under Malcolm Turnbull, but it was really at its lowest ebb. The trade relationship continued to grow. In fact, more than one in $4 of our export dollars are from China. It's our biggest trading partner. Is there something inevitable about the how the two countries are cooperating on an economic basis that can still grow in the face of a diplomatic freeze?
PATERSON: I think that's a really important lesson for Australia from that. The first is that we don't trade with other countries because we approve of their political systems. We trade with other countries because of comparative advantage. We have things that they want and they have things that we want and that's why we trade. But it also shows that the economic coercion campaign that China launched against Australia was a failure. It was a failure in three respects. Firstly, it sought to damage the Australian economy and while it certainly did harm to individual businesses in some sectors, overall, our economy proved to be remarkably resilient. Secondly, it sought to change our domestic public policy settings, in particular in relation to foreign interference and foreign investment. It failed to do that. And thirdly, its objective was to send a message to other countries that they should be afraid of standing up to China and standing up for themselves. Well, actually, other countries all around the world took the opposite lesson from that. They took the lesson that they should reduce dependence on China, that they should seek to diversify against it because they don't want to have that weapon of coercion wielded against them in the form of trade. And so China, the reason why they're stepping back from this economic coercion campaign is, yes, there has been a change of government and that provides them with a plausible off ramp. But fundamentally, they've changed their approach because it didn't work and it was important that they backed away from that and that's why they're doing so.
GILBERT: The framework that the Prime Minister and the government uses where they say we will cooperate, where we can disagree, where we must. Is that a long term frame? Do you think that the Government can use, that Australia can use in terms of relations with Beijing?
PATERSON: Broadly. I think that's a sensible framing and a sensible approach to this issue. But we have to make sure that the Albanese government lives up to it, in particular in relation to the “disagree where we must.” I mean, remember in Opposition, when Penny Wong was Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, she called on the Australian Government to use the autonomous sanctions regime against officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. Now, in government, she has not yet done so. The Foreign Minister has been highly critical of the agreements between Australian universities and their counterparts in China over Confucius Institutes. She said that she would not approve any new agreements under that if that proposed, using the foreign arrangements powers that she has as Foreign Minister. And yet she's allowed the 11 existing agreements with current Confucius Institutes at Australian universities to continue. They can't both be not in Australia's interest to have any more of them, but in Australia's interest to keep the ones that we already have. And so what I'd like to see from the government is upholding consistently that philosophy which they've sketched out in particular in relation to disagree where we must And we cannot forget for a second the depravation of the human rights of an Australian citizen, Yang Henjung in China, who has been unjustly and arbitrarily detained and should be released.
GILBERT: With something else you touched on earlier, the Port of Darwin and the lease to a Chinese company. The Prime Minister did act on his concerns, had a review by the Prime Minister and Department, his Prime Minister and Cabinet department, which basically found that there is a robust regulatory system in place to manage any risks to critical infrastructure, and that its advice was that there be no change, no move to cancel the lease in place for the Port of Darwin. Given that was the official advice handed to him, isn't he right to maintain the status quo?
PATERSON: Well, Kieran, I haven't seen that advice, but I would be very surprised if it said that there is no risk from the Port of Darwin lease. And I would be very surprised if it didn't say that cancelling the lease would ensure we could remove that risk altogether, but
that there are other means of mitigating that risk short of cancelling the lease. But what we have to do is look back to what Anthony Albanese said when he was in Opposition. He described that lease as a grave mistake. Now I actually agree with him, I think it never should have happened. I think it was wrong that the Northern Territory Government allowed that lease to proceed and I think it was unfortunate that the powers that the Federal Government had at the time did not allow it to block it. But we significantly changed the law under the Morrison government. So any new agreement proposed like that today, the federal government could easily veto. But if it was a grave mistake when he's in Opposition, it's hard to see what has changed in the last few years, which means that it's not a grave mistake now. And so he's obviously made a calculation based on all the information available to him that it should continue. But let's not pretend that isn't a concession. The Chinese Ambassador to Australia in the weeks leading up to the Prime Minister's announcement on that decision, said that the failure to resolve that issue, the uncertainty around that issue, was a key obstacle in the relationship between Australia and China. And lo and behold, a number of weeks later that obstacle was removed.
GILBERT: Senator Paterson, There's about $20 billion worth of tariffs that have been removed from our exports to China. If everything is cleared up on that front, should Australia support China's bid to become part of that comprehensive Trans-Pacific Partnership, the regional trade agreement?
PATERSON: No, we shouldn't. And I would be very concerned if the government moved on that issue. There was a report in the South China Morning Post a couple of weeks ago suggesting that that would happen. The government has been out busily briefing the media in the lead up to this trip, that that is not on the table, that we will not reverse our position on that, we will not support China's accession to the CPTPP. But frankly, I'll be much more comforted when I hear the Prime Minister say that himself. And it would be even better if he did so while he was there in China, to make very clear that this is one of the highest standards agreements in the world, and it would be absurd if Australia of all countries were to support the admission of a new member, which until recently had been responsible for $20 billion of unlawful and unjustified sanctions against a country with which it has a bilateral free trade agreement. Countries with a track record on trade like that should not be part of a high standards agreement like the CPTPP.
GILBERT: Let's move to the Middle East now, the focus to the Middle East and this catastrophe that continues. Josh Burns, a Labor MP and member of the Jewish community, has written at the weekend that he does not support the idea of a humanitarian pause in that conflict. What's your view of the discussion around such a pause as has been endorsed, at least in part by the Biden administration?
PATERSON: I do understand, Kieren, why people are calling for a ceasefire. The images coming out of Gaza are horrific, and the civilian casualties we're seeing on the Palestinian side are utterly tragic. But I agree with Josh Burns. I do not think that a cease fire or humanitarian pause for any extended period of time would achieve the objective of those people who are calling for it. The truth is that while ever there are more than 200 hostages, Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, then this war will continue and this war can not end. And while Hamas remains in charge of the Palestinian people in Gaza, then this war will also continue because they can never be safe and Israel can never be safe while Hamas continues to use those almost 2 million innocent civilians as human shields and as hostages against Israel. The reality is Hamas is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East and I absolutely understand what Israel, as a sovereign nation who suffered the greatest loss of Jewish life since the end of the Holocaust only a month ago, is going to continue to persist until that threat is removed, as they should.
GILBERT: Some claims of war crimes against Israel, but as you pointed out there, the terrorist group in control and the group that's runs Gaza, that being Hamas, have been using civilians as human shields. So how even with the IDF, the Israeli Defence Force, seeking to avoid civilian casualties, if Hamas is using their own people for that purpose, how can Israel avoid that international weight of opinion and scrutiny that's coming and as you say, in large part because of the actions of the terrorist group.
PATERSON: Well, it is important, Kieran, that Israel and the IDF as a liberal democracy does everything it can to minimise civilian casualties, no one wants to see any civilian casualties. But in war, unfortunately, it is a reality and they are being exacerbated and they're far greater than they would otherwise be because of Hamas's deliberate strategy of locating itself in civilian areas, including in refugee camps, or building its network of tunnels underneath hospitals and schools and mosques, of storing its munitions and other assets in civilian areas. Because they know that that makes it harder for the IDF to target them. And they know that if the IDF does target them and there are civilian casualties as a result of that, then that will be a powerful propaganda tool that they can wield against Israel in the court of international public opinion. And they do so ruthlessly and mercilessly. The war crime here which has been committed is by Hamas, which is using innocent civilians, Palestinian civilians, as its human shields, as its hostages against Israel and the IDF, as well as the many obvious crimes against humanity that were committed when they first launched their attack into Israel a couple of weeks ago. They are the ones who must be held responsible for their crimes, and I'm sure that they will be.
GILBERT: I know just finally, you were overseas during the week You attended the conference, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. What was the key take out for you? Did it shed any light, the discussions you had in the U.K. as to where the Liberal Party needs to head?
PATERSON: The key take out of the conference was that the West is a civilisational moment. We have a crisis of self-belief, and it's particularly evident in young people, and often for honestly, quite good reasons. Young people feel that the economic system, which is delivered such unparalleled wealth and opportunity for citizens of the West in many recent years, has left them out of it, that they are not included, that they don't benefit from it. And we have a crisis of intergenerational despair when it comes to housing affordability and home ownership. We have in this country more than two thirds of young people who believe that they will never be able to own a home and it's a particularly important mission for classical liberals and conservatives to solve that problem. Because if you're a young person who has no hope to get your first foot on the economic ladder, then why would you want to uphold the system as it is? Why would you see the status quo as worthy? So I really think we have a critical task on our hands. There's a range of problems that we need to tackle in our culture, in our society, in our politics. But fundamentally, this is an economic question. And until we grapple with that as centre right political parties, then I think we're going to continue to have this challenge on our hands.
GILBERT: Senator James Paterson, appreciate your time.
PATERSON: Thank you Kieran.
ENDS
