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July 20, 2023
Thursday 20 July 2023
Interview with Sharri Markson, Sky News Australia
Subjects: Biden administration bans funding for Wuhan Institute of Virology, TikTok, Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media
SHARRI MARKSON: Joining me now to discuss this and other topics is James Paterson, Liberal senator and Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security. Great to see you, James. Is this a significant move for the Biden administration to be saying that the Wuhan Institute of Virology poses a public health risk?
SENATOR PATERSON: Well, thank you for having me Sharri. And yes, it is a significant move. As you've reported and others have as well the Biden administration commissioned the intelligence community about a year ago to do a review of the best evidence available about the origins of the pandemic. And as a result of that review, the intelligence community in the United States came back as split. There are agencies in the intelligence community who believe it was natural in origin, and there are others who believe that a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the most likely source. Now, that is today still an unresolved scientific question, and no one has produced convincing evidence of one or the other, although certainly there are advocates on both sides who say it is one or the other. But the Biden administration's recent decision to ban funding for this institute suggests that they think that is still a very plausible theory and that could have been the source of the leak. There's really no other reason why they would make a decision and cite lab safety if they didn't believe that that theory still had credibility. And so this is a very important question that we do need to get to the bottom of. And it would be very helpful if the Chinese government would be more transparent and provide better access to that facility and to the data set that it holds so that the world can understand whether indeed it was this research that has caused this leak or whether indeed it was innocent and natural.
MARKSON: It's not actually clear if any world leaders are even asking Xi Jinping or any Chinese authority to produce this data. We still don't have the database from the Wuhan Institute of Virology that contained some 22,000 viruses, or the details of those viruses. Do you think this is a question that world leaders should be asking of China?
PATERSON: It would seem strange to me Sharri that we wouldn't continue to be interested in the origins of this, because unfortunately, it's likely that there will be more pandemics in the future. And whether or not this was natural in origin or a lab accident is consequential in determining the kind of mitigations we should take to reduce the risk of those kind of pandemics breaking out in the future. There are different policy responses that you would make depending on what the actual origin was. And as we all know, this has had profound consequences on the lives of millions, if not billions of people. It has cost many lives, it has impacted severely others in relation to the public health measures that had to be taken in response. And of course, the enormous economic costs that the world has borne from this. So the lack of curiosity into getting to the bottom of this question is a concern.
MARKSON: One of the things that you've been asking officials in the Senate inquiry that you run relating to foreign interference through social media apps is about TikTok. Now there's a new report from the British foreign policy group that shows only 15% of Britons think TikTok should be allowed to continue to operate in the UK. I think that most Australians support TikTok, most businesses are on it, a lot of politicians are on it. Do you think overall it is safe for regular Australians to be on TikTok or do you think the fact that its headquarters in China are collecting personal data on individual users means that we shouldn't have this app at all?
PATERSON: I think a lot of Australians are still not familiar with the national security risks of a platform like TikTok. They're not aware of the personal risks that they bear, the data security risks and also the collective risk that we're all exposed to by having a platform with 6 to 7 million users have access to so many Australians who are increasingly, particularly young Australians, relying on it for news advice. An interesting podcast this week between Malcolm Turnbull and Justin Bassi, the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, reflected on this. And Malcolm Turnbull used the analogy that it would be like allowing the Soviet Union to purchase a television licence during the Cold War. You would never allow that in those circumstances, so why should we allow this? I think that's a very good question. I think TikTok still has a lot of questions to answer, including to my committee. I'm looking forward to those answers so that we can make some policy recommendations about how to fix this problem and protect Australians.
MARKSON: Look, that's such an interesting point you raised about the podcast. I didn't think I would have any reason to listen to Malcolm Turnbull's podcast, but now I'm going to have to go and listen to those comments because Justin Bassi, who used to be Marise Payne, the foreign minister’s chief of staff, and is now the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, well he's a very smart guy and it sounds like he's making some good points there. James Paterson, thank you very much for joining me tonight.
