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April 30, 2025
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CHRIS KENNY:
Let's delve further into some of these concerning issues about campaigning in this country at the moment with the Shadow Home Affairs Minister and the Coalition's Campaign Spokesman, James Paterson. Thanks for joining us, Senator. First up, let's talk about Chinese interference. We've had this case of volunteers in Kooyong volunteering the fact that they've come to support Monique Ryan because of a request from the Hubei Association. And we've heard your counterpart now, the Home Affairs minister, Clare O'Neil, saying that her campaign was offered support from the same organisation. This is being investigated now by federal authorities. Are there concerns that this involvement of the Hubei association could be more broadly spread throughout the campaign?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, Chris, it was bad enough already when we had Monique Ryan's campaign embroiled in this. It is even more serious that we now have a Labor campaign and also, according to reporting in The Australian newspaper, a Greens campaign involved as well. It's especially surprising that Clare O'Neil has found herself caught up in this because, as the former Minister for Home Affairs, no one in the Federal Parliament should better understand the risks of foreign interference than her. No one would have been briefed more often and in a more detailed way than her - she was previously responsible for ASIO. And so for her campaign to be caught up in this is especially troubling. It is a good thing that the AEC has taken this up, and that it will be considered for investigation by the Electoral Integrity Assurance Task Force. But I have to say I'm quite disappointed that when asked on breakfast TV this morning, Clare O'Neil was not able to say that she would refer it herself for investigation to that task force. Even Monique Ryan recognised it should be referred for investigation. For Clare O'Neil to fail to refer herself is a very concerning thing and a disappointing thing.
CHRIS KENNY:
Are you confident there's been no such offer or involvement in any Coalition campaigns?
JAMES PATERSON:
I'm not aware of any offers or involvement in any Coalition campaign. And if that were the case, I would hope that they would have rejected any of those offers as well. But I'm not aware of any.
CHRIS KENNY:
If the allegations though at this stage focus on support for Teal, Labor and Greens campaigns, does that tell us that Beijing wants Anthony Albanese to be re-elected?
JAMES PATERSON:
I'll be very cautious responding to that, Chris, for reasons that I think you'll understand. But what I can say more broadly and without getting into these specific examples, if you were a foreign authoritarian government and you wanted to weaken or destabilise Australia, you would probably prefer that there be a hung parliament, that no party have a majority. In fact, there was leaked intelligence out of Canada before, not this election but their previous election, that one of the objectives of the Chinese Communist Party in Canada was to have a weak government, and they thought that would be best achieved by a parliament without any majority government. So I certainly think in an uncertain and dangerous world, a strong majority government is much preferable to a hung parliament. And obviously I would say I particularly wouldn't want to see an Albanese government re-elected in minority with the Teals and the Greens because they do have dangerous views when it comes to national security and defence. They've attacked AUKUS as just one example.
CHRIS KENNY:
Well we've got to await the investigations, but we've also got to be frank about this and the concerns about foreign interference have been around for a long time, both major parties have focused on those and recognised those and co-operated on laws combating foreign interference so we'll await the investigation, but it's highly concerning during this campaign. I want to go to another aspect of the campaign trail that I highlighted yesterday and that's the Labor MP for Parramatta, Andrew Charlton, questioning the religion of people to see whether they're members, these are liberal volunteers, to see whether they are members of the Exclusive Brethren. Here's what he had to say.
[START CLIP]
VOLUNTEER:
What are you going to do for us, Andrew?
ANDREW CHARLTON:
Are you a member of the Exclusive Brethren?
VOLUNTEER:
What are you going to do for us today, Andrew?
ANDREW CHARLTON:
Are you?
VOLUNTEER:
And what does religion have to do with volunteering?
ANDREW CHARLTON:
Are you going to answer my question?
VOLUNTEER:
Are you going to answer mine?
ANDREW CHARLTON:
Okay, I'll take that as a no. See you later.
[END CLIP]
CHRIS KENNY:
Now James Paterson, there are members of this religion volunteering for Liberal candidates, maybe other candidates as well, I don't know, but is it appropriate for MPs to be going around asking people about their religious affiliations?
JAMES PATERSON:
Chris, I thought your editorial on this last night was very powerful and I'd ask anyone watching that to imagine if a federal member of Parliament took out their phone to film or take a photo of any other volunteer and asked that volunteer instead of being a member of the Exclusive Brethren instead said, are you a Jew? Are you a Muslim? Are you Sikh? Are you Hindu? That would be rightly, widely, overwhelmingly condemned by everybody who saw it. But apparently it's okay, at least in the Labor party's view, for Andrew Charlton to behave in this way. I think it is an outrageous thing for a federal member of Parliament to do. We have no state religion in Australia. There is no bar for public office of people of any religious belief and whether you are not religious, as I am not, or whether you have any other sort of religious faith you're very welcome to participate in public life in Australia. And you're welcome in the Liberal party too if you share the values of the Liberal party, particularly a commitment to religious freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of belief. So it was a disgraceful behaviour from Andrew Charlton. He should be embarrassed by it, and his Prime Minister should condemn him for it.
CHRIS KENNY:
Thanks for joining us again, Senator. I appreciate it.
JAMES PATERSON:
Thanks, Chris.
ENDS