Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) | Hansard source

I commend the member for McPherson for moving this motion and thank her for her outstanding leadership when she was home affairs minister. She was keenly aware of the issues outlined in this motion. We all, I think, vehemently agree that foreign interference poses a unique risk to this country. Increasingly, we're seeing when we read international media that it's perhaps not as unique as we would think. A number of Western liberal democracies are grappling with many of the issues that we're discussing today, and democracies are ripe for the kinds of conduct that have been outlined here, in respect of the Hun Sen regime in Cambodia. There are a number of them.

There is one thing that on this side of the parliament we're very proud of: the world-leading way in which we have addressed foreign interference. It's an issue where—a bit like tax evasion—you can never roll out the 'mission accomplished' sign. You can never say: 'Job done. We've got all the laws and all the enforcement in place to ensure that we aren't vulnerable to foreign interference.' The reality is it's an emerging risk. Threats emerge, and with them the government has to remain, firstly, steadfast in its determination to protect our sovereignty and, secondly, nimble enough to put in place the laws and the enforcement arrangements required to make sure that we can stamp out any attempts at foreign interference before they even get to being practical interference.

In touching on the recent revelations with respect to foreign interference allegedly emanating from Cambodia, I think that all of us from a migrant background, including me, are affronted. Indeed, all Australians are affronted, but those of us from a migrant background are particularly affronted, because those migrants who come to Australia come here to become Australian and to leave behind the animosities, the difficulties, the challenges and the rivalries—and the blood feuds, in many cases. That's the point and the reason they come here. That's the condition upon which we accept them as Australian citizens or permanent residents—that they leave those behind and that, in the end, as with all of us who attend citizenship ceremonies, their allegiance ultimately is to this country. So the allegations in particular that the Hun Sen regime has sought either to incentivise some individuals to do their bidding or—just as bad, and more dangerous for individuals—to punish people who are prominent in the Australian Cambodian community for not toeing the line, so to speak, I think should offend every single one of us.

My purpose in speaking today is obviously to support this very worthy motion to request—and I'm confident, but request—that the government is doing absolutely everything necessary to make sure that not just Cambodian Australians but Australians from all walks of life and all ethnicities and backgrounds do not have any nervousness or any threat hanging over them as to the way they express themselves politically in this country on matters that often relate to their country of birth or origin. We are an open liberal democracy, and people are entitled to form whatever views they want on global politics and to express them in a free way in this country. We cannot, under any circumstances, tolerate an environment where Australian Cambodians, in this instance, are fearful for their free political expression. I'm confident and hopeful that the government will do absolutely everything necessary to make sure that, as these threats emerge, we keep stamping these threats out and stay one step ahead.

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