Barnaby Joyce (New England, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

This obviously is important because we're dealing with the lapse of legislation if it doesn't pass. We're also strengthening powers of investigation for malfeasance that warrants investigation. It's pertinent at the moment because we live in a dynamic environment, which is changing to our detriment. We have in the world at the moment the rise of totalitarianism and there is most definitely an overt form of intrusion into Australia's operation of its government.

We have, even in this building, had issues pertinent to people with interests working, whether they realise it or not, on behalf of other governments, and I also have had reason to question the motivations of policy directions at certain times. I'll go back to the time of changes to the Foreign Investment Review Board that surrounded the sale of Cubbie Station. I made it a distinct purpose to tighten restrictions, especially those pertinent to state-owned enterprises. I remember reading in the Chinese English newspapers that I was noted as 'Ban-a-Buy' Joyce because of my role to try and tighten up foreign investment by state owned enterprises in our nation. I was derided as a bigot, a racist, a redneck and a xenophobe. Now I'm just correct because the state owned enterprises were doing precisely that. Chinese state owned enterprises were doing precisely that to get a foothold in Australia. People have to understand that the Chinese government sees things in their national interest as not being defined by their borders. If they have a financial interest, that's a national interest.

I go to one that is of great concern recently—not so much because of its significance but because of the discussion and the rhetoric that surrounds it. It is the Port of Darwin. The Prime Minister of Australia, whilst in Dili at a press conference, made it clear that Australia was going to reacquire or take back the Port of Darwin. It is owned by Landbridge. That's a Chinese state owned enterprise. It was an incredibly foolish thing that we lost control of it. Ambassador Xiao Qian almost immediately came out in Canberra and said, 'No, you won't be taking that back.' It was as direct as that. To this point, I haven't seen any discussion in the chamber or a statement from the Minister for Foreign Affairs as to how they're going to reconcile those two completely different positions. This is in live time. This is happening right now, and it isn't so much a secret. It is playing out right in front of people's faces.

We in this nation have a great reason to try and become as strong as possible as quickly as possible, and I've been saying that for a very long time. Ultimately, strength is the only thing that is going to keep you safe, and in Australia we've almost been on a working plan to make ourselves weak. We've done it with everything from energy policy to our loss of manufacturing to a fascination on policy that we can't possibly change such as climate policy, and all the time we have been becoming comparatively weaker and less able to deal with the substantial change in circumstance that is around us.

We've also have to realise that President Xi Jinping has said that they will take Taiwan by 2027. We are in 2026. We either believe that he's having a joke with us or it's rhetoric or that he's serious. I'm of the view that he's serious. In doing that, there will be a diligent process of organisation to iron out any possible problems that we might be part of for their purpose, which means there is a heightened reason for them to be right on the balls of their feet, trying to insert themselves in a way that gets people on side even if they're not even aware they're on side—but, you know, friendly fools—and also using things such as AI to its umpteenth degree to make sure that they have the appropriate code in the appropriate areas that can create mass disruption if required at the appropriate time. There is also just straight out observation, whether it's cartography or oceanography, to work out all the dynamics so that, if it's really required, they can bring devastating force upon our nation.

Is that rhetoric? No, it's not. We have seen the flotilla that went to the Tasman Sea adjacent to Sydney and practised live fire exercises. The issue there is that we didn't know about it. That was one of the most sophisticated ships in the Chinese navy. What is the purpose of being there? Well, there are two. One is to give a very unsubtle message to Australia to be careful, and the other one is to practice just in case they need to do it. And of course they're practising why? They're practising because they're near Sydney. It's as simple as that. At the same time, a so-called 'research vessel' was making its way through Bass Strait, no doubt getting all the forms of the oceanography that are required so they have complete understanding of that section of Australia. Why? Because Melbourne's there. So that's Sydney and Melbourne.

Now, it's so terrifying that people just want to switch off and say, 'It's not happening,' but it is, and that's the issue. If they're willing to put the tens of millions of dollars just into those excursions before you even look at the platforms they used then they're also willing to put the money into working out how they can have eyes and ears inside this building, how they can have useful fools, how they can create the mechanism for financial gain in such a form as you feel beholden to them. That is also absolutely the point. We have seen, no doubt, people who have been members of parliament and their next job is for Chinese company, for a Chinese state-owned enterprise. The question has to be raised: When did those discussions for that job after politics start? Was it whilst you were in politics? And if it was whilst you were in politics, what were those discussions? Where did you have them? What was the skill set that you were really offering that company that they'd want you to work for—I don't know—Landbridge?

Obviously this says that ASIO has to be the absolute essence of patriotism, the absolute essence of guile, the absolute essence of cunning to match up to the threat that is ever-present right now. Then we have, I believe, decided in our foolishness to create a form of Australia where we don't have cultural control because we've believed in this euphemistic idea of multiculturalism when we should be concentrating on Australian culture, creating guardrails.

The tragic representation of the balkanisation and the discord from a clash of cultural views of the world was Bondi. Why do I say that? Because the murderers at Bondi believed that they were doing something that was appropriate. They didn't know the people. There was no heat in it. It was cold, clinical, calculated and driven by their cultural belief. If there was an overarching form of guardrails of Australian culture—and that is not saying that is determined by creed, by colour, by race; it's just that there has to be those guardrails there—then there would be no motivation for a person to go out and kill other Australians in broad daylight.

My concern is that they're not the only two people in Australia who think like that. My concern is that there is a whole range of people now in Australia who think like that. We saw, even after these so-called hate laws—which were censorship laws because they haven't addressed the problem—a demonstration in Sydney which explicitly reaffirmed the tenor of views that were the seed stock for the Bondi massacre. And it happened on television; we were watching it. There's been no seismic change in this continual process of believing that there is a higher purpose than an attachment to the Australian culture. In a metaphorical state, there is no clearer indication than what we observed in that demonstration the other night. There was not one Australian flag there. There were Palestinian flags. There were sort of quasi-fundamentalist flags, where they do the appropriate changes so they can't be held. But, you know, it is a sign. It is a metaphor for what they want to portray. It was organised. It had the capacity to co-ordinate people to arrive. Obviously, the questions now are: How is that happening? What is that organisational structure? And people say, 'Well, you know, they might be all well-meaning.' No. Within that structure there's a very good chance there's a malevolent force that has the capacity to create discord. That is ultimately what happens to Australia—you get a mechanism of discord, and the driving of it mightn't be as obvious as you'd think. It mightn't be people who really have their heart set on what is happening in Gaza or Palestine or Israel. What their heart might actually be set on is creating disturbance—that's what they want. They want disturbance, they want discord, they want disruption and they want panic, because that makes us, as a nation, weaker.

There's another thing that we should be very aware of. At the appropriate times and the appropriate venues—and we've seen it out the front of this building—the Chinese government have the capacity to organise quite a substantial number of people to turn up and either praise or demonstrate. How does that happen? How do they do it? What chat group are they on? Who's organising it?

These are right in front of us now, so we need to have ASIO, ASIS and the Australian Signals Directorate working within government on a regular basis at the highest levels. The National Security Committee must have these bodies at the table, and these bodies must be courageous enough not to tell you what you probably read in the Australian that morning but to get to the substance of the issues that need to be pursued.

I don't doubt for one second the patriotism of the Prime Minister or anything like that. Dismiss any idea that I have such an inclination—I don't. But we have to understand that, given where we are right now, in the western Pacific, and noting what is happening in real time around Australia and within Australia, the circumstances that we find ourselves in are entirely different to what they would have been 20 years ago or 30 years ago, and the technology and capacity that is here now is multiple times more complicated and more destructive than what we would have had 20, 30 or 40 years ago. This is way beyond Cold War clumsiness, the Petrov affair and Kim Philby—that's all interesting reading. This is sleeping code, whether it's in the banking sector or whether it's in critical infrastructure, which has a 24/7 process of observation. For this purpose I support the bill, but I say: it's really just a forerunner of the far greater work that we need to do.

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