George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I can. I might say that the reports in this morning's Fairfax papers are extremely serious. This morning Fairfax reported that:

… Sam Dastyari warned Chinese Communist Party-linked political donor Huang Xiangmo last year that his phone was likely tapped by government agencies … Mr Dastyari gave Mr Huang counter-surveillance advice, saying they should leave their phones inside and go outside to speak.

On 1 September last year, I stood in this place and called upon Senator Dastyari to answer 47 specific questions about the payment of his personal debts by his foreign benefactor. His response to those questions was so woefully inadequate that the opposition leader was left with no option but to demote him to the backbench. Today there are even more questions to be answered, and they are even more serious.

As I said this morning, if the allegations reported in Fairfax papers are true, then Senator Dastyari has serious questions to answer about the extent to which he is under the influence of foreign interests. Why would an Australian senator warn a foreign national, who has been reported as being of security interest, to conduct a clandestine conversation out of fear that they may be being listened to by Australia's security services? Why would an Australian senator wilfully engage in activity aimed at impeding a suspected national security investigation? If Senator Dastyari cannot satisfactorily explain these matters then his position has become untenable.