Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I would like to say that One Nation supports the motion that Australia's relations with the People's Republic of China be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and preparation of a report—a report into the club. We have a Liberal-Labor duopoly that is opposed to this motion—or was last week. Labor said, as I recall, that they are opposing this motion because they will get a private briefing. The government ruled that out, so what will Labor do now? Let's stand up and support an inquiry.

Then we see Labor prosecuting Gladys Liu over the Liu affair. Fair enough, I say. What about the donations? But there has been no reference to the substance of the material in this motion from the Labor-Liberal duopoly. Last week Senator Patrick's vote enabled the government to escape scrutiny over the Liu affair. I don't know Senator Patrick's reasons for that, but it raises questions. It is imperative that China and Australia maintain a mutually respectful and beneficial bilateral relationship, but it's imperative that that relationship is based solidly on mutual respect. Parliament needs to be held accountable with evidence and that can only come from intense scrutiny. As Senator Patrick and Senator Bernardi have said, there's nothing to be feared from such scrutiny. It can only lead to a strengthening of relationships or, certainly, a greater sense of accountability from both.

Let me give you some facts that I also gave last week. It needs to be put in context, because we commend Senator Patrick for promoting this motion. China is Australia's largest two-way trading partner, export market and import source, representing 24 per cent of total trade, with a value of $183 billion. Australia is China's sixth-largest trading partner and fifth-biggest supplier of imports. Twenty-five per cent—that's one-quarter—of Australia's manufactured imports come from China, and 13 per cent of Australia's exports include thermal coal to China. A free trade agreement was signed between the two countries in June 2015.

More recently, China has embarked on the One Belt, One Road initiative. This is a Chinese economic and strategic agenda where Eurasia, Africa and Oceania are more closely tied along two routes, one land and one maritime. On the one hand, those who support this initiative say that it facilitates the development of infrastructure and economic aid to needy economies. On the other hand, it can be said to facilitate Chinese economic and strategic domination of smaller countries on the two routes. For Australia, we see the growing Chinese involvement in projects from northern Australia to Tasmania, all providing little benefit to Australia yet with substantial benefits to China. Other examples of Chinese involvement have been in the funding and support of local academic conferences and seminars.

One of the ongoing issues of mutual concern relates to regional and global security. The growing tensions between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China in terms of the imposition of trade tariffs is placing Australia in a challenging position given the importance of Australia's relationships with both of these nations. Similarly, China's growing military influence in the South China Sea remains of concern, as we've already heard, to the United States of America, and that means necessarily to Australia as an established ally of America. Regionally, China is having a growing influence by funding infrastructure projects for some of the Pacific island countries and Papua New Guinea, and then we fork out tonnes of cash to try to compete. China runs the risk of changing the dynamic between Australia and our near neighbours. This needs to be understood.

Australia is a destination of choice for many Chinese students to further their education in an Australian academic institution. In 2018 there were more than 166,000 enrolments of Chinese students in Australia, representing 43.3 per cent of the total international cohort, not far under half. A concern noted in some Australian universities is the potential dependence generated by full-fee-paying international students and the overall money pool available to the university budget. One university—I think it's Monash, from memory—is concerned that on one of its campuses control of the student union could be taken over by Chinese students. Nonetheless, the concern is that, should those numbers suddenly diminish, some of the universities may be left destitute, and that will hurt Australians.

The unfettered Chinese development of five research bases within the Australian Antarctic Territory is of growing concern to many of us at a time when Australian investment in its three bases in that territory has been considered relatively conservative by comparison. Given the potential for military and strategic use of these bases by China and the potential for resource extraction at some future time, there is need to consider this factor when examining our relationships with China.

Australia is a favourite destination for Chinese tourists, and this is shown by recent numbers. More than 1.3 million Chinese tourists visited Australia last year, representing 15 per cent—that's one-seventh—of total visitors. That is a clear positive for our country. At the same time, there is a growing boom of tourists heading for China, which is welcoming tourists from around the world, including 700,000 of them from Australia.

Another issue is human rights. That's an issue where China and Australia have competing views. We must surely understand each other there; that's critical. Australia is a democracy and a signatory to many international agreements that preserve basic human rights. China, though, is a totalitarian republic following a communist regime that is very rigid, with very little room to question the state and limited rights for the individual. One only has to turn on the news and watch the demonstrations for freedom happening in Hong Kong to see how that goes down. Many Australians remember the events of Tiananmen Square. The detention of those whose views differ from those of the regime is a continuing disgrace and worthy of further review. Currently, Australian writer Yang Hengjun is being detained in China in harsh conditions and has been charged with spying. He has published works promoting democracy and seems to be now paying the penalty for having a different point of view. He has been denied access to his lawyers and family. I will quote from an article written by Arthur Moses in the Weekend Australian. He happens to be President of the Law Council of Australia. He says of Chinese Australian writer Yang Hengjun, an Australian citizen:

After travelling to China with his family, the democracy advocate and academic was detained in January on the allegation of being suspected of "endangering national security"—

an Australian held on suspicion.

Since then he has been held in harsh conditions without charge, with limited access to consular assistance. He has not been permitted to talk to his lawyers or see his family.

That's how they're treating an Australian citizen.

His lawyers do not know the particulars of the allegations against him …

Yet, as I said, Yang is an Australian citizen.

Being a true friend and ally—

and this is important—

of any nation means when issues arise in a foreign justice system affecting Australian citizens, we are obliged to speak up.

…   …   …

As a blogger, he has written thousands of articles promoting the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and built up a large following in China.

These go to the fundamentals on which our Constitution is based, the Magna Carta and subsequent documents. Important in that is the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven, but that's not the way China runs. Yang and detainees like him, as Moses says, must be treated humanely in a fair and transparent manner. This is what I was getting to. Near the end of his article, Mr Moses says:

But it is the rule of law that most strongly drives economic performance.

Our economic future and China's economic future depend upon the rule of law in China to a large extent. That is what we need to protect and that is why we need an inquiry into our relationship.

I will point out some other things that I raised last week. Andrew Hastie, a well-known Liberal MP from Western Australia, recently made some strong comments about the Chinese relationship and needing to hold China accountable. Labor senator Kimberly Kitching was on the record as co-sponsor of this motion from Senator Patrick, but it seems her name dropped off. That seems to be under Labor pressure. At the moment we see the New South Wales ICAC going through all kinds of hijinks while investigating Labor. There are questions there. And then we have questions over Liberal Party interactions with Chinese influencers, and that was before the latest Liu affair, which raises more questions.

Why hasn't the government taken more action to investigate these connections? Gladys Liu was known for raising huge amounts of cash for the Liberal Party, and now the people of Australia need to know what it would take for the Liberal Party to return any money she raised due to her links to the Chinese Communist Party. How bad does it have to get before the government asks direct questions about Ms Liu? People—not just journalists—are concerned about China and its influence over our politicians, over our politics, over our land, over our political system and over our essential services.

'Why was her name on a council letter?' people have asked. Why did she avoid answering simple questions? Will the Liberal Party investigate? Will it have an independent investigation? To what extent is Chinese influence controlled through donations to the Liberal Party and the Labor Party? What are her connections with the Chinese Communist Party? Is she a mouthpiece for them in this country? She couldn't recall if links of up to 12 years with two organisations connected with the Chinese Communist Party existed. This is pretty vague. She refused to state whether China's claims over the South China Sea are unlawful. These are just some notes that I wrote over a couple of days on the weekend: memory issues; vagueness; donations of a million dollars over many years, it seems in the paper; and a refusal to say that the Chinese dictatorship is in fact a dictatorship. And was she a member of various organisations connected with the Chinese Communist Party?

The Liberal Party won't investigate and the Labor Party runs from ICAC in New South Wales, but the people are focused on issues like landownership. Why is China allowed to buy so much land in this country, buy companies in this country and buy ports in this country? And, speaking of ports, about the port of Darwin: why did Andrew Robb, as Minister for Trade, walk straight out of the ministry and into an $880,000-a-year job with his Chinese masters? Clive Hamilton—and you rarely hear me quoting Clive Hamilton—has recently come out very strongly, exposing a number of questions about our Chinese relationship.

China is an important trading partner and it's of important military interest. It raises security questions about our parliament, about espionage and especially about human rights. It is a complex relationship, and I think Senator Patrick did a good job in explaining that. The government has three fundamental roles: protecting life, protecting property and protecting freedom. All three need to be considered in this relationship with China: protecting life—human rights; protecting property—our property in Australia; and protecting freedom from influence, quite likely in this building and in our political institutions at the state and federal levels.

One Nation supports the call for such an inquiry into the relationship into a nation exerting powerful influences on our nation, with the potential for far more powerful influence in our nation's future. We support this motion for the people of Australia and we look forward very much to seeing whether the Liberal Party and the Labor Party have the integrity and the courage to support this motion.