MARK DREYFUS MP

Member for Isaacs

ABC RN Breakfast Cathy Van Extel 13 September 2019

13 September 2019

SUBJECTS: Gladys Liu, National integrity commission.

THE HON MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

MEMBER FOR ISAACS



E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST
FRIDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER, 2019

SUBJECTS: Gladys Liu, National integrity commission.

CATHY VAN EXTEL: The Member for Isaacs that the Prime Minister was referring to is the Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Mark Dreyfus, welcome back to Breakfast.

MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY GENERAL: Thank you very much for having me Cathy.

VAN EXTEL: Now you heard the PM there, is Labor casting a smear on Chinese Australians across the board?

DREYFUS: What a ridiculous assertion. Attacking the questioner with a concern he that is putting across the whole Chinese-Australian community. Lets be clear about this Cathy, the only person linking these serious concerns to the whole Chinese-Australian community is Scott Morrison.

VAN EXTEL: There are people who do share some of these concerns. The former Labor Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has been critical of the media coverage surrounding Gladys Liu, he says that fears about foreign influence is actually preventing Chinese-Australians from reaching leadership positions. Hes got a point there doesn't he? That there is a hyper-anxiety about Chinese influence?

DREYFUS: Perhaps Gareth Evans hasn't noticed that the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, the Labor Leader in the Senate, is Senator Penny Wong. Lets be again clear, the only person who is making this about the whole Chinese-Australian community is Scott Morrison. It's not Labor. Our focus, resolutely, is on a recently elected Liberal Member of Parliament.

VAN EXTEL: Labor wants an assurance Gladys Liu is a fit and proper person to remain a member of the Australian Parliament. Can you explain exactly what you want and what will satisfy that test?

DREYFUS: Every day this scandal deepens. There are more revelations. The PM can stop this, and he should stop this, by coming into the Parliament and making an explanation and so too should the recently elected member for Chisholm, Gladys Liu, come into the Parliament and make an explanation.

The allegation that has been raised by the media, for example, is that Mr Morrison was told by agencies not to pre-select Gladys Liu and with that allegation comes an allegation that hes put his party interest in winning a marginal seat ahead of the national interest.

As to Ms Liu, she hasn't cleared up what organisations she belonged to, what she did with those organisations, if she resigned from those organisations, when she resigned. And we know that many people in the Liberal Party are concerned about this because her pre-selection application has been leaked and that's what the ABC has published today.

VAN EXTEL: Well lets pick up your concerns around the Prime Minister there. Yesterday he refused to answer your question in Question Time about whether he received any advice about Gladys Liu from government agencies, either before or since the May 18 election. You're effectively accusing the Government of ignoring advice from security agencies aren't you? It's a pretty serious allegation. Do you have any other evidence for that?

DREYFUS: I'm referring to allegations that have been made and when such allegations are made the national interest requires the Prime Minister to come into the Parliament and clear these matters up. There's other allegations that Scott Morrison's predecessor was told by government agencies not to attend a fundraiser with Gladys Liu because of persons she had invited. So there's a whole lot of swirling allegations, none of which have been answered by the Prime Minister.

VAN EXTEL: Although, speaking in The Guardian newspaper the former President of the Victorian Liberal Party, Michael Kroger, has rejected suggestions the party was warned by security agencies that it would be unwise for Gladys Liu to run for Parliament. He says that no one ever raised security concerns with him. He oversaw the pres-election process. Why doesn't that satisfy you?

DREYFUS: Hes a party official. I'm interested in what the Prime Minister of Australia was told. I'm interested in whether he has put his party interest ahead of the national interest. Now that these allegations have been raised in the media and are being pursued in the Parliament by, not just Labor Parliamentarians but by crossbench Parliamentarians in the House and the Senate, the Prime Ministers duty is to come into the Parliament and provide answers to clear this up. Because otherwise there will be hanging these allegations. They're serious allegations and it's not a very complex matter that is being asked of him.

He thinks that he can simply hurl an allegation of racism, a false, a disgraceful allegation of racism at Labor Members of Parliament. It's only he who is linking this matter to the whole Chinese-Australian community. He shouldn't do it. That's what Gareth Evans, I take, to be saying. Mr Morrison should be doing his duty to the community, to the nation and the Parliament by coming in and explaining whats happened here.

VAN EXTEL: Just picking up on, I guess, the issue of national security briefings or concerns, clearly the Prime Minister is in a difficult situation. He indicates that Labor should be aware, but hes not in a position to reveal those. Whats the solution here?

DREYFUS: He should find a solution. He should find a way to at least deal with the factual allegations that have been made. There are quite a number of them and that requires him to make a statement to the Parliament and it requires the Member for Chisholm, Gladys Liu, to make a statement to the Parliament. That's whats not happening. Instead we've had a hysterical rant, almost losing his temper yesterday the Prime Minister, thinking that by bluster and hurling allegations at those who are raising perfectly reasonable questions in the Australian Parliament will be enough. Hiding behind this suggestion of a smear on all Chinese-Australians which is a false suggestion. It is only he that is linking these matters to the whole Chinese-Australian community.

VAN EXTEL: The Prime Minister also said yesterday that Labor's intent here is to infer against Gladys Liu disloyalty to the country and that shed been some way involved or subject to some investigation. Is that what you inferring, that she has been disloyal to Australia?

DREYFUS: This blew up after Ms Liu gave a train wreck of an interview.

VAN EXTEL: The Prime Minister says we need to forgive her. Shes a new Parliamentarian, shes not the first and shes certainly not the last to give a train wreck interview.

DREYFUS: More from Scott Morrison of nothing to see here. In that interview she refused to back the bipartisan position in relation to China's activity in the South China Sea. When an Australian Senator, a Labor Senator, refused to back the bipartisan position on China's activity in the South China Sea, which is that they breached international law, this same Scott Morrison accused that Labor Senator of betraying his country.

VAN EXTEL: The point has been made by many, including the Prime Minister, Mark Dreyfus that Gladys Liu, unlike Sam Dastyari, didn't accept money for personal expenses, nor advocated a change of the Governments position on the South China Sea. They're different cases.

DREYFUS: No, that wasn't the initial attack that Scott Morrison made on Senator Dastyari. The attack that he made was that because he wouldn't back the bipartisan condemnation of China's actions in the South China Sea, that Senator Dastyari was betraying his country, betraying every patriotic Australian in this country. He called him Shanghai Sam.

Now this same Scott Morrison who is now Prime Minister of Australia should be applying the same test to his newly elected backbencher Gladys Liu and he's not doing that.

VAN EXTEL: So to apply the same test then to Labor Leader Anthony Albanese, New South Wales Labor is in a diabolical situation following what the states anti-corruption body has uncovered about illegal donations from a Chinese donor. Are you in a position to lecture the Liberal Party over corruption and interference allegations?

DREYFUS: There have been a whole range of allegations made about donations to the Labor Party, donations to the Liberal Party, but here there are quite specific allegations about membership, by Ms Liu, of this is nothing to do with donations of organisations that are part of overseas propaganda operations of the Chinese Communist Party.

These same organisations she didn't disclose to the Liberal Party when she was applying for pre-selection even though she seems to have managed to list 17 other organisations. This has got nothing to do with the donations and if she has failed to disclose donations - which are other allegations that have been raised this morning in the Herald Sun in Melbourne, that's a further matter that she needs to clear up - but simply saying that there have been allegations made about donations to the Labor Party or allegations made about donations to the Liberal Party, in recent years that doesn't deal with the current matter. Lets be clear about what the issue is here.

VAN EXTEL: Are you concerned about a linkage between the issue around her associations and the fundraising activities?

DREYFUS: Well we don't know because Gladys Liu has declined to come into the Parliament and make a statement about any of these matters. We have had no answers to the questions that have been raised in the media. Not from Gladys Liu and not from Scott Morrison who is failing to do his duty to Australia in relation to this matter. He is failing what the national interest requires, which is to clear these matters up.

VAN EXTEL: This week The Greens won a vote in the Senate to establish a federal anti-corruption body with the support of your party. How would a federal ICAC investigate cases of possible foreign interference?

DREYFUS: It depends on the model of national integrity commission that you are going to adopt.

VAN EXTEL: Should it have the power?

DREYFUS: It should certainly have the power to investigate any allegations of wrongdoing, serious misconduct, illegal conduct, corrupt conduct. And one of the questions that's going to be examined - when, if ever, the Government brings some legislation to the Parliament to establish a national integrity commission, as they promised to do last December - when it comes to the Parliament one of the questions is going to be the scope of matters which can be investigated and enquired into by the commission. We will be arguing that it should be a very broad scope indeed.

VAN EXTEL: Do you believe that all Federal MPs, and perhaps all candidates going into elections, should be vetted by our security agencies?

DREYFUS: There are always important matters for the security agencies to look at. Whether or not it's necessary to do that kind of vetting of every single candidate - there is often many, many thousands of people stand for election to the Australian Parliament - I don't know that that's looking at it from the right end.

What the security agencies need to be doing and are doing they are very actively engaged in this and Duncan Lewis, the retiring Director-General of ASIO has made clear it's the number one priority for his organisation - is looking at foreign interference activities in this country.

So I'm not sure that vetting of every single candidate is the right approach. Certainly we need to have active investigation of foreign interference in this country and that's whats occurring right now. That's what ASIO is engaged in, assisted by other agencies.

VAN EXTEL: Mark Dreyfus thank you for your time today.

DREYFUS: Thanks very much Cathy.

ENDS