SUBJECT | China, Giles’ fundraising for Dan Andrews | 14 November 2022
KENNY HEATLEY: Joining me live now is shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan. Mr Tehan, thanks so much for your time. So we're in summit season at the moment. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had a meeting with Joe Biden. He also met briefly, which was described as a friendly and constructive interaction, with the Chinese Premier. But we're still left hanging to determine whether he's actually going to meet with President Xi.
DAN TEHAN: We are. And look, the meeting with Premier Li is obviously a very good first step, but the real test is whether we can see the economic coercion that's being used against Australia by China stopped, whether we can see China say to Australia, ‘you've taken us to the WTO when it comes to the sanctions we've put on you for barley and wine, we're going to drop those sanctions and end those WTO cases’. ‘We're going to stop the behaviour that we've been seeing in the South China Sea, and we are now going to act like good international citizens and obey the norms that all countries have used since the Second World War to bring economic prosperity to the Indo-Pacific’. They're all the key tests. Meetings for meeting’s sake are all very good. It's good that we're talking with China again, but the real test is whether we get the outcomes. And the end of that economic coercion, which continues for beef, continues for wine, continues for barley, continues for lobster, and continues in many other areas – forestry - that's the real test to see that ended.
HEATLEY: Labor is considering making it illegal for companies in Australia to pay ransom after cyber attacks. It's probably just to make it less attractive for hackers in Australia but what I'm seeing is it's not going to make the data that they're hacking less valuable. What are your thoughts on that?
TEHAN: Well, what we do have to see is some action from the Albanese Government when it comes to cyber. There's been a lot of empathy and a lot of talks, but we haven't seen any real action. The first thing we need to do, and we should get this done by the end of the year, is see those fines for data breaches increase significantly. Currently, they’re two million; we need to see them go to 50 million. There's bipartisan support for that, so we need to see action on that before the Parliament ends this year. When it comes to whether we should outlaw ransoms or not, we just have to remember in some instances, and it may be very, very rare, there might be a need for some sort of payment, for instance, if it would save a life. So, while we support never paying a ransom, there is always the very, very rare exception which has to be taken into consideration.
HEATLEY: Okay. Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has reportedly been the star attraction at a Victorian Labor Party fundraiser accepting donations from Tamil and Indian communities. Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil says she doesn't understand why this is garnering media attention. What's your thoughts?
TEHAN: Well, I can’t understand what Clare O'Neil is saying here. She's saying it's normal that the Immigration Minister, on five occasions, and we think possibly six occasions, is the star attraction at immigration fundraisers for Daniel Andrews. Now, this can't be appropriate behaviour, and it can't be normal behaviour. Clare O'Neil said that there would be Labor ministers doing this right around the country.
HEATLEY: Well, it's not unusual for federal ministers to campaign for state ministers. Am I right?
TEHAN: Well, for them to be hosting fundraisers for migrant communities and flagging the Federal Immigration Minister as the star attraction for state fundraisers, for fundraisers for Dan Andrews, this is unusual behaviour. This is very rare behaviour, and to be doing it on repeated occasions, five or six occasions, is highly unusual. And for Clare O'Neil, just to dismiss this as nothing is deeply concerning. Our immigration system has to be run with integrity.
HEATLEY: Dan Tehan, thanks so much for your time this morning.
