Topics: Chinese Foreign Minister visit to Australia; Religious discrimination legislation; Liberal Party;
07:45AM AEDT
20 March 2024
Patricia Karvelas: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with Penny Wong today, marking Beijing’s most high profile visit to Australia since relations between the two nations broke down in 2017. There are strong signals from China. Its wine tariffs on Australia are soon to end, but there are other key issues Australia will want to raise, including human rights abuses, Taiwan and security in the Pacific. Senator Simon Birmingham is the Shadow Foreign Minister and he spoke to me a short time ago. Simon Birmingham, welcome back to Breakfast.
Simon Birmingham: Good morning, Patricia. Great to be with you.
Patricia Karvelas: What’s the biggest issue Australia should raise with the Chinese representative today?
Simon Birmingham: Patricia, there are many issues I look forward to meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and I welcome him to Australia. The period during which China declined to engage in ministerial level conduct with Australia was counterproductive, and the fact that we can now have these discussions again is welcome. Of course, the biggest issue our region faces are the security challenges and to ensure the peace and stability of our region is in all of our interests, not just in Australia, but right across the region. But there are many bilateral issues that are of profound importance as well. Ensuring that China honours the terms of the trade agreement that it voluntarily entered into with Australia is critical, and they continue to be in breach of a number of those terms for our winemakers, for our beef exporters, for our live seafood exporters. We want to make sure that that message is heard loud and clear. The shock that Australians had from the sentencing of Yang Hengjun very recently, and the expectation that he be shown compassion and fair treatment and ultimately released, is something that needs to be made loud and clear. Of course, there are a range of other issues and concerns in terms of the conduct between our militaries and making sure that is professional in all circumstances, and that we never again see a repeat of the incident involving Australian Navy personnel from the HMAS Toowoomba, as well as the different human rights concerns that Australia has for decades consistently raised and should continue to consistently raise in its dialogue with China.
Patricia Karvelas: Hong Kong has just passed a major security law, allowing closed door trials and giving police the right to detain suspects of treason and sedition for up to 16 days, should that be raised with Wang Yi?
Simon Birmingham: These new laws are deeply troubling. As you discussed with Richard McGregor from the Lowy Institute just before 7 o’clock, these new laws have significant reach. Reach, indeed outside of the jurisdiction of Hong Kong. I would expect that Australia’s concerns around these laws and their impact on Hong Kongers, including Hong Kongers abroad, including Hong Kongers in Australia, and their reach potentially beyond that be raised. These are issues that are coming with real life consequences, of course, for individuals who’ve been subjected already under the previous wave of national security laws to the type of processes that we would consider unjust from an Australian perspective, but also, they’re having real economic consequences. Just yesterday, I was speaking with a leading financial institution, and in asking them about their approach across the region, one of the first points noted was their intended withdrawal from Hong Kong and prioritisation of Singapore as a result of the types of erosions of appropriate conditions they’ve seen.
Patricia Karvelas: I want to move to another issue which is dominating. The Prime Minister has said there must be bipartisan support for changes to religious and sex discrimination laws, considering the damaging debate that was had in the final days of your previous government when you tried to do this. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?
Simon Birmingham: Well, it’s reasonable to aspire to bipartisanship, but you also have to work to achieve bipartisanship. Now, as you noted earlier in the program, the Opposition has not yet seen the proposals from the government. So, it’s very hard to give bipartisanship to something that you’ve not seen. The process the government has gone through in relation to whatever it is they’re bringing forward, has been quite secretive. So, there will no doubt be quite reasonable expectations for stakeholders to have some transparent opportunity for comment and for it to go through normal parliamentary processes. That’s not to say that bipartisanship isn’t a reasonable aspiration. I think it is a sensible aspiration on an issue like this. But you do have to go through the proper processes and stages to try to secure that type of support.
Patricia Karvelas: What’s the benchmark for that? What does that have to look like? Because there have been several meetings that the Prime Minister has outlined, he’s had. Others have been there too, senior people with Peter Dutton. He hasn’t got the support. He’s briefed him. What should he do?
Simon Birmingham: Well, as I said, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to see the legislative package. Ultimately, Coalition members will need to see the legislative package to be able to make that determination.
Patricia Karvelas: It’s obviously not the first time a government has said it won’t introduce legislation without bipartisan support. Scott Morrison did it with a federal integrity body despite promising voters he’d put one in place. How is this any different?
Simon Birmingham: Well, that’s true. And Mark Dreyfus had some pretty sharp and pointed things to say, as did Anthony Albanese and others about that approach by the former government. I haven’t made those type of sharp and pointed comments at this time. As I said, I think it is a reasonable ambition to want to seek bipartisanship, but you do have to jump the hurdles to actually secure bipartisanship.
Patricia Karvelas: A point of contention is section 38, in the Sex Discrimination Act, which allows religious education institutions to preference teachers of the same faith in hiring. Would you support that being removed to protect LGBTIQ+ people?
Simon Birmingham: Patricia, I’d want to see the totality of what is proposed. I think it is reasonable that faith-based schools have opportunities to give preference in their hiring practices to people of faith, particularly where those roles are important for the way in which that school operates and establishes the ethos of that faith within the school community. So, this is why the detail of these legislative matters are important. I’m very clear in my desire to see equality, in my view, that that students need to be treated with absolute respect and the highest of protections, but also that the ethos of faith-based schools needs to be able to be upheld by those schools.
Patricia Karvelas: But it’s that section that appears to be a deal breaker for many of your MPs that have raised this right? I mean, that’s at the heart of this.
Simon Birmingham: That is where seeing the totality of the legislation and understanding what protections it accords. I would be very surprised if the government was proposing something that had zero opportunity for faith-based schools to be able to hire according to their values and to give preferential treatment where roles are appropriate to people of faith. But I’d want to see the detail of it. And of course, that’s how you go about achieving bipartisanship if you want it, is to ensure that people can see and understand all of those implications.
Patricia Karvelas: What’s your view on that section 38? I mean, many of your MPs-.
Simon Birmingham: I just expressed it, Patricia.
Patricia Karvelas: I don’t- No, I don’t understand it. Sorry, and I don’t know if our listeners will. So, I want you to be clear. They see it as a red line that can’t be crossed, that the removal of section 38, which allows these institutions to, you know, basically discriminate. How do you see it?
Simon Birmingham: What I just said, Patricia, was it depends upon what the other protections in place are. To simply remove it and have no other protections that would enable faith-based schools to be able to hire according to their ethos, would be of deep concern. But what those other protections are is not clear to me yet, because I certainly haven’t seen what the government’s proposals are.
Patricia Karvelas: Given antisemitism is on the rise, Islamophobia is on the rise, the community. I mean, we saw that footage yesterday that I reported on of Anne Aly in a conflict over the Gaza war. I mean, that’s an adjacent issue. But either way, clearly it demonstrates there are lots of divisions in our community. Do you think this is the right time to be having this debate?
Simon Birmingham: I think our Parliament should be able to deal maturely with these types of issues. We should have very strong and clear national leadership against the type of rise in antisemitism that we’ve seen, and it has been appalling to see that. We ought to use every single opportunity, and every political leader ought to use every single opportunity to ensure that the horrors of the past that antisemitism has caused in the past are never repeated again in the future.
Patricia Karvelas: I just want to move to another issue. Does it concern you that Alex Antic, a conservative, has got the number one spot now on the Senate ticket, taking over from Anne Ruston?
Simon Birmingham: As I said on the AM programme yesterday, the process of democracy means that you don’t always get the outcome that you’d like, and you don’t always get to like the outcome that you get. Now, ultimately, that is the democratic process we’ve gone through. Anne Ruston is a highly, highly capable part of our team, a senior part of our team and she will be both of those things into the future.
Patricia Karvelas: But the criticism now is that your party isn’t preferencing women. Does that worry you?
Simon Birmingham: Well, criticism of my party usually worries me, and of course the party needs to ensure that it takes on board criticism where it is fair-
Patricia Karvelas: And is it fair criticism?
Simon Birmingham: Well, we’ll have to look at the totality of preselections across the country.
Patricia Karvelas: It’s an interesting point you make about the totality. We’ve now had a few preselections, the one for Scott Morrison’s seat. A man secured that. We’re looking at the totality emerging, and it doesn’t look like you’re going to meet targets that you made many years ago, does it?
Simon Birmingham: Well, we’ll have to see. There are many preselections are still to go. There are some great ones that have already been had in places like North Sydney that we have to win back. And I want to make sure that that I give my support to good candidates across the country.
Patricia Karvelas: Realistically, are you worried about where we’re at? Where you’re at?
Simon Birmingham: I’m worried about ensuring that we make progress and I want to see us making that progress.
Patricia Karvelas: Are you making enough progress?
Simon Birmingham: You can always make more progress.
Patricia Karvelas: It’s not good enough yet?
Simon Birmingham: Well, you can always make more progress. And there are many preselections, many, many preselections still to be conducted ahead of the next election.
Patricia Karvelas: Thank you for joining us this morning.
Simon Birmingham: Thanks, Patricia. My pleasure.
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