Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The first responsibility of every government is to keep Australia safe. That is our job. That's our No. 1 priority. And there are many overt security threats: North Korea, Islamist terrorism, violent criminal gangs. But it also means countering the threat posed by foreign interference, by those people or foreign governments who seek to interfere with and influence our political processes and, in so doing, to corrupt our democracy.

We cannot allow the sovereignty of Australia to be compromised in this way. It is the responsibility of this government and this parliament. This should not be a partisan issue. This should be one where we all stand and say, 'We will together upgrade our laws to keep our democracy safe.' Surely that is the least we can ask of every member of this parliament.

What we have announced today and what we'll introduce into the parliament this week are changes to the law relating to foreign donations but above all relating to foreign interference. As I've described with the Attorney-General and the Minister for Finance, we do need changes to the law to ensure that those who seek to lobby and influence public opinion, parliamentary activities and government actions on behalf of foreign interests should be up-front about it. They should be on a register. And those who do so covertly, contrary to our national interest, should be paying a price under the criminal law for that criminal action.

Recently we have seen Senator Dastyari put at risk the security of our nation. The Labor Party think it's a big joke. They do; they think it's a big joke. They think that it's okay for a Labor senator to take money for himself and then go and change policy—and then go and read out talking points that could have been written in Beijing on the subject of the South China Sea. And then, when he had reason to believe his benefactor, Mr Huang, may have been under surveillance from Australian security services, he rushed to Mr Huang's side to tip him off and make sure that, when they had a chat, it was without any of the phones being nearby.

This is a test of the character of the Leader of the Opposition. Does he stand for Australia? Does he stand up for our national security? If he does then he knows Dastyari has to go. (Time expired)

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