Albanese discloses conversation with spy chief to hit back at Coalition over China attacks

“I did that Mr Speaker, and I do regularly consult with our national security agencies because I take their role seriously as leader of the opposition,” Mr Albanese said. “And the abuse of national security provisions has been quite a disgrace and has undermined Australia’s national interests.”

Mr Albanese also criticised The Australian newspaper’s editorial on Thursday, which quoted him saying in a press conference in January that the government should use the appointment of a new Chinese ambassador to urge Beijing to withdraw “some of the actions that have been taken to stop Australian products going to China”.

“Some? Mr Albanese’s comment raised the questions – how many and which ones?” the editorial stated.

But in the same press conference, Mr Albanese also said: “China should, and I hope that the Ambassador would, support the withdrawal of those effective sanctions which are in place, whether it be for our natural resources or our products such as wine and agricultural products as well”.

“They have selectively quoted my answer, in order to misrepresent my answer, about sanctions that are taking place from China against Australia,” Mr Albanese told Parliament.

“My statement in response to a question from a journalist was very clear. It went to the entirety of the sanctions that have been placed on Australia. Those opposite know it, and so does any journalist of worth their salt.”

Defence Minister Peter Dutton on Thursday doubled down on his attack against Labor over its position on China, saying Beijing would exploit Labor leader Anthony Albanese.

But Mr Dutton said Australians need a government that argues from “a position of strength” and pushes back against “bullies”.

“Bullies don’t step down if they’ve got somebody who is just happy to cower, and I’m not going to cower to anyone. And we’re not going to cower as a government or country to anyone,” he told 2GB.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to pick a fight, we want a good relationship with China and we want them to respect our democracy, we wanted them to respect our rule of law and freedom of speech.”

“It’s been publicly reported that in 2011, when he was secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, he went on leave from DFAT to negotiate on behalf of the Canberra Raiders a lucrative sponsorship agreement from [Chinese telco] Huawei for the Canberra Raiders,” Senator Paterson told Sky News.

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“And in 2018, when the Cabinet was considering whether Huawei should be allowed to be involved in the 5G rollout, he publicly advocated that they should be involved in the 5G rollout.

“Now we had very good advice from our intelligence agencies that the national security risks of Huawei being involved in the 5G rollout could not be mitigated, and it is one of the best decisions our government has made, and I stand by it even if Dennis Richardson disagrees.”

In Senate estimates, Labor senator Kristina Keneally questioned Department of Defence secretary Greg Moriarty about the importance of maintaining bipartisanship in standing up to China.

“Australia’s national resilience is an important contributor to our overall defence posture, and national resilience depends on national unity to a certain extent,” Mr Moriarty said.

Asked whether adversaries such as China were seeking to stoke division, Mr Moriarty said: “Adversaries will seek to sow division. Over many centuries that has been the case in a variety of circumstances and Australia’s national resilience is an important part [of defence].”

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