Foreign Minister Penny Wong made a number of strong points during DFAT’s session of Senate Estimates. Photo: Screenshot.
Australia is supporting New Zealand in expressing concerns over parliamentarians being slapped with Chinese travel bans because they visited Taiwan.
Beijing has banned four New Zealand MPs from travelling to mainland China after they visited the democratic island last month as part of a cross-parliamentary group.
MPs of all parties from the parliamentary group make regular visits to Taiwan, but Beijing’s travel ban on the NZ parliamentarians is unprecedented.
The four are being banned for one year.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters has indicated that Wellington will express its concern to the Chinese Government over the move, stressing MPs from his country are free to choose, free of government, where they travel.
The Australian Government will be lodging a similar complaint.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a Senate Estimates hearing this week that Canberra will raise its concerns with China over the incident.
“Australian officials will also make representations on this, both in Beijing and Canberra, including our view that placing pressure on parliamentarians is not appropriate,” Senator Wong said.
“We agree with the principle expressed by New Zealand that members of parliament — including the Australian parliament — are free to make their own decisions about travel.”
Shadow defence minister James Paterson, who was asking Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials questions about the incident, immediately backed up the Minister’s position, saying the Opposition would give its full support to the government on the issue.
The DFAT officials confirmed that a group of Australian MPs who visited Taiwan six weeks ago have so far not been informed of any travel bans against them.
Senator Wong said it was appropriate for Australian parliamentarians to make such visits to Taiwan and they would continue to do so.
Outside the Estimates hearings, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor described the Chinese travel bans on the New Zealanders as “disgraceful” and said he was “very concerned” at the news.
“This should not happen and I’m sure parliamentarians and others around Australia want reassurance from this [Australian] Government that it’s not going to happen here,” he said.
“It’s disgraceful, it shouldn’t be happening.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will welcome his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon to Australia on Saturday for the annual Australia–New Zealand Leaders’ Meeting.
Back in the DFAT estimates hearing, Senator Wong was having a number of tense exchanges with Liberal and Greens senators over foreign affairs issues.
One of the more heated was with Greens senator David Shoebridge who was vigorously inquiring as to why Australia has not yet accepted the credentials of Palestine’s de facto ambassador to Canberra, even though the Federal Government has given Palestine diplomatic recognition.
DFAT officials explained the government wants to see more progress from Palestinian on electoral and anti-terrorism reforms before it gives the nod to a formal embassy.
But Senator Shoebridge hit back saying other governments had already accepted Palestinian embassies.
“Two like-minded countries, France and the UK, have accepted the presence of a Palestinian ambassador, and they’ve accepted the presence of a Palestinian embassy,” he said.
“Why are we baulking?”
At that point, the Minister chimed in to chastise the Greens senator for trying to politicise “tragedies” in the Middle East.
“Forgive me if I find it difficult to sit there while you perform for social media saying things that are not true,” Senator Wong said.
The pair continued to animatedly talk over and interrupt each other to the extent the committee chair called for a recess.
Senator Wong had other fiery exchanges with Senator Shoebridge and fellow Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, who tag-teamed to the point of repetition over Australians detained by Israel as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The group has accused the Israelis of torture and abuse, including sexual assaults. Some were in the public gallery watching the Estimates session
Senator Wong said the Australian Government has asked the Israeli Government for an investigation into allegations.
“We are pressing for a swift and transparent investigation. I would like to see that, and so would other countries, of course,” Senator Wong said.
“You would prefer, in these circumstances, to have an independent one, but I would rather have an investigation that is transparent than no investigation, and so we need to keep pressing for that.”
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
