Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has denied being aware of a controversial incident where Chinese officials blocked Australian journalist Cheng Lei from witnessing a media conference with Premier Li Qiang.
China’s Premier Li Qiang joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Monday for the leaders meeting before a launch in the Great Hall of Parliament House.
Footage emerged of the tense altercation which appeared to show a Chinese embassy official impeding Ms Lei’s view as she was sitting in an area assigned for media representatives during a document signing ceremony.
Extraordinary vision of the incident at the document signing appears to show two Chinese officials involved, with one stepping into the path of a camera which had been pointed in Lei’s direction.
The former political prisoner, who spent two years and 11 months in jail, has previously told of her ordeal in the desolate Chinese prison, and on Monday revealed the effects and potential ramifications of reporting on China again.
Speaking after the formal document signing, Mr Albanese was questioned on the incident, but despite the footage being online for more than hour, denied knowledge.
“Well, I didn’t see it. But I saw Cheng Lei and we smiled at each other during the event,” he said in response to Daily Telegraph reporter Clare Armstrong’s question.
“I’m not aware of the issues and it is important that people be allowed to participate fully and that is what should happen in this building or anywhere else in Australia.”
The story has led the nation’s leading news websites including The Australian, The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and SkyNews.com.au.
As a result, the Prime Minister’s comments denying having knowledge of the incident have been rubbished as “completely not credible”.
Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson mocked the Prime Minister’s enormous media team, and suggested it was unbelievable Mr Albanese was not aware of the incident before the press conference.
“Standard operating procedure of a media advisor is to brief your principal on recent breaking events before they go out to do a press conference,” Mr Paterson told Sky News Australia.
“It is completely not credible the Prime Minister did not know when he walked into the press conference that this incident happened.”
“It is a crude and clumsy attempt to evade scrutiny.
“This kind of behaviour on our soil, in our parliament is totally and utterly unacceptable. We do not body block journalists from filming in our Parliament House.
“And for Chinese officials to behave this way in our country shows disrespect for our parliament and our customs, and frankly there should be an apology from the Chinese delegation for this behaviour.”
Mr Paterson said before Mr Albanese’s next major appearance in Perth on Tuesday, the Prime Minister should seek and apology and make “appropriate comments”.
“This will be a test of his leadership,” Mr Paterson said.
“He’s willing to stand up on issues like this, or, does he think it’s acceptable that an Australian citizen or an Australian journalist is treated this way by a visiting a foreign official in our own parliament?”
Shadow foreign affairs minister Simon Birmingham said he would have thought the Prime Minister’s team would have alerted him about the incident.
“It would be surprising, if the PM’s advisers didn’t say ‘by the way Prime Minister, you might get asked a question about this’,” Mr Birmingham said.
“And I suspect he should have been prepared, and even if he didn’t quite see it taking place, should have known fully that it was happening.”
The Greens joined the pile-on with Senator David Shoebridge questioning the Prime Minister’s credibility, while also demanding the government take a stand.
“I mean it just strains credibility, if it is a lack of knowledge then it is a deliberate intentional lack of knowledge and I don’t think it does anybody any credit when that happens,” Mr Shoebridge said.
“If someone made a mistake and tried to exclude someone from an event for political reasons then you should just own it, say it was wrong and say it’ll never happen again on your watch.
“Just pretending you don’t know about it or consciously not finding out about it just makes you look like you stand for nothing.”
Mr Birmingham also said the Chinese officials’ actions were “unacceptable conduct” and was “counterproductive” for what China may be hoping to gain from the visit.
“It’s counterproductive from what China should hope to receive from the visit and just as we would all wish for it to be as positive of a visit as it can be,” he said.
“There are serious long term issues we all need to be up front about.
“But none of that has helped, and when you end up with something like this occurring, it sends all of the wrong issues.”
Speaking shortly after the incident, Lei said it was a “bad look”.
“I’m only guessing this is to prevent me from saying something or doing something that they think would be a bad look, but that in itself was a bad look,” she said.
Lei said the Chinese officialdom at “these sorts of events”, and less important events, were “very, very control freakish”.
“I wanted to get away from the guy who was standing next to me,” Lei said on the moment she was impeded by the Chinese official.
“I think the worry is that my being there is a symbol of some sort.
“Maybe they didn’t want that for the domestic audience. That’s a guess. But like you said, we don’t want this incident to overshadow the rest of the visit, which is the real news.”
Lei said the Chinese delegation at such events “want to know everything” and “stage manage everything”.
“So I can imagine it would have created a huge workload for DFAT, for our government officials” she said.