Europe considering adopting Australia?s foreign interference laws to counter China - Sydney Morning Herald

Europe is considering following Australia’s example in creating new laws to counter covert forms of foreign influence as it looks to combat the activities of China’s overseas propaganda arm.

Liberal senator James Paterson, chair of the Australian Parliament’s intelligence and security committee, urged European nations to work together with like-minded democratic nations such as Australia to counter foreign interference.

The United Front Work Department is the Chinese Communist Party’s organisational effort to use the diaspora of citizens abroad to turn opinion and policy in Beijing’s favour.

The FITS scheme, which came into force in 2018, has been widely credited as being world-leading but has also been criticised by national security experts for casting its net too wide and forcing former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull to register for speaking at public forums.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is currently reviewing the scheme and will consider whether to better target the laws to capture more harmful activity by countries such as China and Russia.

Senator Paterson trumpeted the government’s new foreign veto laws allowing the foreign affairs minister to cancel agreements that states, territories, local governments and universities enter into with an overseas government if they contradict Australia’s national interest.

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