Coronavirus pandemic 'highlights serious problems with the Chinese Communist Party'

Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and Liberal MP Andrew Hastie says the coronavirus pandemic has “highlighted some serious problems with the Chinese Communist Party".

“How they deal with truth, the way they mask the outbreak and the way this was not risk mutated but was allowed to spread across the globe,” Mr Hastie told Sky News. “Now we're seeing both the health consequences and the economic consequences”.

Mr Hastie appeared on Sky News with Labor’s Anthony Byrne, also a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. “Anthony and I decided to appear on this program tonight to send a message to the Australian people that there is bipartisanship on some of the most consequential issues facing our country,” Mr Hastie said.

“Our bottomline is sovereignty, and what that means is we preserve Australia’s strategic freedom of action, the ability to pursue our own interest, economic or otherwise, and also it means resilience.”