‘Very different views': Tony Burke defends meeting with Trump's FBI director
Donald Trump's FBI director Kash Patel was in Australia and New Zealand in the past week, and a Sunday night dinner meeting between he and Tony Burke was kept secret until Thursday.
The meeting sparked criticism from the Greens, given Mr Patel's broad financial and political support for the people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
'There are simple security reasons why you wait, sometimes, for somebody to be out of the country,' Mr Burke told ABC Radio National on Friday.
'I certainly don't issue a media release every time I talk to one of my counterparts.'
'But can I say the meeting was really good, and the dinner that we had together, with Reece Kershaw, the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, was a great discussion of the different ways in which we keep people safe.
'I'm really confident about the cooperation with the United States.'
Mr Patel has called the January 6 insurrectionists political prisoners, and his foundation fundraised for the families of the Capitol stormers.
On Friday, Mr Burke said the security relationship with the US was strong. Faced with a choice between keeping Australia safe and 'making political points about what happens in another country', Mr Burke said he always chose the former.
'I'm working with the United States. The safety of Australians, part of it is also in the hands of officials who may hold very different views and priorities.'
'From counter-terrorism all the way to child protection, through to what we do in the interception of drugs coming into Australia, the co-operation keeps Australians safe and there are a number of Australians, a good number who are alive because of that co-operation.'
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