Ted O'Brien's path to Parliament has taken him where few Australians, and indeed Westerners, have gone before: North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang.Before becoming an MP, the Opposition foreign affairs spokesperson worked across Asia.He was living in Beijing with his wife Sophia, who was working for the International Crisis Group, when the opportunity came to join a small group of fifteen to visit the authoritarian state in 2010.The occasion was the 65th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party — at a time when Kim Jong-il’s reign was waning, and the transition was underway to son Kim Jong-Un."The North Koreans choreographed everything, but you can't hide everything," he told SBS News.He spent most of the visit in the North Korean capital, arriving by air and leaving by train through northern China.The Australian government now lists North Korea in the "do not travel" category on its official Smartraveller advice portal.The access O'Brien had to the secretive nation is rare."You'd hop in a bus, you'd go to a school and you'd meet a few parents and school kids That will always stay with me of just a human reminder of what an authoritarian regime can mean."After working across Asia, including Taiwan and China, O’Brien was elected to the seat of Fairfax in 2016, and now the Coalition's foreign affairs spokesperson has been putting his "rusty" Mandarin skills to use, fronting Liberal Party messaging on Chinese language social media, and giving speeches in the language."I'm a big believer that there's nothing more important than national unity," he explains."I think national unity is a critical part of our national security