Chinese Peril

China furious, as Australians unite on barriers against its interference
By Michelle Grattan
Given Bill Shorten's national security stance, and the usual bipartisan functioning of the intelligence and security committee, it is not surprising that agreement has been reached on the bill. 

The Government couldn't have had a more appropriate week for the release of the report from the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which has examined its legislation to counter Chinese interference.
Bipartisan agreement in the report, tabled Thursday, on the 60 recommendations, covering minor and more substantive amendments, has paved the way for a bill that has infuriated Chinese authorities to clear Parliament within weeks.
A couple of current instances have highlighted how China engages in unsubtle pressure.
Qantas confirmed it would bow to China over how the carrier refers to Taiwan in its advertising and on its website.

This followed a demand to three dozen airlines that they make clear that Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are part of China.
The Government was understanding of Qantas's position, accepting it had little choice.
On a very different front, former foreign minister Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob, an outspoken friend of China, who heads the Australia China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, was unable to get visas for journalists (including from Fairfax and News Corp) to go on one of the sponsored visits to China he hosts.
Bob says "the assumption is that [this] is part of the freeze China is applying to bilateral visits" — a freeze that has hit ministers.
Then there is the much-publicised controversy about Facebook sharing user data with, among many companies, several Chinese ones including Huawei, a telecommunications-equipment giant that the Australian Government has not permitted to tender for National Broadband Network contracts.
We're well past the optimistic days when we believed it could be all upside in our relationship with China, which has over the years delivered an economic bonanza for Australia.

Turnbull, like Rudd, tough-minded on China
Trade Minister Steve Ciobo tries to shrug off problems as minor irritants, but presumably that's just his job. 

Others in the Government have become more forthright.
It's notable that of recent prime ministers, Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, both very knowledgeable about China, have been the most openly tough-minded towards it. 

Before becoming PM, each was regarded as China-friendly.
Of the various causes of current tensions in the relationship, the legislation against foreign interference is on the top shelf (together with Australia's stand on the South China Sea).
The purpose of the legislation, unveiled late last year, is to "comprehensively reform key offences dealing with threats to national security, particularly those posed by foreign principals".
Among its provisions, it "introduces new foreign interference offences targeting covert, deceptive or threatening actions by foreign actors who intend to influence Australia's democratic or government processes or to harm Australia".
At its core, what this legislation does is to criminalise foreign interference that is one step below espionage. 

ASIO has always been able to investigate such interference, but it hasn't actually been a criminal offence.
While the Government goes out of its way to say the legislation is not aimed at any individual country, everyone knows China is in its sights. 

As is Russia, after the experience in the United States and elsewhere.

ASIO warned of 'unprecedented' foreign activity
Duncan Lewis, head of ASIO, emphasised the foreign threat in evidence to Senate estimates last month, describing the current scale of foreign intelligence activity against Australian interests as "unprecedented".
"Foreign actors covertly attempt to influence and shape the views of members of the Australian public, the Australian media, officials in the Australian Government and members of the diaspora communities here in Australia," he told the hearing.
"Foreign states maintain an enduring interest in a range of strategically important commercial, political, economic, defence, security, foreign policy and diaspora issues," he said.

Clarity on 'espionage', 'sabotage' and 'interference'
Where possible, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten tries to stick like glue to the Government on national security issues, for reasons of politics as well as substance. 

Given this, and the usual bipartisan functioning of the intelligence and security committee, it is not surprising that agreement has been reached on a refined version of the bill.
Many of the changes, as Attorney-General Christian Porter noted, are to definitions and drafting — which doesn't make them unimportant.
These include clarifying that "prejudice to national security" has to involve an element of harm, not just embarrassment. 

There'll be clarification of "espionage", "sabotage", "political violence" and "foreign interference".
Changes will reduce the maximum penalties for the new secrecy offences, and require the attorney-general's consent for a prosecution under them.
An amendment will ensure the staff of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security are properly protected.

Journalism defence beefed up
The changes will give greater protection to the media, expanding the public interest defence for journalists, and making it clear that editors, legal advisers and administrative staff will all be covered by the journalism defence.
Before a journalist can be prosecuted over reporting classified documents, the head of the relevant agency will have to certify that they were properly classified, and the attorney-general must consent to the legal action.
The Government, accepting some criticisms of the legislation, itself put forward certain amendments.
The committee — which is still examining an accompanying bill to set up a register of those working on behalf of foreign governments and other interests — said that after three years there should be a review of the operation of key parts of the foreign influence legislation.
The agreed changes haven't satisfied critics such as the Law Council and Amnesty International. 

But the political deal is now in place.
Meanwhile Mr Porter explicitly cast an eye to coming elections. 

"Activity which is designed to interfere or influence our democratic processes is at its most acute when democratic processes are taking place and that means five by-elections in late July and then the full general election," he said.
The Government, saying it wants the legislation passed before the Parliament rises at the end of June for the winter recess, is preparing for more angry reaction from Beijing.

Beijing Stooge: The Price of Treason

Sam Dastyari Quits Amid Questions Over China Ties
By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS

Senator Sam Dastyari of the Australian Labor Party resigned after taking money to support pro-China policies. 

SYDNEY, Australia — A prominent Australian lawmaker at the center of intensifying concerns about Chinese interference in Australian politics said Tuesday he would resign because his “ongoing presence” detracts from his party’s mission.
The senator, Sam Dastyari, of the opposition Labor Party, said on Tuesday he would not return to Parliament next year. 

His announcement follows months of intense media scrutiny in which he has fended off accusations that he pushed China’s foreign policy interests after taking money from Chinese-born political donors.
“I’ve been guided by my Labor values, which tell me that I should leave if my ongoing presence detracts from the pursuit of Labor’s mission,” Dastyari, 34, said at a morning news conference. 

“It is evident to me we are at that point, so I will spare the party any further distraction.”
The lawmaker had been in the Senate for four years and had been considered by some a rising star in Australian politics.
He had been under pressure to resign since allegations first emerged last year that a company owned by a Chinese billionaire paid a legal bill for him. 

This year, a recording emerged in which Dastyari made comments at a Chinese media conference defending China’s aggressive military posture in the South China Sea despite his own party’s opposition to China’s actions there.
He came under fire most recently after reports emerged that he had pressured his party’s deputy leader not to meet a Chinese political activist while visiting Hong Kong in 2015.
“He’s made mistakes of judgment,” said Bill Shorten, the Labor Party leader, after Dastyari’s resignation. 

“But he’s paid the heaviest of prices — his career in federal politics is over.”
“It’s a tough decision — I think it’s the right decision,” Mr. Shorten said of the resignation.
On Tuesday, Mr. Shorten also became ensnared in the controversy when it was revealed that a Chinese billionaire had paid 55,000 Australian dollars, or $41,000, to have lunch with him.
Relations between Australia and China have become strained since the Australian government last week unveiled a series of proposed laws to crack down on Chinese influence in Australian politics.
The new legislation, which would ban Chinese political donations, among other proposals, has long been expected after a series of revelations in the Australian news media about Chinese meddling in the country’s politics.
“We have recently seen disturbing reports about Chinese influence,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said last week after announcing the proposed laws.

News reports this year about the issue have prompted a growing debate in Australia over how vulnerable its democratic political system is to Chinese influence.
The question of Chinese interference is a delicate one for Australia, an American ally that has embraced Beijing as its largest trade partner and welcomed Chinese investors, immigrants and students in large numbers.
“The suggestion that I or my government or Australia generally is anti-Chinese is outrageous,” Mr. Turnbull said on Monday after being accused of overreaching in his criticism of China and Chinese influence in Australia.
“This is a question about our national interest and ensuring that our leaders, our senators, our members of the House, put Australia first,” the prime minister said.
Politicians from the governing Liberal Party have been calling for Dastyari’s dismissal for weeks, with some critics of the center-right party saying its members are exploiting the controversy to bolster their own weak hold on government.
Some say Dastyari resigned this week because his presence was damaging the Labor Party’s broader political interests.
“We’ve had about a 15-month drumbeat of attention to this issue,” said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University. 

“And it became very clear in the last few weeks that the political heat was only going to be taken out of the issue with Dastyari out of politics.”
Dastyari’s seat won’t be filled until next year; Mr. Shorten said it would be up to the New South Wales Labor Party to pick a successor to fill the seat.

Chinese fifth column: Sam Dastyari told to resign from Senate positions after China revelation

Bill Shorten confirms senator will step down over ‘mischaracterisation’ of comments he made supporting Beijing’s stance on the South China Sea
By Katharine Murphy 

Chinese fifth column in Australia

Australia’s Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has instructed his strife-prone senator Sam Dastyari to resign from his Senate positions in an attempt to minimise the political fallout from the senator’s dealings with Chinese figures.

Shorten released a statement early on Thursday confirming that Dastyari would step down from his Senate roles, which include a deputy whip and committee positions, because he had demonstrated a lack of judgment.
“It is not a decision I took lightly,” Shorten said. 

“I told Senator Dastyari that his mischaracterisation of how he came to make comments contradicting Labor policy made his position untenable.
“I also told him that while I accept his word that he never had, nor disclosed, any classified information, his handling of these matters showed a lack of judgment.”
Thursday’s development is a second strike for Dastyari. 

Shorten took the same action more than a year ago.
Dastyari resigned from frontbench positions last September when it was revealed that he had supported China’s aggressive posture in the South China Sea during a press conference flanked by Huang Xiangmo – a Sydney-based Chinese businessman who had, controversially, picked up one of his legal bills.
Over the past 24 hours, it has been revealed that Dastyari met privately with Huang and tipped him off that his phone was tapped by security agencies.
A recording subsequently emerged of the press conference in which Dastyari quite clearly contradicted Labor’s official position on the dispute in the South China Sea.
“The Chinese integrity of its borders is a matter for China, and the role that Australia should be playing as a friend is to know that we think several thousand years of history, thousands of years of history, when it is and isn’t our place to be involved,” Dastyari said in the recording.
While Dastyari had previously attempted to characterise his remarks as “silly” and “naive”, the remarks at the press conference were clearly expressed, and at odds with the official Labor policy position, which backed the Australian government’s stance supporting an international ruling against China in the permanent court of arbitration in The Hague.
In standing Dastyari down, Shorten said he was confident the accident-prone senator would “learn from this experience”.
Turnbull government ministers weren’t so confident. 

The defence minister, Marise Payne, pointed out that Dastyari had been through precisely this cycle before.
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, declared that Dastyari’s position was untenable, and said he must resign from the Senate. 

“Sam Dastyari should get out of the Senate, full stop. That’s his duty”.
The attorney general, George Brandis, inferred on Wednesday that Dastyari was engaged in counter-surveillance activity, but on Thursday he said he wasn’t implying the behaviour was treasonous.
“I’m not saying it’s treason. What I’m saying is that Dastyari’s position on the basis of what we know is completely untenable,” the attorney general said.

Sam Dastyari : traitor or/and Beijing's running dog?

“We know Sam Dastyari took deliberate steps to undermine or subvert what he believed might be an intelligence investigation. We find this out 24 hours ago.”
Brandis said Dastyari had called a press conference “confined it to Chinese-language media … for the deliberate purpose of undermining the Labor party’s policy in relation to China”.
He pointed out that the senator’s comments at the press conference were a clear contradiction of Labor’s policy, articulated at the time by the shadow defence minister, Stephen Conroy.
While Dastyari said Australia’s stance on China’s territorial interests in the South China Sea should be hands off, Conroy said Labor should send a message against aggression by conducting freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea.
“What is a politician, by the way, doing holding a press conference at the behest of his major donor, who is almost literally pulling the strings,” Brandis said Thursday.

“And then we also know that on several occasions subsequently he lied about what he had said about the press conference. Rather that a few mumbled words, we now know these were deliberate, scripted, concerted remarks and their … purpose was to send a message through the Chinese media that were a Labor government to have been elected, its foreign policy in relation to China would be at variance from what had been announced by the Labor shadow minister, Senator Conroy.”
Later, in the Senate, Brandis said many senators had been felled in the rolling citizenship debacle over recent months “for a technical reason, unbeknownst to them, they were deemed to owe allegiance or acknowledgement to a foreign sovereign”.
“And meanwhile, sitting in the Senate in a senior position in the Labor party, there sat Senator Dastyari, who evidently ... by his conduct, was actually under a foreign influence – actually under a foreign influence, but he kept quiet, he stayed mum, he maintained his position, until his position was exposed by the media in the last 24 hours or so and now he has been forced to resign. Again.”
A clearly emotional Dastyari told the Senate on Thursday morning he was a proud Australian and he found “the inferences that I’m anything but a patriotic Australian deeply hurtful”.

His Chinese Master's Voice

The senator said he had never been given any advice by a security agency, and if he had been given advice, he would “follow it to the letter”.
“I want to be absolutely clear, I could not be a prouder Australian,” he said. 

“My family was lucky enough to leave a war-torn Iran to start a new life in this amazing land. I find the inferences that I’m anything but a patriotic Australian deeply hurtful.”
He acknowledged he had done the wrong thing by holding a press conference and departing from Labor’s position on the South China Sea. 

“The price I paid for that was high but appropriate.”
Dastyari said he had been “shocked” by the press conference audio because “it did not match my recollection of events”.
He said his intention was to go on working for the people of New South Wales.

Something is rotten in the state of Australia

Sam Dastyari trashed Labor policy on South China Sea for $400k donation

• Sam Dastyari told Chinese media Australia should not meddle in China's activities in South China Sea
• Julie Bishop attacked Bill Shorten for promoting Dastyari to deputy Opposition whip
• Coalition also faces questions about Chinese donations

By Louise Yaxley

Sam Dastyari resigned from the frontbench because a Chinese donor paid a travel bill for him.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has accused Labor senator Sam Dastyari of trashing the ALP's foreign policy for a $400,000 donation.
Four Corners has reported that Chinese donor Huang Xiangmo withdrew a promise to donate $400,000 last year because Labor's then-defence spokesman, Stephen Conroy, supported freedom of movement in the South China Sea.
The program pointed out that the day after the offer was withdrawn, Dastyari contradicted Labor policy by telling Chinese media that Australia should not meddle with China's activities in the South China Sea.
Dastyari later said he supported Labor Party policy on freedom of movement in the South China Sea.
He resigned from his frontbench position last year because a Chinese donor paid a travel bill for him.

Ms Bishop has lashed out at Dastyari and attacked Labor leader Bill Shorten for giving the senator a promotion to deputy Opposition whip.
"We now know that Dastyari's about-face on the South China Sea had a price tag attached to it — indeed a reported $400,000 was all it took for Dastyari to trash Labor's official foreign policy position," Ms Bishop said.
"What did the Leader of the Opposition do?
"In the face of the most extraordinary public admission of foreign interference and influence, he slapped him on the wrist, sent him to the backbench for a couple of months and Sam Dastyari is now back in a leadership position in the Labor Party.
"This Leader of the Opposition sold out our national interest."
The Coalition also faces questions about Chinese donations.

Greens leader Richard di Natale raised a Four Corners report that Huang Xiangmo also donated $100,000 to then-trade minister Andrew Robb's personal campaign fund on the day the free trade deal was signed with China.

Chinese fifth column's Gang of Four -- An ASIO investigation sparks fears the Chinese Communist Party is influencing the Australian political system as questions are raised over foreign political donations. 

Attorney-General George Brandis refused to say whether a conflict of interest was raised in Cabinet, saying he could not reveal Cabinet discussions.
Senator Brandis said he was aware of the reports and allegations but did not know if they are accurate.
Andrew Robb now works for the Chinese-owned company the Landbridge Group, which has a 99-year lease over the Port of Darwin.
He began working for Landbridge the day before the election last July, but Senator Brandis said Robb had left Parliament when the election was called in May.
Senator di Natale said it was critical for the Greens to shine a spotlight on the issue because both major parties had connections to Chinese donors.

"You have got Labor and Liberal members of this Parliament implicated for their links to high-profile Chinese businessmen connected to the Communist regime in China," he said.