Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Beijing Bob enlists Labor in new China influence row
By Nick McKenzie & Nick O'Malley

Chinese agent Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob

Former Labor Foreign Minister Bob Carr, aka Beijing Bob, is using ALP senator Kristina Keneally to quiz the prime minister and senior officials about Malcolm Turnbull’s key former adviser on Beijing’s espionage and interference operations in Australia.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that Carr, who heads a think tank created by a Chinese businessman closely connected to Beijing, has asked Senator Keneally to use parliament to find out details of the employment, job title, and contract of government adviser John Garnaut.
Mr Garnaut is a China expert and former Fairfax Media China correspondent who was tasked by the prime minister in August 2016 to conduct a highly classified inquiry with ASIO into Beijing’s clandestine activities in Australia.

China's fifth column: Beijing Bob (L) and Huang Xiangmo (R)

The inquiry, which has never been released, is understood to have examined the activities of Huang Xiangmo, the same Chinese businessman who created Carr’s Australian China Relations Institute, and who separately headed a Sydney lobbying organisation aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
Carr first suggested in a phone call to Senator Keneally and her office on the evening of February 27 that she use the parliament to ask questions about Mr Garnaut, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

He subsequently asked Ms Keneally on at least one other occasion to use parliament to scrutinise Mr Garnaut’s work.

ASIO chief Duncan Lewis sounds fresh alarm over Chinese interference threat

Carr’s role in pushing for questions to be asked was only disclosed to many in the ALP after Senator Kimberly Kitching quizzed senior bureaucrats on May 22 about Mr Garnaut, relying on questions scripted by Labor staffers.
Labor sources said that Senator Kitching, who could not be reached for comment, was later told by Senator Keneally that Carr had requested the questions be asked.
Two Labor sources who spoke to Senator Kitching said she was “furious”. 

She also revealed to ALP colleagues that Senator Keneally had told her that Carr “will owe you a favour” for having asked the questions.
Carr and Ms Keneally told Fairfax Media that the questions about Mr Garnaut were not written by Carr, with Ms Keneally stating that it was "legitimate to ask questions on notice or in estimates about staffing and contractual arrangements to determine who is providing advice to government". 

Carr said he had never met Senator Kitching.
After he was quizzed by Fairfax Media, Beijing Bob released a statement describing Mr Garnaut as one of ''the leaders of the recent anti-China panic in the Australian media" who should not be "carrying on the campaign" while on the Prime Minister's payroll.
Senator Keneally also placed questions on notice to Mr Turnbull on May 18 that mirror those suggested by Carr and later asked by Senator Kitching.
Ms Keneally has asked in what “capacity” Mr Garnaut worked for the government between September 2015 and June 2017.
“What was his job title, to whom did he report, and what were the dates of his employment,” Ms Keneally asked in her question on notice.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that between August 2016 and September 2017, Mr Garnaut was responsible for what is known in national security circles as the Garnaut-ASIO inquiry.
The inquiry probed efforts by Beijing to influence Australian political parties, academia and the media. 

It is understood to have examined the activities of, among others, Huang Xiangmo, the former financial backer of Carr’s think tank, a Chinese billionaire and big political donor.
Huang previously provided generous funding to the Carr-led ACRI and has boasted about hiring Carr to head the pro-China think tank.
Huang’s relationship with NSW senator Sam Dastyari led to Dastyari’s resignation from parliament in December 2017, paving the way for Senator Keneally to take his spot.
The revelations about Carr come with Labor divided over whether to support reforms proposed by Mr Turnbull to counter what ASIO has described as "unprecedented" levels of Chinese interference in Australia. 

Mr Garnaut helped shape the reforms.

Former Turnbull policy adviser John Garnaut.

Mr Garnaut's involvement in a classified inquiry has been well known in Canberra for 12 months, although the findings of the inquiry have never been released.
In March, Fairfax Media reported Mr Garnaut delivered incendiary testimony about clandestine Chinese government interference operations in Australia before a US Congress national security committee in Washington DC.
Mr Garnaut was described in this story as “Mr Turnbull’s China specialist in 2016 before shifting to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to work on China-related policy."
The story also stated that Mr Garnaut was "a private consultant... assisting western government agencies, including in the US, to deal with influence operations.”
While denying he had any role in pushing Ms Keneally to ask questions about Mr Garnaut, Beijing Bob said on Monday night it was reasonable to scrutinise Mr Garnaut. 

In response to the questions asked by Ms Kitching, the department of prime minister and cabinet said that he was currently contracted as a specialist speechwriter.
Beijing Bob said in his statement of Mr Garnaut: “Fuelling a campaign against a friendly foreign country is incompatible with an advisory and speech writing role on the Prime Minister’s staff.
"When the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister give the impression of reining in rhetoric on China, the revelation that Mr Garnaut has been on the Prime Minister’s payroll is decidedly unhelpful.”
Last week, the foreign interference laws were back at the centre of political debate after an explosive speech in federal parliament by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and which explored allegations Beijing was interfering in Australian politics.

Australia's Quislings

Labor has a cancer growing in it that must be cut out
By Clive Hamilton

Canberra is finally beginning to push back against Beijing’s long-running campaign to seduce our elites so completely that the nation kow-tows before China’s wishes.
The first phase of the pushback culminated in December with the Turnbull government introducing legislation to outlaw foreign interference operations and novel forms of espionage. 

Afraid that its well-made plans will be thwarted, Beijing has been making panicky claims that it’s all motivated by “anti-Chinese racism”.

The Sam Dastyari affair was one clumsy instance of a more insidious problem for Labor. 

Led by shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, the Labor Party is gearing up to oppose the legislation. 

Dreyfus says his concern is to protect press freedom, but that is being used to undermine the rationale of the laws themselves.
Amending the legislation to protect democratic freedoms is easy.  

The harder task is undoing the deep penetration of the Labor Party by proxies for and agents of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The spectacular downfall of Sam Dastyari was one clumsy instance of a more insidious problem for Labor.

Paul Keating has praised China's government as the best government in the world in the last 30 years. 

The Liberal Party has been subject to the same kind of influence operations and the party undoubtedly has a problem. 

Yet, going by the Turnbull government’s determination to enact the foreign interference legislation, the Liberals still remain willing to put basic Australian democratic freedoms before Chinese money.

Apologists for China in the Labor Party have been working, wittingly or otherwise, to entrench China’s structure of influence. 

Last week, Kevin Rudd played perfectly into the hands of Beijing by lambasting the Turnbull government’s proposed laws as an “anti-China jihad”.
The Mandarin-speaking former prime minister said that current laws are perfectly adequate. 

If that’s true, why have there been no prosecutions? 

And why are several Western nations watching events here so intently, expecting to follow the trail being blazed in Australia?
The Rudd government’s approach to China was weak and indecisive, perhaps best represented by Rudd’s disastrous decision in 2008 to wreck the emerging Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with India, Japan and the United States. 

His pull-out, under Chinese pressure, soured relations with India and delayed for a decade cooperation between the four democratic powers to begin acting jointly to resist Beijing’s aggression.
Rudd believes what he put in place is enough to protect Australia. 

Anyone who has tracked China’s growing influence over the last several years, including our intelligence agencies, knows that is laughable.
It’s to be expected that a former leader will attempt to burnish his legacy, but when he uses his residual influence to expose the nation to foreign domination he needs to be called out. 

Rudd’s Labor predecessor Paul Keating retains much greater influence in the Labor Party and beyond. 

He chairs an international advisory council for the huge China Development Bank. 

He regularly praises the Communist Party bosses for their brilliant achievements—“the best government in the world for the last 30 years”—and calls for Australia to loosen our ties with the United States.
Keating is the godfather of the powerful NSW right faction of the ALP that has been so corrupted by Chinese influence.
Dastyari may have gone because of his unseemly relationship with Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo, but plenty of powerful Beijing sympathisers remain.

Former NSW premier and foreign minister Bob Carr has been castigated for agreeing to run a “think tank” established with a large donation from Huang Xiangmo. 

Carr proudly proclaimed that the Australia-China Relations Institute would adopt a “positive and optimistic” view of China.
Tony Burke, a federal leadership aspirant, is also a beneficiary of Chinese money. 

His election campaign was boosted by a $30,000 donation from a source flagged by ASIO as connected to the CCP.
When asked on radio about the $30,000 donation, Burke said it was donated by a family friend, whom he holds in the “highest regard”.
There are current and former Labor politicians who understand fully the danger posed by the Chinese Communist Party to our democratic freedoms and support measures to protect our sovereignty. 

They include Richard Marles, Kim Beazley, John Faulkner, Michael Danby, Stephen Conroy and Anthony Byrne. 

But the party has a cancer growing in it, and it must cut it out.

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.