More than $5.5 million has been donated by Chinese businesses to the Labor and Liberal parties since 2013. I don’t think it’s because they want to promote Australian democracy. From the ABC:
Businesses with Chinese connections gave Australia’s major parties more than $5.5 million between 2013 and 2015, making them easily the largest source of foreign-linked donations.
An ABC investigation of public declarations and company information shows some have strong ties with state organisations in China.
It helps explain why Australian defence and intelligence agencies are increasingly uneasy about the level of Chinese Government influence here.
There is no doubt that these donations come with expectations. There is no doubt that political parties know that donations will dry up if they have the ‘wrong’ policies.
And there is no doubt that Chinese donations appear to have helped smooth the way for Chinese investment, even when it jeopardised Australia’s security.
Remember the Port of Darwin lease? This is what the former Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Robb, had to say at the time:
“Every time there’s been another wave of foreign investment, the reaction has been resistance. People are not certain about what it all means. It’s human nature it’s fearful of change.
“I have to explain to investors about the context. This has happened before but as soon as people see what value this investment brings, they will get very comfortable.”
This is what the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull had to say:
“The port that is being leased is not being used by the military, it is a commercial port,” he said.
Actually, part of the lease was for a ‘Defence vessel facility’ that hundreds of naval ships use every year. It must be embarrassing being the PM of a nation and not knowing that its Top End naval facilities are being sold to the Chinese. Or maybe it’s not embarrassing if you just don’t care.
Anyway, Defence only has access to it now for the next 25 years while the lease runs until well into the next century. After 2040, it will be entirely up to the whim and fancy of the Chinese as to whether this access arrangement can be extended and the Royal Australian Navy can use the Port of Darwin. As the subsequent Senate inquiry noted:
Furthermore, it is not clear to the committee how the Australian Defence Force will retain access to the port beyond the maximum 25 year period specified in the Deed of License. Since the Port of Darwin was leased to Landbridge for a period of 99 years, this is a significant disparity.
Yet while there were no security concerns at all about selling off the Port of Darwin, all of sudden the Liberal government has blocked the sale of Ausgrid. Reason: security concerns.
What’s changed? Well, as Labor’s Anthony Albanese pointed out, Pauline Hanson has been elected. Now everyone’s scrambling for cover.
And not a moment to soon either. For a start, it’s time that Labor and the Liberals gave up their cosy arrangement to accept multi-million dollar political donations from Chinese interests and started putting Australian first again.
August 24, 2016
Election funding should be allowed solely by electors, and using personal after-tax income. No other bodies etc, ie no non-voting entities, to be allowed to donate or advertise etc.
And the Government’s [taxpayers’] payments per vote rort should be abolished. It would remove the unconscionable rip off by Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, and reduce the ‘honey pot’ effect on some misguided hopefuls.
August 23, 2016
Ex PM Bob Hawke selling Ord River dam
Sentor Wong the Cubbie Station,
State premiers QLD, VIC, SA most the electricity grid and Water assets
mining assets
Media paid stories published word for word from the State,
Tourism industry only to shop and accommodation in state own shops.
Talks about allowing Navy and Army to train in Australia.
Chinese Banks operating,
Real estate agents by passing laws or buying under false names, farms, land and houses.
Governments state and federal allowing Chinese teachers to teach Chinese indoctrination.
Immigration brought on University degrees straight into Public service jobs.
That is just the tip of the iceberg, but I guess I am a racist or xenophobic. Why pay tax when we have another country control your assets. So waiting for foreign ownship ledger.
August 24, 2016
Hey Quentin, yep, we’re all just imagining things. It couldn’t possibly be about money and raw political power could it? Gasp! Say it isn’t so, Joe! Why, I never imagined our political classes of both parties could be so, venal! Who knew.
Just because the uber-corrupt Arab psychopaths that run the literal slave and terror supporting Gulf States, UAE et al, who until very recently, very openly kidnapped thousands of children as young as two years-old, and forced them to race camels, where many died, are sponsoring the Melbourne Emirates Cup and hundreds of other Australian sports and things, there is no need to panic. Google islammonitor org and child camel jockeys.
August 23, 2016
Border security is sadly being compromised. We need to have all foreign investment stopped and in some cases bought back. Absolutely disgraceful.
August 24, 2016
Hey Jenni, it’s not like any Chinese groups or individuals in Australia are perhaps not so loyal and are fer’ instance, lauding Mao the mass-murdering Marxist as a hero or something…Oops! Seems they are. Never mind. Let’s all just order a pizza and rent a DVD. After all, for far too many, it’s really a drag thinking about serious things. Thus we ARE doomed by a vast corrupt sewer of elitist High Treason. Read on… http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/worshippers_of_a_genocidal_dictator_party_in_australia/
EXCERPT – QUOTE: “Concerts are to be held in Sydney and Melbourne town halls to honour Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, described in promotional material as “a hero in the eyes of people all over the world”… The events have been widely promoted in Chinese-language print media and radio to take place in Sydney on September 6 and Melbourne on September 9…
The concerts are sponsored by developer Peter Zhu, who came to Australia from China in 1989, and who last year also sponsored the Sydney Ode to Peace event to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war of Chinese resistance to Japanese invasion.
The promotional material says that “Chairman Mao, the great leader of Chinese, led China’s democratic revolution which ended the 109 years of chaos in China from 1840 to 1949, and brought 76 years of peace and development to China, until it recovered its international status as a great ¬country. The concert will commemorate the great leader, as well as (inspire us) to further glorify the Chinese spirit, and expand our dreams. It will illustrate Mao Zedong’s humanitarian ¬personality.” END QUOTE.