Labor's Sam Dastyari reportedly warned Chinese donor of likely phone-tap


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Labor senator Sam Dastyari has denied ever receiving or passing on classified security information, following media reports alleging he warned a Chinese political donor that his phone may be tapped by government agencies. 


The exchange, reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, came during a face-to-face meeting in Sydney, just weeks after the Labor senator resigned from the frontbench over his dealings with the businessman.


Senator Dastyari told Huang Xiangmo, who has links to the Chinese Communist Party, that they should leave their phones inside when they met at the donor’s Mosman mansion in October last year, according to the report.


The report, citing two unnamed Labor sources, also claims Labor leader Bill Shorten warned Mr Dastyari through a “back channel” that ASIO had concerns about Mr Huang shortly after the meeting at the mansion. 








The meeting came less than a month after Senator Dastyari stepped down as consumer affairs spokesman and manager of opposition business in the Senate.


His parliamentary fall from grace followed revelations he’d allowed Mr Huang to pay a personal debt and reportedly took a pro-China stance on the South China Sea – at odds with Labor’s position.


“These are very serious allegations about Sam Dastyari,” Turnbull Government frontbencher Senator Simon Birmingham told reporters on Wednesday. 


“It is for Bill Shorten … to make sure that  Sam Dastyari’s answers are comprehensive, that there’s nothing else there, or indeed to take appropriate action in relation to Senator Dastyari if these allegations are proven to be true,” Senator Birmingham said. 


Senator Dastyari has released a statement denying any wrongdoing in his meeting with Mr Huang.


“After the events of last year, I spoke to Mr Huang to tell him that I did not think it was appropriate that we have future contact,” he said.


“I thought it was a matter of common courtesy to say this face-to-face.”


Senator Dastyari insisted he has never been briefed by any security agency, or received any classified information.


“I reject any assertion that I did anything other than put to Mr Huang gossip being spread by journalists.”


– with wires 



Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sbsnews-topstories/~3/n_YC7tfo9Fc/homeownership-among-young-people-drops-australia

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