Tougher foreign interference laws can't come soon enough


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These are drastic sanctions but a consensus is forming across the two major parties to get the changes legislated by June 21. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is not making this a partisan issue. This is a pragmatic decision after Labor divisions were exposed on two fronts over the past fortnight.


First, Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus overplayed his hand by attacking Liberal MP Andrew Hastie for accusing prominent donor Chau Chak Wing in parliament of being the man under investigation by the FBI for bribing a United Nations official. Dreyfus turned this into a line of attack in parliament against Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, but the response from other Labor MPs was instructive. Anthony Byrne praised Hastie, Michael Danby backed him in public, Mike Kelly slapped him on the back on the floor of parliament.


Andrew Hastie.

Andrew Hastie.


Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Secondly, former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr overplayed his hand by encouraging his party colleagues to ask questions about Turnbull’s former adviser on China, John Garnaut, in Senate committee hearings. In a sordid process revealed by this newspaper last Tuesday, the questions went to NSW senator Kristina Keneally and were asked by Victorian senator Kimberley Kitching.


This backfired. Carr, the director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology, Sydney, was caught targeting someone who dared to be critical of Beijing. Kitching’s public comment was revealing: “I’ve never met Bob Carr and I don’t plan to.” She is said to be furious at being used in this way.


Article source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-australia-2016-17/content/story/1087726.html?CMP=OTC-RSS

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