A senior member of Malcolm Turnbull’s campaign team had directly solicited a political donation prior to last year’s election campaign from Chinese-born Australian billionaire Chau Chak Wing, who is now at the centre of a political storm over foreign donations and political influence.
The Australian has also confirmed that Labor Party officials at both state and federal branch levels were even more vigorous in their approaches to Dr Chau in seeking donations for last year’s election campaign.
Dr Chau, an Australian citizen of 20 years, hit back at suggestions he was a puppet of China’s Communist Party, telling The Australian that many of the donations he had made to both side of politics were in response to approaches from political party officials. This has been backed up by senior officials from both major parties, who have admitted they saw Dr Chau as a cash cow for their election campaigns.
…“He never asked for anything,” the Liberal Party official said. “All he was interested in was good relations between Australia and China.”
Half a million dollars two weeks out from the last election. That’s a fair bit of funding for advertising and on the ground campaign activity. Good relations between Australia and China is asking for something. Recall from last year:
Chinese businessmen with links to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have donated half a million dollars to the Western Australian division of the Liberal Party during the past two years, political disclosures reveal.
All the donors have links to the Chinese government, and the vast bulk of the money was given by companies with no apparent business interests in WA. Ms Bishop, the leading federal member of the party in that state, has singled out each of the three key donors for praise.
Several of the donations have been obscured by the channelling of funds via executives or related companies, or by the donors’ failure to disclose them to the Australian Electoral Commission, in apparent breach of Commonwealth law.
…In 2014-15, billionaire Chau Chak Wing’s Hong Kong Kingson Investment Ltd gave $200,000 to the WA Liberal Party. The donation is listed on the party’s disclosure to the AEC, but the company made no disclosure.
The controversial tycoon has given millions to Liberal, National and Labor parties over several decades. His Kingold conglomerate has expanded from property development to hospitality, education, finance, health, media and culture that extends “from Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong to Sydney and Brisbane in Australia,” according to its website. No business interests in WA are listed.
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Why is the foreign minister so popular? Lowy Institute analyst, Rory Medcalf, describes the problem:
Forensic media investigations by Fairfax Media and ABC TV’s Four Corners have uncovered multi-faceted interference by the Chinese Communist Party in Australia.
This includes propaganda and censorship in much of this nation’s Chinese language media as well as even more troubling channels of interference through political donations, intimidation of dissident voices and the establishment and mobilisation of pro-Beijing organisations on Australian soil.
…This is in addition to a pervasive but predictable espionage effort including human and cyber intelligence.
All nations project the “soft” power of attraction, of winning the debate. Australia should welcome and facilitate Chinese voices in a transparent and evidence-based contest of ideas about this country’s future.
But a picture is emerging of excessive influence through money, censorship and coercion. This is neither the soft power of free expression nor the hard power of military force.
Instead it is the sharp power of intrusive influence, including through the strategic granting then apparent withholding of political funds.
The reported Chinese Communist Party efforts to distort Australia’s sovereignty go beyond what is acceptable in an even vaguely rules-based global system. It breaches historic norms of states’ non-interference in each other’s affairs, which China’s leaders say they support.
…Whether those providing the cash are seeking simply status or something else, their donations are damaging what should be constructive, respectful and beneficial relations between Australia and China.
It’s not the fault of Chinese nor Chinese Australians. It’s our own twofold corruption that is to blame. We’re running a migrant driven economic model with our eyes closed as if it in no way impinges upon our strategic outlook and responsibilities within ANZUS. And we’ve an openly corrupt Parliament that has political party funding rules that invites foreign (and local) interests to dump a truck load of cash wherever they see fit.
Our economic leg and strategic leg are running full tilt in opposite directions and the ripped Parliament is the gaping hole in our democratic trousers.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
