Howard slams Beijing Bob as China links dog Labor

Via The Daily Telegraph:

LABOR MP Ernest Wong has spoken out about a party plot to replace him with a union organiser, declaring it will hurt the party’s crucial Chinese vote and cause “resentment” in a string of must-win electorates.

It comes as another Labor source admitted there is a “bamboo ceiling problem” in the NSW Parliament, after tensions ­mounted across the party about race representation on the back of Opposition Leader Luke Foley’s “white flight” remarks.

Mr Wong, who has been advised he is unlikely to have party support to retain his upper house spot, told The Daily Telegraph he had grave concerns about the impact the plot to replace him with a union official would have.

Electrical Trades Union organiser Mark Buttigieg is expected to take the winnable spot on Labor’s ticket.

Mr Wong was at pains to point out he was not anti-union, but said the switch sent the wrong message to the voting community.

“The union is an important part of the Labor Party and no one ­denies that,” he said.

“But we should look at the community the party represents. That community must not be under-represented.”

…And Mr Wong said the Chinese community had a tendency to choose people over party when it came to voting. “That’s how this will affect the vote,” he said.

Labor clearing house finally. Ernest is damaged goods:

NSW Labor MP Ernest Wong, a prominent Chinese community fundraiser, has cut two formal ties with Chinese billionaire and political donor Huang Xiangmo<

Mr Wong, who sits in the NSW upper house, was until last month a director and secretary of the Federation of Australian Guangdong Community Ltd, where Mr Huang acts as a director.

In its constitution, the organisation last year stated that it was set up to “promote collaboration between Guangdong-originating organisations in Australia and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Guangdong province”.

The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Guangdong province is governed by China’s State Council, which is the country’s main administrative authority.

Until recently, Mr Wong was also an “honorary adviser” for the Beijing-linked Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, of which Mr Huang was the president.

Mr Huang, who has been caught up in the Sam Dastyari scandal, resigned from the position on the weekend and Mr Wong’s name is now missing from the section of the website which lists officeholders. Mr Wong confirmed the change when contacted by The Australian.

After some good work on the issue The Australian then offers this guff:

Luke Foley’s Labor is failing to win enough votes to take any marginal seats off Premier Gladys Berejik­lian, according to polling that was con­ducted for an industry association.

The marginal seats of Upper Hunter, Holsworthy, Penrith and Seven Hills — all of which Mr Foley would need to win to gain the 14 seats to beat Ms Berejik­lian’s Coalition government at next year’s election — are set to be comfortably held by the government, according to the polling.

The ReachTEL polling, conducted in late March, contrasts with a Newspoll published by The Australian in the same month that had Labor and the Coalition at 50-50 on a two-party-preferred basis — a 4.3 per cent swing from the 2015 election win of former premier Mike Baird.

What “industry association”? It isn’t named in the article. That’s ridiculous not to say deeply suspicious.

Greater clarity comes from John Howard, also at The Australian:

Mr Howard believes the Turnbull government has “the balance about right” in fighting foreign ­intervention in politics and institutions while protecting Australia’s values and trade interests.

…But Mr Howard said Mr Carr ran the risk of falling into the “tickle my tummy school of relations with China”. “I think he is mesmerised and I think that is unrealistic,’’ he told The Australian.

Mr Howard said he believed there was “a lot of potential” for closer relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who likes Australia. On a visit as governor of Fujian province, he spent an hour and a half with Mr Howard when he was prime minister at Kirribilli House. “When I had a meeting with him two or three years ago, long after I was prime minister, he recalled the meeting,” Mr Howard said. “I think those things are important.”

…Mr Howard said it was “wrong and foolish” for anyone to blame the media for the tensions with China and that a free media was something authoritarian governments “couldn’t get their head around”.

“We are entitled to defend our values, we are entitled to call any country out that tries to run roughshod over our way of life,” Mr Howard said. “I don’t think we have overreacted to that, I think we have a reasonable balance.”

…Mr Howard said the strong criticism of the government’s handling of relations with China by Mr Carr, now the head of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology, Sydney, was “unrealistic”.

…“We are not going to resolve the differences in systems. China overnight is not going to become more democratic and we are certainly not going to become more authoritarian.

“But we have to get used to those differences. We shouldn’t try to develop some artificial explanation of the relationship which ignores those differences.”

Too right. More work to do, Labor.