What a pack of treasonous arseholes Labor are. Via The Australian:
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he is “very proud” to have signed his state up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative on trade and investment, despite his West Australian Labor counterpart, Mark McGowan, this week rejecting China’s push for his state to join.
Mr Andrews broke ranks with the federal government last year when he signed a memorandum of understanding with Beijing on the BRI, which is viewed in Canberra as a vehicle for Chinese regional and global expansion.
Defending the decision yesterday, Mr Andrews said he was proud of Victoria’s “very strong” relationship with China.
…“Every member of my cabinet has travelled to China in the delivery of a promise that I made over my previous four years. We’ve got a couple of new members of cabinet this time. They’ll be going to China as well.”
By all means go but stop seceding from Australian foreign policy. Why? This, at Domain:
A Melbourne City councillor has said she regrets bowing to “political influence” and not proceeding with a motion commemorating the 30th anniversary of Beijing’s crackdown on Tiananmen Square in which thousands of students were killed.
Cr Jackie Watts said she was dissuaded from proceeding with a motion on June 4 after what she believed was “political influence” from the Chinese Consulate, which triggered “acute distress” in some of her colleagues.
When confronted with this distress, she said she was dissuaded from proceeding with the motion just minutes before the meeting started.
“On reflection, I know that this timid acquiescence in the face of pressure was an error on my part. I regret this on a number of levels,” Cr Watts told a meeting on Thursday night.
“Choosing to stay silent, to in effect bow to political influence right here in our city may have been a humane or collegiate response, but it was contrary to the very democracy that we hold dear.”
If we have to sell our souls to be friends with China then the price is too high.
Unless you don’t have one. See Red Kevin, via The Guardian:
Rudd, who is now the director of the Asia Society Policy Institute based in New York, and is studying for a PhD on Chinese president Xi Jinping at Oxford University, spoke at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday night in an unguarded manner, repeatedly expressing his disdain for Donald Trump whom he called “the Trumpster” or “the Donald” and comparing China’s state-run media to News Corp.
But Rudd saved his most scathing comments of the evening for Turnbull, referencing an incident in December 2017 during the controversy about foreign interference and Labor MP Sam Dastyari’s connections with China.
When asked if he felt “bullied or intimidated” by China, Turnbull invoked a famous Chinese slogan to declare Australia would “stand up” against meddling in its national affairs. Switching between Mandarin and English, Turnbull said: “Modern China was founded in 1949 with these words: ‘The Chinese people have stood up’. It was an assertion of sovereignty, it was an assertion of pride. And we stand up and so we say, the Australian people stand up.”
On Thursday night, Rudd said politicians needed to “be very judicious about when you open your big mouth”.
“By which I mean, Turnbull’s egregious statement that the Australian people have stood up. That stuff that he did at the end of 2017, that was just nuts, it was domestically and politically self-indulgent nuttiness.”
Rudd said he was in Beijing at the time of the comments, and the discussion of foreign interference was passing by without much attention from Chinese leaders.
“And then suddenly, in thunders Malcolm, and he picks the phrase that Mao Zedong used… Picks that phrase, or blabs it out in his own appalling rendition of Chinese, and then suddenly it was in every Chinese headline.
“You want to pick the day when the relationship went, in my judgment unnecessarily, down the gurgle [sic], it was that day, so just be judicious about when you embark upon public language.”
Err, no, if you want to pick a day it was the moment that Sam Dastayari ripped the scab of an egregious attempt by the CPC to distort Australian democracy. Have a read of Turnbull’s reponse yourself:
The Legislation
The legislation I am introducing today is designed to reinforce the strengths of our open democratic system while shoring up its vulnerabilities.
I mentioned earlier that our Counter Foreign Interference Strategy has four pillars: sunlight, enforcement, deterrence and capability.
Of these, sunlight is at the very centre.
To ensure activities are exposed to sunlight, following an extensive review by the Attorney-General, we are introducing a new Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
The principle is quite straightforward.
If a person or entity engages with the Australian political landscape on behalf of a foreign state or principal then they must register accordingly.
This will give the Australian public and decision-makers proper visibility when foreign states or individuals may be seeking to influence Australia’s political processes and public debates.
The link could be a financial relationship or some other form of arrangement.
Registration requirements are carefully structured so that the closer you get to the heart of Australian politics, the more likely it is that you must register.
Being registered under the scheme should not be seen as any kind of taint. And certainly not as a crime.
To the contrary it is applying the basic principles of disclosure to allow the public and policymakers to assess any underlying agenda.
But if you fail to disclose your ties to a foreign principal then you could be liable for a criminal offence.
This is not about shutting down legitimate debate, but rather enabling it.
Interference, espionage and sabotage
Sunlight is the most reliable disinfectant but it will not be sufficient on its own.
We are also introducing, for the first time, offences for acts of foreign interference. Addressing a clear gap, we will criminalise covert, deceptive and threatening actions by persons acting on behalf of, or in collaboration with, a foreign principal aiming to influence Australia’s political processes or prejudice our national security.
Acts of foreign interference are often intertwined with espionage.
But our espionage laws are so unwieldy they have not supported a single conviction in decades, even as the threat reaches unprecedented levels.
So we will also introduce a range of carefully structured espionage offences as well as new provisions for secrecy, sabotage and treason.
Any one of these three pieces of legislation—the foreign donations legislation, which Senator Cormann will introduce into the Senate, transparency, and interference-related criminal offences, would mark an enormous improvement in our ability to counter foreign interference.
Together, they add up to the most important overhaul of our counterintelligence legislative framework since the 1970s.
They should be seen as interlocking components. All are important and none will fully succeed without the others.
Finally, we need a central hub to not only enforce the law but do so in a way that maximises deterrence.
This is where our new Home Affairs portfolio will come in.
There is no national security threat outside war time that demands an integrated all-of-government capability like this one.
By enacting this legislation, and building the capability to properly use it, we are sending an unmistakable signal:
We will not allow foreign states to use our freedoms to erode freedom; our open democracy to subvert democracy; our laws to undermine the rule of law.
Absolutely proportionate, if anything moderate, and ought to be supported by the ScoMo Government.
And all of this Labor CPC apologising as 100k Australians are on the ground in Hong Kong while it fights for survival.
WTF.
