Penny Wong making the case for Labor and national security:
Penny Wong is rock solid on everything but she, too, is playing domestic politics on China, discussion of which starts at around 22 minutes.
Several comments:
- Labor dug its own domestic political hole on China over the past five years by failing to foresee and act upon a “changing” China during the “Silent Invasion”. This happened at the state and federal levels, both of which sought to protect the relationship as China “changed”.
- This was always going to become a political issue. As it should. Morrison is a “psycho”, his rhetoric colourful, and his government inept, but we still need to ask if he and others like MB had not pressured Labor to change radically from its rusted-on Chinese support, would it have happened?
- For example, it is only two years since Victorian Labor ordered Melbourne lit-up in Chinese colours just as CCP business proxies siphoned Aussie PPE to the homeland on the verge of the pandemic. The Morrison Government has had to force Victorian Labor out of China’s arms via national legislation.
- Even after China delivered the infamous 14 conditions to end democracy, all Labor premiers backed Beijing over Canberra in the name of “jobs”. As well, the federal Labor party broke the domestic consensus on national security first. Rather than back the Morrison Government, federal Labor blamed the 14 conditions to end democracy upon weak Morrison diplomacy.
- I put it to you that that is a measure of how deeply compromised Labor was by Chinese biases. It is beyond me how Labor (or anybody) could have read those 14 conditions and not immediately have recognised a moment of historical national interest crisis in which political unity to fight an imperial invader was of the utmost priority.
- This goes to trust. How deep is Labor’s conversion to defence against China, as well as can it be trusted when the CCP next comes calling again with carrots, not sticks, as it is already. Modern Labor mythology is steeped in Chinese success and many of its greybeards are unrepentant in their support for the close China relationship that they built.
In my view, the answer is a qualified “yes”. The “change” in China is so obvious now, and the earth around it so salted, that a return to former engagement will be very difficult:
- The Australian people shifted long before Labor did and the electoral political momentum is all away from China.
- Institutional inertia has swung that way as well. The Quad, AUKUS, Ukraine, defence reforms, degloblisation and a developing Cold War 2.0, will all make it very difficult for Labor’s corrupted Chinese interests to have much sway.
In conclusion, no, Penny Wong and Labor are not the “Manchurian Candidate”. But, neither is Wong giving us a full account of Labor’s recent failure to understand unfolding history.
As for Katharine Murphy, her refusla to hold Wong’s feet to the fire over Labor’s recent domestic political responses to Chinese aggression is either personal bias, ideological corruption, or plain poor journalism.
