Johannes Leak’s cartoon summed it all: as PM Scott Morrison declares, “I will never compromise Australian values by caving in to China’s bullying”, opposition leader Anthony Albanese jumps in, waving a Chinese flag: “I will!”
For too long, the Labor party, like too many in high places in politics, business and academia, have too easily played the role of Beijing’s useful idiots. Whether its mining magnates giving a platform to the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpieces and embarrassing the government, or academics taking Chinese cash and punishing their own students for speaking out about the regime’s brutality.
The Coalition has not been without fault in the recent past, of course: Howard government Trade Minister Andrew Robb publicly supported the handover of the strategically-vital Port of Darwin – and took an $880,000 job with the Chinese company which won the lease, as soon as he left parliament. Robb later attacked members of his own party for “souring relations” with China. But Labor, for its part, has taken literal bagloads of Chinese cash while some of its members whispered in the ears of Beijing’s henchmen. Labor premier Dan Andrews deliberately ignored federal government and security agency warnings to sign on to Xi’s BRI.
Under Anthony Albanese’s leadership, federal Labor is still trying to have an each-way bet on China.
Leaders seeking to make political capital out of our crisis in relations with China are not what Australia needs right now. Yet, with exquisitely poor timing, that is what Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten and others on the ALP frontbench have done by breaking ranks with Scott Morrison in a way that plays into Beijing’s hands. Doing so inevitably will undermine the significant wave of international support for the nation’s steadfast stand against China’s belligerence and bullying.
In federal parliament on Monday, the Opposition Leader commendably pledged Labor’s backing for the Prime Minister’s condemnation of the notorious and highly damaging Chinese tweet[…]By Wednesday, however, Mr Albanese was singing from a different song sheet. Doubtless to the delight of Beijing’s hot-headed “wolf warrior” diplomats who place blame for the crisis entirely on Australia, Mr Albanese accused the government of presiding over “a complete breakdown” in Sino-Australian diplomacy. He was, he said, amazed that Morrison government ministers could not get their Chinese counterparts to return calls. He contrasted this with his own record as a minister able to meet Chinese officials[…]
Mr Shorten supported Mr Albanese, joining in the pile-on against the Morrison government by saying it had not “handled this up to now as well as they could have”. Opposition assistant Treasury spokesman Stephen Jones also weighed in, playing further into Beijing’s hands by accusing government MPs of “inflaming tensions with China”.
Albanese and co. are not just undermining their political opponents in Australia, but their Labour counterparts across the Tasman.
Mr Albanese and his colleagues are[…]embarrass[ing] those such as the leaders of our Five Eyes partners, notably New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who have joined in strongly backing Australia’s outrage over Beijing’s antics.
Countries across the world are showing significant support for Australia. Ms Ardern has incurred the wrath of Beijing’s febrile propaganda machine by demanding answers.
The Australian
Given the support Australia has received from its allies and friends, not just in New Zealand, but Britain, Taiwan and the US, it’s astonishing that some of our own politicians are kicking against the home team. If even Jacinda Ardern can muster the fortitude to take even the mildest stand against China, it shouldn’t be too hard for our own opposition to do so, surely?
Thankfully, as push is coming more and more to shove, Labor is – however belatedly – pulling its head in, on at least one important front.
Anthony Albanese will not oppose Scott Morrison’s final passage of the government’s Foreign Relations Bill designed to give the Commonwealth greater power over state government deals with foreign nations.
The bill debated in the Senate this week after a Labor amendment failed has to be finalised next week and is one of the key policy aims for the Coalition and is an issue China has identified as a key grievance with Australia.
The proposed bill would allow Foreign Minister Marise Payne to scrap agreements with foreign powers struck by universities and sub-national governments — including Victoria’s contentious Belt and Road Initiative deal with Beijing.
The Australian
Labor tried to water down the bill and some senior Labor figures talked of blocking it altogether. Not least, one suspects, because it undermines reckless Labor socialists and China fellow-travellers like “Dictator Dan”.
Maybe, belatedly, Labor is remembering whose side they’re supposed to be on.
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