Christopher Pyne has accused the Labor senator Sam Dastyari of breaking an “ethical rule” by receiving gifts from Chinese business interests but ruled out a government crackdown on foreign donations.
Pyne, the leader of the House, called for Dastyari to be sacked. Although Dastyari is under fire for receiving gifts from foreign business interests it is Labor, not the Coalition, calling for foreign donations to be banned.
Speaking on Radio National on Monday, Pyne said Chinese business interests had paid a $5,000 legal bill for Dastyari, a $1,600 travel bill and provided him with two bottles of Grange wine.
“After all these blandishments, Dastyari was prepared to say the South China Sea was China’s business and that Australia should remain neutral, a position that is at odds with Labor’s policy and the national interest,” Pyne said.
Pyne called on the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, to sack Dastyari as manager of opposition business in the Senate and shadow consumer affairs minister – a call echoed by the treasurer, Scott Morrison, on 2GB radio on Monday.
But asked whether the Coalition would ban foreign donations, Pyne said there was “nothing wrong with receiving a [foreign] campaign donation and using it to campaign”. He said Dastyari had his personal debts paid and Labor was attempting to “muddy the waters by pretending they’re the same thing”.
Dastyari declared the gifts, including the wine, which he then donated to charity.
Pyne said that Dastyari “certainly has” broken donation rules but, when pushed to name the rule, he said “the ethical rule of being compromised by Chinese interests”.
“He declared two bottles of wine but he didn’t declare they were two bottles of Grange – you could have had the range from two cleanskins at Dan Murphy’s through to two bottles of Grange, he clearly was not being honest.”
On Sky News on Monday, the shadow competition minister, Andrew Leigh, said: “We’ve argued for this change in the law but, at the moment, foreign donations are allowed.
“We believe they ought to be banned and we also believe the threshold for donations disclosure is too high.” He argued the threshold should be lowered from $13,000 to $1,000.
Asked if Labor would stop accepting foreign donations before any change in the law, Leigh conceded it could do so but said it would argue for a change across the board.
“This is about cleaning up the whole system, making sure we don’t have foreign donations in the system for any political parties, rather than tilting the playing field against us.”
Leigh said no one had argued that Dastyari had broken the law and he had disclosed gifts properly.
On Sunday, the manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, said the gifts were technically within the rules but “way outside community standards”.
• This story was amended on 7 September 2016 to correct the amount of Dastyari’s legal bill.
