Cory Bernardi was warned by a senior Liberal that his criticism of Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s donations from Chinese government linked individuals might affect the Liberal party, given “we receive money from them too”.
Bernardi’s allegations followed fallout from Four Corners-Fairfax revelations about the influence of foreign political donations, particularly from two donors with close ties to the Chinese government.
The Asio chief, Duncan Lewis, reportedly organised meetings in 2015 with the senior party officers from the federal Liberal, National and Labor parties to warn them that foreign donors could compromise the major parties.
Malcolm Turnbull said the government had already begun a review on agency powers relating to espionage and cyberattacks and he took threats to Australia’s sovereignty very seriously.
“The sovereignty of Australia, the sovereignty of our democratic processes, free from foreign interference, is a matter of the highest concern,” Turnbull said.
Bernardi told Guardian Australia he had been criticising Dastyari last year for taking donations from wealthy business people, with links to the Chinese Communist party when he received a call from a senior Liberal.
“When I first started talking about Sam Dastyari, I received a call from a senior Liberal who said you can do anything you think you need to but we receive money from them too,” Bernardi said. “There is something really rotten in state of Denmark.”
Bernardi said that the call came before his three-month trip to New York and prior to him leaving the Liberal party and it “played into his mind” when making his decision to resign.
Bernardi has called for a royal commission into foreign donations and influence on Australian political parties because Australians cannot trust major parties to investigate themselves.
The attorney general, George Brandis, has promised tougher new espionage and foreign interference laws will come to parliament by the end of the year.
“The threat of political interference by foreign intelligence services is a problem of the highest order and it is getting worse,” Brandis said in a statement.
Barnaby Joyce said if people and nations were buying influence in Australia, it amounted to treachery. The deputy prime minister said he hated the idea that another nation would seek to influence through money and the allegations were being investigated by Asio.
“There is a vast difference between a party getting a donation, where there is no real direct benefit to a person,” Joyce said. “But if people are buying influence in our nation, well, that is treachery. We can’t abide by that in way, shape or form, from any country, not just China, any country.”
As allegations continue to surface regarding Russian interference in the US and French elections, Brandis said the threat of political interference was a global reality. It echoed comments by the Australian federal police commissioner, Andrew Colvin, who said last week he would be naive to think foreign interference could not effect Australian elections.
“Espionage and covert foreign interference by nation states is a global reality which can cause immense harm to our national sovereignty, to the safety of our people, our economic prosperity and to the very integrity of our democracy,” he said.
“Asio was originally established to investigate foreign intelligence activity and a significant proportion of its resources continue to be dedicated to this work.”
Labor’s national president, the senior frontbencher Mark Butler, said he was not at the Asio meeting but he heard reports on it at the time. Butler said Labor would engage constructively with the government on the issue but urged Turnbull to support Labor’s private member’s bill to ban foreign donations.
“There’s a private member’s bill in the parliament right now that Bill Shorten introduced that could be debated within the next fortnight if Malcolm Turnbull came on board with it,” Butler told the ABC.
Bernardi said a royal commission into foreign interference in the Australian political system was needed so that major political parties could not influence its outcome.
“There is evidence foreign state actors in domestic political activities, some of that relates to China but why limit it to China if more evidence is there?” Bernardi said. “You cannot trust two major parties to investigate themselves.”
Turnbull has previously said he favours a ban on foreign donations and it is also Labor party policy.
Much of the Four Corners report revolved around two wealthy Chinese Australian businessmen, the influential Chinese billionaire and Australian resident Huang Xiangmo and the Australian Chinese citizen Chau Chak Wing.
Huang reportedly gave $770,000 to the Liberals before the 2013 election and donated $100,000 to the then trade minister Andrew Robb’s campaign fundraising vehicle, as Robb signed off on the China-Australia free-trade deal.
Robb developed a close relationship with the billionaire and was quoted in a speech on Four Corners as a “thoughtful cerebral fellow” and a “visionary”.
Robb also developed links with the Chinese based company Landbridge, which controversially won the 99-year lease on the port of Darwin in 2015 when Robb was still trade minister.
Four Corners revealed that Robb had allegedly been appointed as a consultant to Landbridge on 1 July, the day before he retired from politics. Landbridge announced the appointment in September 2016.
According to Four Corners, from 1 July 2016 Robb was reportedly paid $73,000 a month, or $880,000 a year, plus expenses. He told Four Corners he acted in line with his obligations as former trade minister.
The statement of ministerial standards states ministers should not lobby or advocate with the government for 18 months after their political retirement.
Bernardi said while he could make no judgement on Robb’s individual behaviour, the transition between government and related businesses “stinks to high heaven”.
“A royal commission is the only appropriate way to remove the shield of vested interest.”
Joyce said the revelations regarding Robb were something for him and the authorities to discuss and the broader issue was a concern for both sides of politics.
Four Corners also reported Dastyari contradicted Labor party policy on the South China Sea a day after the influential Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo threatened to withdraw a promised $400,000 donation to the party, Four Corners has alleged.
The program reported that Huang took exception to comments made by the then Labor shadow defence minister, Stephen Conroy, that Australia’s defence force should be able to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the disputed area.
After Huang threatened to cancel the donation, Dastyari told the Chinese media that Australia shouldn’t interfere with China’s activities in the South China Sea. When the comments were reported, Dastyari denied he had split with the party on the policy, saying he wasn’t responsible for the way it was reported.
Four Corners also reported that Dastyari’s office asked the immigration department of the progress of Huang’s stalled citizenship application four times in the lead-up to the last election with the senator personally making two of the calls.
Huang is chairman of the Yuhu Group and had previously donated $5,000 to cover “legal bills” before Dastyari was a senator as well as larger amounts to both sides of politics and a number of universities as well as charities.
In a statement to Four Corners, Huang said he took “strong objection” to any suggestion he had linked his donations to any foreign policy outcome.
The report comes less than a year after Dastyari resigned from the Labor shadow ministry after it was revealed that he asked for and accepted a payment of $1,670.82 from the Australian Chinese businessman Minshen Zhu.
At the time Dastyari said he had “fallen short” in his duty as a member of parliament but he was reinstated to the shadow minister in February this year as Senate deputy opposition whip.
Prof John Fitzgerald of the Ford Foundation, Beijing, told the program “Mr Huang is very generous to all parties”.
“He could hardly be called partisan; he contributes to the Liberal party as well as to the Labor party,” Fitzgerald says. “He’s also a very generous employer of former party operatives.”
