Australian MP Andrew Hastie labels major political donor as co‑conspirator in UN bribery probe, linking to Chinese covert interference

150 legislation. The chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence & Security, Andrew Hastie, named one of Australia’s most generous political donors as a “co- conspirator” in a UN bribery investigation and linked the affair to covert interference. “In Australia it is clear that the Chinese Communist Party is working to covertly interfere with our media and universities and also to influence our political processes and public debates,” Hastie told his committee, after receiving support from the deputy chair, Anthony Byrne. “And it’s time we applied sunlight to our political system and a person who has featured prominently in Australian politics over the past decade,.”™ The counter-interference criminal legislation and the foreign influence transparency scheme both passed through Parliament on June 28. The Home Affairs legislation had passed through Parliament earlier in the year, with the counter-foreign-interference task force established in April 2018. This effectively elevated the importance of countering foreign interference to a similar status as countering terrorism.” At the time of writing, the legislation to ban foreign political donations has not passed through Parliament. And Turnbull himself has been replaced as prime minister. The new prime minister, Scott Morrison, appears to have opted for policy continuity. The Turnbull government led the way in diagnosing the challenge, forging an internal consensus, and setting out a bold and coherent counterstrategy. Australia became the first country in the world to lay the foundations for a sustained and coherent counter- interference strategy. But if Australia is going to reset the terms of its engagement with a superpower—holding China to its principle of noninterference and setting a precedent of sovereign equality that others might follow—then it will have to accept strains on the bilateral relationship. If the government is to successfully implement a transformational strategy to defend Australia’s democratic processes and social cohesion, then it has to find politically sustainable ways of engaging the democratic process and publicly making the case. NOTES 1 Peter Hartcher, “Australia Has ‘Woken Up’ the World on China’s Influence: US Official,” Sydney Morning Herald, February 27, 2018, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia -has-woken-up-the-world-on-china-s-influence-us-official-20180226-p4z1un.html. 2 Ben Doherty and Eleanor Ainge Roy, “Hillary Clinton Says China’s Foreign Power Grab ‘A New Global Battle,” Guardian (UK), May 8, 2018, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news /2018/may/08/hillary-clinton-says-chinas-foreign-power-grab-a-new-global-battle. 3 “Advisory Report on the National Security Legislation Amendment,” Parliament of Australia, June 7, 2018, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence _and_Security/EspionageFinterference/Report/section?id=committees%2Freportjnt%2F024152%2F 25708. 4 Rob Taylor, “Chinese Rally in Australia to Guard Olympic Flame,” Reuters, April 15, 2008, accessed October 11, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSYD3301. Appendix 2 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020609