MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
90 SECOND STATEMENT
CHINA
27 AUGUST 2020
Managing our relationships with other countries has always been the Federal Government’s job and of course the Federal Government should always be determining what is in our national interest.
But in some sort of Trumpian act, the Prime Minister now wants the entire nation to be overcome with amnesia about his own record.
He wants us to forget that it was his Government that ticked off the sale of the Port of Darwin – a strategic asset – to a Chinese company.
He wants us to forget that when Victoria signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China in 2018 his Trade Minister, Senator Birmingham, declared “that’s something we welcome.”
And most of all he wants us to forget that in September 2017 his Government signed its own BRI Memorandum of Understanding with China.
And what is in this BRI deal? We don’t know.
The Prime Minister refuses to tell us. And why? Because, as Fairfax newspapers reported in 2018 “China has not agreed to do so".
Unlike the Morrison Government, Federal Labor has made it clear that we would not sign up to the BRI.
It’s time that the Morrison Government started properly managing our international relations instead of chasing headlines.
ENDS
