Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's not a responsible way to steward the national interest. Labor has called on the Morrison government to rewrite the legislation and focus on delivering robust, carefully written laws instead of just grabbing headlines. This is a very important debate of national strategic importance. It should have been delivered after much, much greater consultation with relevant stakeholders and after bipartisan consultations, I would have thought.

We want to play a constructive role, because we take foreign affairs, national security and strategic policy seriously, but, if the government refuses to play fair and take our feedback, of course we'll do what we can to amend the bill, focusing on flaws we've identified through the Senate committee process. These include the lack of a requirement for the minister to provide reasons for terminating arrangements made by the states, local governments and universities; the lack of clear definition of critical terms, and broad discretion for interpretation that exposes tens of thousands of contracts to sovereign risk; no capacity for oversight or review of ministerial decisions; and uncertainty around the bill's effect on the 99-year lease of the port of Darwin to a Chinese company, an issue close to my heart.

The common theme of Labor's concerns is that, while we will uphold the national interest, we don't think a lack of transparency and accountability is part of that interest. This government has a sub-par record, to say the least, on transparency and accountability. There is a case down the road, in the ACT Supreme Court, that puts on display the federal government's tendencies in this area—and 'puts on display' is a generous overstatement of the facts; that's why it's so important that there be clear definition of critical terms in this bill. I'm by no means a lawyer, but I understood that to be Law 101 sort of stuff. It's concerning that there's such a broad discretion for interpretation that exposes tens of thousands of contracts to sovereign risk—a risk posed by a foreign minister's pen flick.

But what's so bewildering in this bill to me, as the member for Solomon, is the great gap, the great hypocrisy, in this bill. On the one hand the bill could be interpreted by the government as giving it a power of veto over every university library that orders from abroad; every international scientific collaboration in our country in the most important fields in our economic future; and every local government funded University of the Third Age, community meditation group and martial arts association that has contractual arrangements with foreign businesses.

You might say these are absurd examples which no sitting minister would ever dare act on—a critic might argue that. Yes, they might be absurd, but the fact that they might plausibly fit into a reasonable interpretation of the text does tell you a lot. That's why Labor is trying to clean up definitions that are so open to interpretation you could drive a semitrailer through them. On the other hand, what gets me is that, at the same time as the bill might leave a taekwondo club unduly worried, the government explicitly, and before having even tabled the bill, discounted out of hand its application to the Darwin port.

Allow me to pause for a moment as I try to wrap this mere mortal's mind around this fantastical proposition by the federal government—I mean, seriously! At the same time as this bill possibly imposes on local and state officials around the country the extra work and responsibility of scouring through their every engagement with foreign counterparts—interactions numbering in the tens of thousands a year, if not millions—the federal government straight out decreed, before any debate, that Darwin port was off the table. 'Nothing to see here! Carry on as you were!' If this wasn't such a grave issue, it would crack me up—and I'm sure it would crack a lot of others up. But it is a serious issue.

The port of Darwin should never have been sold. It is one of the most important pieces of critical infrastructure in our nation for both defence and commercial purposes. This has been my longstanding position since before I came to office. A lot of Australians and Territorians support the idea of the government reviewing the lease or even buying back the port. This same coalition government which oversaw the sale of the port for 99 years and whose then trade minister consulted for Landbridge, the company which leased the port for 99 years, is now telling us that this can't be discussed and it doesn't come under a bill about contracts with foreign powers.

To those opposite, to the federal government, I simply ask: why? Seriously. I'm asking for a lot of friends. I'm asking for the member for Spence. I'm asking for a lot of friends in Darwin, in the Northern Territory and all across Australia—and for our allies and strategic partners. Does the Territory just not make the cut in terms of the government's national interest analyses? I can tell you that Territorians are sick of being treated like mushrooms by this federal government—kept in the dark, fed fertiliser, and not really taken seriously until there is a buck to be made. We're sick of it! I heard the member for Goldstein earlier, having a go at Victoria. I heard him argue that it's not politics when he and the government use this bill to try to bash the Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews. I heard him argue that it is politics when Labor expects the government to avoid double standards by looking at all deals equitably, regardless of which party is in power.

I thought that was the definition of the national interest, or does the government have another much looser definition of the national interest? It's an open question. We've seen how vague its definitions of key terms are. Is the Morrison government, the Prime Minister's government, suggesting that we should cover our eyes and ears when a potentially dubious deal is done by our own party? Is that what they're suggesting? And should we scrutinise only those potentially dubious deals done by our political adversaries? That is the stuff of an autocratic state.

These are the kinds of obvious problems with the bills as they stand and with the government's partisan attitude to them. Even the majority report of the Senate committee, written by those opposite—the government's own senators—recommends further consultation to resolve major questions. This bill is a patch-up job to make up for the government's seven years of failure to protect the Australian national interest. Those opposite, the federal government, have encouraged Australian universities to become more reliant on income from international education; overseen Australian exporters becoming 18 per cent more reliant on a single market, with no plan to help them diversify or survive through tough times; signed a secret federal Belt and Road deal in 2017; and allowed the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company. That is this government, which is in its eighth year; all of that happened under its watch. But to have a crack at the Victorian Premier, they just threw this legislation together. It has more holes in it than you would care to try to fix. But we are going to try to fix it.

We do look forward to the Morrison government giving this proposed bill further consideration and invite those opposite to work in a bipartisan way to advance our shared national interest—our shared national interest. 'National': that means everyone. As I said at the outset, we support the objectives of this bill. There's a lot of repair work to be done on it, and I look forward to taking part in those debates in the time ahead.

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