Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to Labor introducing a bill to parliament to ban foreign political donations over a year ago. I also refer to reports in The Daily Telegraph that Mr Huang's long-time right-hand man, Tim Xu, is campaigning for former government MP and Liberal candidate John Alexander in Bennelong. Aside from campaign staff and over a million dollars in donations, what else have Mr Huang and his associates given to the Liberals to help keep the Prime Minister in his job? And is this one of the reasons the Prime Minister has delayed banning foreign political donations for over a year? (Time expired)

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to just rule on the question, Prime Minister; sorry. The part of the question that related to the introduction of legislation is in order. The part of the question that referred to the Prime Minister taking political donations is out of order. As the member for Isaacs well knows, it is our party organisations that take those and the Prime Minister is not responsible for that.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Foreign donations legislation will be introduced in the Senate this week.

What the Labor Party and its leader are failing to tell us is how they have continued to tolerate—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister for immigration and the member for Grayndler will cease interjecting or they'll both be out of the chamber. I'm not going to seek to listen to the answer with them shouting at each other.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What the Leader of the Opposition is failing to tell us is this: how does he tolerate Senator Dastyari as a Labor senator representing the people of New South Wales in the Australian parliament when it is plain that what he has done is to sell out Australia's national interests in return for money paid to him personally? He stood up at a podium in the Commonwealth parliamentary office—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On direct relevance, Mr Speaker, given the ruling you made at the beginning where you ruled large parts of this question out of order. Therefore, what the Prime Minister is referring to cannot possibly be relevant to the question that is in order.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business does make a reasonable point. I did ask the Prime Minister to confine his answer simply to foreign political donations laws. I want to listen to the Prime Minister for the rest of his answer.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, legislation will be introduced into the Senate this week. But the critical issue that we have here is whether Senator Dastyari is representing Australia in the Senate or a foreign power. That's what Labor has to satisfy us about.