George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia must reclaim the port of Darwin. In February of this year I delivered the Pivot report, from the Joint Standing Committee for Trade and Investment Growth, which recommended that the government assess whether or not the port of Darwin's lease to the communist Chinese-owned Landbridge group is in the national interest. It is not in the national interest to have port infrastructure in the hands of a foreign company—particularly a company from communist China, which has recently used trade as a tool for economic coercion against this nation.

Fighting for Australia's national interests should not be controversial. Yet we have recently heard the Leader of the Opposition describe the Australian government's efforts to shore up our nation's national security as 'inflaming nationalistic sentiment'. If it were up to Labor, we would sell every port, farm and strategic asset to the highest bidder.

The only coal port in New South Wales, the port of Newcastle, is 50 per cent owned by the Chinese state owned company China Merchants. They have a monopoly on the market. They are currently fighting with the resources sector due to the astronomically high fees they charge to use their facility. These exorbitant fees are putting coal projects and Australian coalmining jobs in the Hunter Valley at risk, and it must be asked: is this part of the ongoing economic coercion we're so used to seeing by the Chinese Communist Party against Australia? Perhaps the port of Newcastle should be reclaimed alongside the port of Darwin as well.