by Ganesh Sahathevan
From left to right: Prof Eugene Clark, Hon George Brandis, Dr Minshen Zhu
Zhenhua Data's surveilling Australians on behalf of the Communist Party Of China (CPC)included lawyers:
Several prominent figures are among the 35,000 Australians discovered in the restored part of the leaked database, including state and federal politicians, military officers, diplomats, academics, civil servants, business executives, engineers, journalists, lawyers and accountants.
It is not hard to understand why the Chinese Communist Party would want to have files on lawyers. History tells us why:
In Singapore, the (China backed Communist Party Of Malaya)CPM clung on to their long-cherished goal of re-establishment of the Communist United Front of workers, students and intellectuals. 193 To that end, its subversive and recruitment efforts were widened to include distinctly bourgeois groups such as journalists, lawyers, marketing executives, ballet dancers and teachers. One such cell organised by lawyer G Raman aimed to: Force the government to release hardcore communist detainees in readiness for the general elections due 1976/77. The released detainees could then group and rebuild the Communist United Front to complement the armed struggle of the CPM. In part this was in association with Euro-communists, exerting pressure through the Socialist International
Lawyers deal in the confidences of many who are rich, powerful, and well connected. Trawling through lawyers files can provide high grade intelligence that can be deployed in any number of ways and for any number of purposes.
Equally important is trawling through the files about lawyers; being officers of the courts vested with legal professional privilege and in control of trust accounts (which are also covered by privilege), lawyers provide especially good cover for covert operations.
Consequently any database of lawyers is an asset that would be of interest to the CPC. The NSW Law Society and the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board possess such databases, and have in fact opened themselves to CPC penetration as a result of the NSW LPAB's dealings with the CPC linked Zhu Minshen and his Top Education Group.
Readers will recall that the NSW LPAB made an exception in issuing Zhu the first and only license to award law degrees in Australia that has been granted a private company that is not an university.
The NSW LPAB did so despite Zhu's political dealings, interference in Australian politics, and open defiance of AFP and ASIO directives. The NSW LPAB is chaired by the Chief Justice of NSW Tom Bathurst, who is ultimately responsible for the issuance of that license.
Together with the license comes the status, prestige and access to the NSW and Australian legal establishment.At a practical nuts and bolts level Zhu and his Top Group can have correspondence with the NSW LPAB that is confidential, if not privileged. There are in addition legislative powers that can be used to deny admission to practise for political and commercial reasons.
The correspondence is likely to be in electronic form ie emails and attachments, and these in turn can be utilised for penetration beyond the recipient. The tools for doing so can be readily obtained from iFlytek, which has been blacklisted by the US Government for providing the Chinese Government products that were used to monitor and police Uighurs. IFlytek has also had a longstanding collaboration with Huawei.
In simple popular terms the NSW LPAB under the supervision of its chairman, the Chief Justice Of NSW Tom Bathurst, has created a Tinker Tailor Soldier type conduit that can be tapped by the CPC whenever it wishes.
Complicating matters is the conduct of the NSW LPAB in a number of issues over the past two years, including one in which the NSW LPAB attempted to discredit investigation by journalists including this writer of the 1MDB theft. CPC companies were involved in an attempted cover-up of that theft.
TO BE READ WITH
TO BE READ WITH
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