realpolitikasia

Friday, July 8, 2022

AG Mark Dreyfuss has a duty to investigate former AG George Brandis' conduct in the matter of Zhu Minshen and the NSW LPAB's decision to grant Zhu and his Top Group the license to issue law degrees-Australia is the only jurisdiction in the world to have extended that right to a Communist Party China liked entity

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Australia is the only jurisdiction in the world to have extended the right to issue law degrees to a Communist Party China liked entity. Former Commonwealth Attorney General George Brandis appears to have been involved in that matter, and new AG Mark Dreyfuss has a duty to investigate the matter.

TO BE READ WITH

Monday, November 18, 2019

George Brandis and Zhu Minshen's license to award LLB degrees: Brandis conduct in the matter of China's attempt to buy Ausgrid raises further questions about his dealings with Zhu Minshen, and the NSW LPAB's decision to grant Zhu and his Top Group that license.

by Ganesh Sahathevan

From left to right :Prof Eugene Clark, Hon George Brandis,
Dr Minshen Zhu

In May 2018 Peter Hartcher and the SMH reported with regards the the federal government's decision to veto the $10 billion sale of Ausgrid to a Chinese-dominated partnership in 2016:

In the inner sanctum of the cabinet's national security committee, there were some terse exchanges. The then secretary of the Defence Department, Dennis Richardson, emphatically rejected any suggestion that it was his department’s responsibility to police the critical infrastructure list.
The Treasury hosts the body that has to consider foreign buy-ins of any scale or sensitivity, the Foreign Investment Review Board, but the Treasury doesn’t manage the list of critical infrastructure. “Well,” Scott Morrison asked at one point, “Who is responsible for managing the critical infrastructure list?” He looked around the table, according to multiple people present at the time. It was not a secret. In fact, the public website of the Attorney-General’s Department stated that it was responsible for managing the list.

After a silence, when the attorney-general George Brandis said nothing, the secretary of his department, Chris Moraitis, spoke up: “We are.”

The above account of the conduct of George Brandis' ,who was then also in charge of ASIO is added to the issues raised by this writer in the article:

Top Group's LLB: Did ASIO warn its minister George Brandis, did Brandis, the NSW LPAB and Law Council Australia ignore ASIO

It does look as if Brandis, who is currently High Commissioner to the UK, has treated matters of national security as if he were in court, where one can always rely on silence to justify the argument that a decision of the court is valid regardless of the facts because the particular issue had not been plead.

Unfortunately, the real world and in particular national security cannot work that way.

Brandis must provide answers, as do the NSW LPAB , its chairman Tom Bathurst, and all others involved in granting Zhu Minshen his history making license.

END

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Australia's First Nations Foreign Policy modelled on a time when the First Australians appeased Bugis pirates- A danger that lanun misunderstood has caused muddleheaded thinking which will lead Albanese to seek appeasement with China

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Two black and white photographs of Aboriginal men and one child.

Possibly the only known photographs of Aboriginal voyagers to Makassar, taken in 1873.(Museo Nazionale Pigorini)

When Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Indonesia recently he returned via Makasssar. Echoing conventional Australian wisdom he said:

"Centuries ago, the sea route between here and northern Australia was alive with a flourishing trade," Albanese said in a speech to students and alumni at Hasanuddin University on Tuesday.

"Each December, the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land would look to the sea, waiting for the horizon to fill with the sails of Makassar vessels.

"It laid down the foundation stone for the people-to-people contact that is at the very heart of Australia's relationship with the people of Indonesia."

This then is the foundation of Australia's new First Nations centred foreign policy. However, the conventional wisdom does seem more grounded in the Aboriginal dreamtime than it is in reality for the Makassar vessels brought Bugis, who are best known in South East Asia, to this day, as pirates. The roving bandit syndrome well describes their activities throughout the Malay Archipelago, and Northern Australia.

This fact is usually ignored in Australian accounts of the trepang "trade", which go so far as to attribute to the Yolngu the concept of licensing of fishery rights when ownership of land is to this day a concept alien to Australia's aboriginal people.

However, even the more romantic accounts of the Yolgnu-Makassar relations has had to acknowledge this more nightmarish aspect of the dreamtime story:

Makassan captains were also immortalised in Yolŋu law as ancestral ghosts with the potential for malevolence. This reflected the reality that, while Makassan seafarers imported goods that were useful and desirable to the Yolŋu, their presence could also bring conflict.

While this account seems closer to the truth of what encounters with the Bugis would have been like, it does seem, even then, to consider the Yolgnu as being on equal footing with the seafarers they feared, when they imported goods from the Makassans. Given the inequality in power it is more likely that the Makasans provided the Yolgnu inducements in the form of alcohol and other low cost commodities so that the Yolgnu would work for them in processing trepang. The photo above taken from 1873 is likely to be that of Yolgnu captured and sold into slavery in Makassar.

The danger now is that this muddleheaded thinking based on the fantasy of Ylognu-Macassan relations will cause Albanese to seek a policy of appeasement with China, in the name of trade and investment.Albanese needs to learn and consider the meaning of lanun, the Malay for word for pirate. It is often used as an adjective for the Bugis.

END

Saturday, July 2, 2022

Was the ABC aware of Australian High Commission Malaysia's stage managing Penny Wong's rockstar reception in Sabah? Viewers, taxpayers are entitled to an accounting

by Ganesh Sahathevan

The ABC outdid itself in its reporting of Foreign Minister Penny Wong's official visit to Malaysia.

The ABC gave the impression that Wong was being welcomed by natives who came out to greet a hero.

One of the locals, the Opposition MP Ginger Phoong posted his welcome on his Instagram account, and thanked the Australian High Commission for arranging the "hero's welcome".

The ABC owes viewers and taxpayers, an explanation,

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Penny Wong's special connection to Sabah best demonstrated by Australian Government led investment in Sabah's Royal Malaysian Navy submarine base - AUKUS , FPDA provide the basis

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Penny Wong and brother James, of her recently
acknowledged extended family in Sabah

In 2015 Malaysia's Minister for Defence Hishamuddin Tun Hussein Onn said:

“I am of the opinion that the preparedness of (the Sepanggar submarine) base must be improved with an advanced Air Defence System to overcome any challenges which might come this way.

“In line with technological advancements, the navy is thinking of new plans, including overcoming scenarios of the current threat in the South China Sea and the waters around East Sabah,”

The Sepanggar base is home to Malaysia's two diesel electric submarines, the KD Tunku Abdul Rahman and the KD Tun Razak and it of interest to China's Peoples' Liberation Army. As China analyst Geoff Wade observed in 2015:

In a quiet but undoubtedly significant event, Admiral Wu Shengli (吴胜利), commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and a member of the PRC’s Central Military Commission recently visited Malaysia with an entourage of 10 senior officials. During his visit, Admiral Wu secured agreement from the Malaysian Navy for the ships of the PLA Navy to use the port of Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo as a ‘stopover location’ to ‘strengthen defence ties between the two countries’.

Access to a northern Borneo port has long been an ambition of the PLA Navy in its efforts to expand control in the South China Sea. Two years ago, in a Strategist posting entitled Xi Jinping and the Sabah enigma, I noted how Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Sabah (subsequently aborted) reflected PRC efforts to increase links with that key region of northern Borneo. Chinese naval personnel first visited Kota Kinabalu in August 2013.

In the light of these visits and increasing PRC maritime assertiveness, only the most innocent would, on observing the location of Darwin between the South China Sea and the Indian and South Pacific Oceans, conclude that the PLA Navy would not likewise be interested in securing access to and facilities in the port of Darwin. Particularly if it was under the control of a Chinese enterprise for the coming century.

Indeed, by 2017 PLA submarines were calling at Sepanggar. Malaysia's NST reported in that year:

A Chinese submarine has docked in Malaysia, the second such visit to the Southeast Asian country this year, as western powers fret over China’s expanding reach in the South China Sea.

The Royal Malaysian Navy confirmed the visit by the Chinese submarine, which docked at the Sepanggar naval base in the state of Sabah in Borneo between Friday and Monday.

Australia's new Foreign Minister Penny Wong claims a special relationship with Sabah, for she was born there. There have been many reports published by Australia's media outlets celebrating her recent return to Sabah as Foreign Minister of Australia, which Australian media and Wong say heralds a new era in Malaysia-Australia relations.

Malaysia's Defence Minister Hishamuddin has said that facilities at the Sepanggar base need improvement and a new era born of that special relationship can be cemented by Wong persuading her Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to have the Australian Government lead investment into Sepanggar and other naval facilities in Sabah.

The Australian Government is party to the 50 year old Five Power Defence Agreement (FPDA) to which Malaysia is also a party, and the more recent AUKUS nuclear submarine pact. The South China Sea is a subject of common interest to both agreements, and that provides the Australian Government with a policy basis for the types of investment initiative described above.

EN D

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

While in Malaysia Sabah born Australian FM Penny Wong downplays AUKUS, says nothing about the Malaysian Navy's submarine base in Sabah, and China's interest in it

by Ganesh Sahathevan

HMAS Dechaineux berthed at Sepanggar in Sabah on 1 May 2013 for the first visit of an Australian submarine to this port.

The Guardian (and others) reported:

Malaysia’s foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, has said that his country’s concerns about the Aukus nuclear submarine pact remain unchanged, after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday with his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong.

Saifuddin told reporters he communicated Malaysia’s ongoing concern about the security deal between Australia, the UK and the US during a “very candid” discussion with Wong on her first visit to the Malaysian capital as Australia’s foreign minister.

Regional objections to Australia’s planned acquisition of nuclear-propelled submarines surfaced almost immediately after Aukus was unveiled by Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison.

What Senator Wong, who makes much of her connections to the Malaysian state of Sabah, and Malaysia's Saifuddin have both ignored is the fact that the UK, Australia and Malaysia are all parties to the 50 year old Five Power Defence Agreement. Also ignored is the issue of China's access to Sabah's submarine base.

One would think that AUKUS and the FDPA combined would bring the Sabah submarine base into greater significance in Malaysia-Australia discussions, but apparently not.

TO BE READ WITH

Chinese sub docks at Malaysian port for second time this year
By Reuters - September 13, 2017 @ 10:43pm

(File pix) RMN chief Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin said it was standard international procedure to welcome visits by foreign navy vessels, “based on each nation’s request and upon diplomatic clearance.”

KUALA LUMPUR: A Chinese submarine has docked in Malaysia, the second such visit to the Southeast Asian country this year, as western powers fret over China’s expanding reach in the South China Sea.

China claims nearly all the South China Sea, through which an estimated $3 trillion in international trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also have claims.

Tensions between China and Malaysia over their overlapping claims, however, appear to have eased after Malaysia agreed in November to buy four Chinese naval vessels and pledged with Beijing to handle South China Sea disputes bilaterally.

The Royal Malaysian Navy confirmed the visit by the Chinese submarine, which docked at the Sepanggar naval base in the state of Sabah in Borneo between Friday and Monday.

RMN chief Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin said it was standard international procedure to welcome visits by foreign navy vessels, “based on each nation’s request and upon diplomatic clearance.”

“This is part of our efforts to enhance defence diplomacy and strengthening bilateral relations,” he told Reuters.

The submarine was escorted by a surface ship from the PLA Navy and was returning to China after conducting escort missions in the Gulf of Aden, according to defence magazine Jane’s 360, which first reported the submarine’s docking.

In January, a Chinese submarine docked in Sepanggar, only the second confirmed visit of a Chinese submarine to a foreign port, according to state media.

Chinese warships have also been calling at ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, unnerving regional rival India. --Reuters

Infrastructure Australia says Sun Cable's Darwin-Singapore solar cable qualifies for taxpayer funding, Singapore says Sun Cable does not have permission to import electricity into Singapore

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Infrastructure Australia CEO Romilly Madew AO joins PM Albanese
n building the Sun Cable story, despite silence from its intended customer,
the Government Of Singapore

Singapore's Channel News Asia has reported what Australian media, politicians, and statutory bodies, especially Infrastructure Australia have ignored:

Sun Cable still needs the green light to be able to transmit its solar energy in a few year's time. It is optimistic it can reach an agreement with Singapore authorities to be allowed to hook up its power link, but did not disclose when it expected that might happen.

Readers will be aware that even the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has insisted that is a done deal (see story below).

Following Albanese's false claims, Infrastructure Australia, a Commonwealth statutory body has endorsed the project so that it now qualfies for funding by Albanese's ALP Government.

In the words of PV Magazine:

After completing its own assessment of the economic impact of the project, Infrastructure Australia, which first added AAPowerLink to its Infrastructure Priority Initiative List in 2021, provided its endorsement, recommending the project for commonwealth investment.

TO BE READ WITH

Australian PM Albanese suggests that his Sun Cable has been given preferential treatment in the ongoing Singapore Government call for renewable energy proposals-If true, other bidders are being disadvantaged, and clarification is required

by Ganesh Sahathevan

The newly elected Prime Minister Of Australia, Anthony Albanese (photo above) , like his predecessor Scott Morrison , claims that Sun Cable , an Australian company, will supply solar energy that to Singapore, and meet 15% of Singapore's electricity needs.

Meanwhile the Government Of Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) is in the process of calling for renewable energy proposals.

PM Albanese's assertion suggests that his country's Sun Cable has been given preferential treatment in the ongoing EMA call for renewable energy proposals. If true, other bidders are being disadvantaged, and clarification is required

END

Transcript from PM Albanese's official website, containing his latest claims about Sun Cable.

NORTHERN TERRITORY CHIEF MINISTER: It's a unique opportunity to work with a Federal Labor Government that believes in climate change, believes we need to shift across to renewables. We have enormous opportunity here in the Northern Territory. I think COVID put us on the radar with the Howard Springs facility, but the rest of Australia is waking up. We have natural resources, we have solar, we have NASA and so it's an exciting time. So I look forward to working with the incoming Commonwealth Government that Sun Cable project is huge and every Australian should go and Google it after they watch the news tonight and see the investment in the Northern Territory and the fact that we will have a cable linking Australia to Singapore and this is an exciting opportunity for us to have our renewables going offshore, giving us economic opportunity. Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER: I'll make this this point as well about the Sun Cable project. One, it is the largest by a long way. Overwhelmingly the largest solar project in the world on the planet, and that is very exciting for us. The other thing is I have had discussions with Mike Cannon-Brookes and others connected with Sun Cable about how we maximise Australian input there. So areas like the production of the cable itself, this is a manufacturing boom that we have potentially here in Australia. It's what, when I spoke about a feature made in Australia during the campaign, it's exactly that. We have, there isn't a solar panel in the world that doesn't have Australian IP involved. Whether it's ANU or UNSW, we need to maximise Australian input.