Not all China state activities in Australia caught despite ‘blatant’ operations, inquiry finds

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull admitted last week that the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, introduced as part of Australia’s foreign interference law in 2018, targeted China

Despite targeting the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, there were few records of its activities on the scheme’s transparency database

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An Australian government programme to monitor foreign influence has failed to account for the full range of Chinese Communist Party activities in the country even as state-related activities account for the lion’s share of those recorded. Photo: dpa

Published: 6:00am, 2 Mar 2023Updated: 7:31am, 2 Mar 2023

An Australian government programme to monitor foreign influence has failed to account for the full range of Chinese Communist Party activity in the country even as Chinese state-related activities account for the lion’s share of those recorded, a parliamentary inquiry has found.

While Canberra did not single out Beijing when it introduced the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme as part of Australia’s first foreign interference laws in 2018, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told the inquiry held last week that the law he introduced in 2018 was targeted at China.

In particular, it was targeting activities of the Communist Party’s overseas arm, the United Front Work Department, the body responsible for dealing with non-party individuals and groups both inside and outside China.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told the inquiry held last week that the foreign interference law he introduced in 2018 was targeted at China. Photo: via AP

According to transcripts of the inquiry issued on Wednesday, Turnbull said that while the scheme’s administrator, the attorney general’s department, was aware of the United Front’s presence in Australia, there were few records of their activities on the scheme’s transparency database.

“I’d like to know why it is that there are no entities or individuals reporting an association with the United Front Work Department. The intelligence and security agencies have a very good idea of who’s doing what,” Turnbull said. “I wouldn’t even describe it as covert. They’re pretty blatant operations.”

The scheme was established at a time when Australia-China relations had begun to sour around the time Canberra banned Chinese telecom company Huawei from selling 5G networks due to national security concerns.

While the programme expects individuals or groups to voluntarily record activities such as lobbying if they are conducted on behalf of a foreign principal, the attorney general’s department can force an entity to register, as it did with the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China (ACPPRC) earlier this year.

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