Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said he could have halted the lease of Darwin Port to a Chinese company shortly after coming to power a decade ago – pulling the plug on a deal the US “never liked”.
The former leader told Bloomberg Television on Thursday that at the time, security agencies had assured him there were no concerns about the deal. The Northern Territory government had made the decision to lease the port for 99 years to Landbridge Group shortly after Turnbull took office in September 2015.
