By Latika Bourke
Former Defence minister and Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon says it's "absolutely possible" that the Rolex watches given to Tony Abbott and former ministers Stuart Robert and Ian Macfarlane by a Chinese businessman could have been bugged.
Intelligence sources also said the issue of China actively targeting Australian MPs is one actively discussed in the intelligence community and that at the very least, gifts of any kind should always be checked.
Left Rolex is real. Right Rolex is fake.
Mr Fitzgibbon said on Thursday that when he was Australia's Defence Minister between 2007 - 2009 he gave every gift he ever received to the then Defence Signals Directorate (now Australian Signals Directorate ASD) for X-raying.
"When I was Defence Minister, if I was given so much as a USB drive, I'd hand it over to DSD," Mr Fitzgibbon told Fairfax Media.
Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
"Anyone in a senior position should do the same in the interests of national security," he said.
The offices of Mr Robert and Mr Macfarlane confirmed the watches were not submitted to any sort of testing. Mr Abbott's office declined to answer.
Mr Abbott, Stuart Robert and Ian Macfarlane accepted the Rolex watches from Chinese billionaire Li Ruipeng in June 2013. Mr Abbott was the Opposition Leader at the time, while Ian Macfarlane was the Opposition's spokesperson for Industry and Stuart Robert was representing the Coalition on defence personnel, science and technology issues.
Parliamentary rules state that any Member who receives a gift from a non-official source must declare the item within 28 days but the trio did not declare the luxury watches as they thought they were fake "because they all came out of a paper bag."
Fellow Liberal MP Ian Goodenough, who wears a Rolex he bought himself, was the first to spot the watch was genuine during the federal election campaign. Mr Macfarlane had his watch valued and, upon realising they were authentic, they were returned, after consulting the now Federal Director of the Liberal Party, Tony Nutt, who was helping oversee the Coalition's transition into government.
Mr Robert was dumped from the frontbench last week over a trip he took in August 2014 to mark a mining deal between Chinese-owned Minmetals and Australian company Nimrod Resources, owned by his friend and donor to the Liberal National party, Paul Marks. Mr Robert held a stake in Nimrod Resources through a trust. He said he attended the signing in a private capacity but has since acknowledged it was a mistake to think his private and professional capacity could be separated.