Kimberley Kitching’s role in Wolverine group to highlight China’s threats to Australia

Kimberley Kitching was a member of the ‘Wolverines’, a group of MPs working to highlight China’s threats to Australia. This is how they operate and what may come next.

The three parliamentarians were discussing global politics when they first noticed the man standing 3m from their breakfast table at Canberra’s Penny University Café, down the hill from Parliament House.

Middle-aged and with military bearing, he was of Chinese ethnicity, wearing sunglasses, a hat, and fingerless gloves as he stared at them.

Labor’s Kimberley Kitching, and Liberals James Paterson and Andrew Hastie were well known as members of the Wolverines, a cross-party group of MPs campaigning for strong political positions and legislation to deal with the increasingly-aggressive Chinese Community Party.

Kimberley Kitching, Andrew Hastie and Anthony Byrne. Picture: Supplied

The man in the khaki-coloured top and pants with a bum-bag slung over one shoulder hovered near their table for about 15 minutes, close to the coffee queue. He didn’t order a coffee. He might have been a lost tourist. He might simply have recognised them and wanted a closer look. But it was weird.

Paterson snapped a discreet photo of the man on his mobile phone. It would later be sent to “relevant authorities.’’

Penny University Cafe in Kingston, Canberra.

It was December 3, 2020, and two days earlier, the front page of The Daily Telegraph had highlighted a repulsive tweet issued by a Chinese Government spokesman, showing a doctored photograph of an Australian soldier about to slit an Afghani child’s throat. Two weeks earlier, the Chinese Embassy in Canberra had issued a list of “14 demands’’ that Australia must abide by to repair strained relationships with Beijing. There was much for the Wolverines, the most prominent China hawks in their respective parties, to discuss.

The front page of The Daily Telegraph.

Conscious of the man’s proximity, the trio turned their conversation to mundane events. Hastie had turned up famished to their semi-regular breakfast date after an intense workout in the gym and was sweating his way through a plate of pork, fennel and hot chilli sausages, topped with hot Szechuan sauce. Kitching and Paterson were amused.

If there was anything nefarious about the interaction with the man that day, it was never disclosed.

Interesting anecdotes involving Labor Senator Kitching have been emerging since her tragic death from a heart attack in Melbourne on March 10 at the age of just 52. As well as being a popular MP across the political divide, she was known as a warrior, and Labor’s strongest public voice on China.

Now, with her passing, and with the retirement of Labor’s other China hawk, Anthony Byrne, national security hardheads in Canberra are pondering who will step into the public space vacated by Senator Kitching, who worked hard publicly and behind the scenes to ensure her party knew the threats posed to Australia by the increasingly-aggressive government in Beijing.

The late Federal Labor senator Kimberley Kitching who died from a heart attack in Melbourne.

Peter Khalil, an MP from Victoria, newly appointed to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and a former national security adviser, has been active behind the scenes, and will likely take a more public role in the absence of Senator Kitching’s voice.

Mr Khalil, who has just returned from meeting senior security officials in the US and UK with Senator Paterson, said he was “cognisant of the responsibility I have as an MP with foreign policy and national security experience’’ to ensure Australia’s national interest was protected.

“Senator Kimberley Kitching leaves a formidable legacy of policy contribution to strengthen democracies in their contest with authoritarianism … She was a champion for human rights, freedom and democracy, a commitment we shared,’’ he said.

“Over many years, I have been on the public record in media and in Parliament standing up for human rights and democratic movements around the world including in support of the democratic movements in Hong Kong and in Myanmar as well as calling out human rights abuses globally including the abhorrent treatment of the Uyghurs.’’

Victorian MP Peter Khalil who is expected to step up.

While both sides of politics have connections to China, have taken donations from controversial Chinese businesspeople and seen former MPs join Chinese companies or act as their lobbyists, there is concern at China’s reach into parts of the NSW Labor Right, particularly through the party’s Sussex Street state headquarters.

ASIO revealed last month that it had uncovered an unsuccessful attempt by a foreign power to interfere in an Australian election – it was later revealed by the media to be China, seeking to influence the preselection of Labor candidates in NSW.

Senator Kitching then used Parliamentary privilege to name Chinese Australian billionaire Chau Chak Wing as the person allegedly behind the plot.

Chinese billionaire Dr Chau Chak Wing.

“I am reliably informed that ‘the puppeteer’ mentioned in your case study in your annual threat assessment speech last week is Chau Chak Wing,” Senator Kitching put to ASIO head Mike Burgess at a Senate Estimates hearing.

“I believe it to be Chau Chak Wing. Are you able to confirm it is Chau Chak Wing?”

Mr Burgess declined to comment and told Senator Kitching it was “unfair you ask me that question in public.”

Dr Chau said the claim by Senator Kitching was “baseless’’ “reckless’’ and that he was shocked and disappointed.

“I have never had any involvement or interest in interfering with the democratic election process in Australia,” he said in a statement.

Senator Kimberley Kitching when she regularly appeared at Senate Estimates hearings at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

Senator Kitching’s move infuriated Labor’s senior leadership, as it put scrutiny back on the party’s China ties in NSW, but she was unrepentant, telling colleagues it was in Australia’s national interest, even if it was uncomfortable for her own party.

Labor has had several prominent MPs warning about getting too close to Beijing – now-retired MP Michael Danby was sounding the alarm on Beijing-owned telco Huawei as early as 2010, as was Anthony Byrne. However, concerns persist that some NSW figures in the party remain blind, or wilfully blind, to the threats China poses to free speech, and its use of coercive economic diplomacy and industrial-scale cyber espionage.

Michael Danby in Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Gary Ramage

There are real fears China could take military action against Taiwan, a conflict that would likely embroil Australia.

In May 2018, Mr Byrne cleared the way for Mr Hastie, under Parliamentary privilege, to allege Dr Chau was the person referred to in FBI documents as CC3, or “co-conspirator 3’’ in a bribery case involving the UN General Assembly secretary John Ashe in 2015. “Leave is most definitely granted in support of my friend and colleague,’’ Mr Byrne added for good measure, as Mr Hastie got to his feet and alleged: “It is now my duty to inform the House and the Australian people that CC3 is Dr Chau Chak Wing.”

Dr Chau strongly rejected the allegations.

Liberal Senator James Paterson. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

Mr Byrne’s move to support Mr Hastie’s public claim prompted a senior Labor colleague to ask him: “why are you siding with the Libs?” Mr Byrne ignored the criticism.

Then in February 2020, Mr Byrne bluntly warned visiting UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab against allowing Huawei to be involved in building the UK’s 5G network. While UK security officials were initially comfortable allowing the telco to be involved, the British government then followed Australia’s lead to ban it. The ambush infuriated the Brits, but once again, Mr Byrne was unrepentant.

Despite his hawkish view on China, Mr Byrne never joined the Wolverines, but worked with Mr Hastie and later Senator Paterson to firm up foreign interference and cyber-espionage legislation through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

Senator Kitching routinely went public about China’s threatening behaviour towards dissidents and journalists and the international rules-based order, and fought similar battles behind the scenes with some of her colleagues.

Mr Khalil also never joined the Wolverines, joking that his Egyptian heritage made him more of a “desert jackal’’ which operated alone rather than in a pack. However, he is described as having “sound instincts’’ on China.

It’s thought he was involved behind the scenes in nuancing his party’s position to publicly acknowledge that China’s posture had changed in recent years and become more assertive and threatening to the Indo-Pacific region, and to Australia’s national security.