Inside Andrews Government’s weekly meetings with China

The Andrews Government asked for Beijing’s input on PPE supplies and Victoria’s aged care system, sparking accusations of “sneaky deals”.

The Andrews Government held weekly high level meetings on Victoria’s involvement in the scrapped Belt and Road Initiative as the state endured harsh Covid restrictions.

Documents obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun under Freedom of Information have revealed Government Services Minister Danny Pearson and senior departmental figures held the high levels meetings.

Meeting notes from June 2020 show the government was seeking involvement from Beijing on a range of issues including PPE supplies and Victoria’s aged care system.

Campaigns to support China within Victoria, and renewing the controversial Stronger Together policy were also key items.

The notes also confirm regular high level discussions were held between Mr Pearson and Gao Jian, the Deputy Director-General of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The meetings also featured Jason Fitts, Daniel Andrews’s senior China trade official, who was exposed for having official key meetings with Beijing influencer Jean Dong after she created a Belt and Road Initiative company and started lobbying the Premier to sign up to the global investment scheme.

Daniel Andrews in Tiananmen Square, China. Picture: Twitter

Evan Mulholland, Director of Communications at the Institute of Public Affairs, said revelations of the meetings were concerning.

“At a time where harsh Covid lockdowns were inflicted upon Victorians, the Andrews Government were off making sneaky deals with the same Chinese Communist Party who arguably inflicted the pandemic onto the world,” Mr Mulholland said.

“These meetings by the Andrews Government took place when widespread public opposition to the Belt and Road initiative was well known.

“The Belt and Road scheme provided the Chinese Communist Party with significant political and economic leverage over Daniel Andrews which was a threat to our freedoms and to democracy itself.”

A government spokesperson defended the meetings saying they were “an opportunity to use an existing forum to explore the supply of critical goods for the pandemic response.”

Professor James Laurenceson from the UTS Australia-China Relations Institute said while security agencies need to be on the lookout for attempts at foreign interference, concerns about the Belt and Road initiative were overblown.

“In June 2020 all levels of governments, including the federal one, were drawing on whatever connections they had to secure the supplies needed to respond to the pandemic,” he said.

Protesters outside Daniel Andrews’ electoral office voicing their concern about Victoria’s increased financial links with China and its communist regime. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

“You can be sure that most of the PPE supplies the federal government secured came from China too.

“Also don’t forget just a couple of months earlier we had the bonkers scenario where US officials were trying to commandeer PPE supplies leaving China destined for other countries, including France and Australia.”

Prof Laurenceson said federal government had continued to make upbeat statements about the BRI well into 2019.

“It was only in June 2020 that PM Morrison stated explicitly that his government considered it to not be in Australia’s national interest,” he said.

“Well fine, but that’s not what he was saying just a year earlier, and Beijing didn’t change the BRI between 2019 and 2020.”

Victoria became the first subnational government to sign a memorandum of understanding with the NDRC on the Belt and Road Initiative in October 2018.

On February 8, 2017 local time, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Melbourne with Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews of Australia. Picture: http://mt.china-embassy.org/eng/zyxwdt/t1437428.htm

The Chinese government program invests hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign infrastructure projects.

It started in 2013 and has already financed an estimated $1.8 trillion-worth in projects across more than 139 countries across Asia, Oceania, Europe and Africa.

Victoria’s agreement was torn up by the Morrison government last year.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly ruled out Australia joining the initiative.

In a damning report released earlier this year the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned the state government had ignored Australia’s national interest in signing the agreement.

“There was little that was normal about the Victorian government’s exchanges and cooperative agreements with the national government of China. They were exceptional in Australia, and with respect to the (Belt and Road Initiative), without precedent internationally,” Swinburne University expert Professor John Fitzgerald wrote.

The report found that despite the deal, there was “no significant improvement” in exports from Victoria to China in recent years and “no evidence” that Daniel Andrews’ engagement “added anything of value” to the state’s efforts to recruit more Chinese students.

Prof Fitzgerald criticised the Premier for sidelining departmental experts and circumventing his cabinet on Belt and Road, recommending governments needed to rely on the public service to “curb the impetuosity of political leadership”.

He also raised concerns about the “catalytic roles” played by the Premier’s multicultural advisers — who had connections to Communist Party-linked groups — in developing Victoria’s China policy.