Veteran Labor MP, former senior adviser to Daniel Andrews’ has links to China’s Communist Party
PREMIER Daniel Andrews has refused to answer questions about his parliamentary secretary for Asia Engagement and the veteran MP’s links to Chinese lobby groups.
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PREMIER Daniel Andrews has refused to answer questions about his parliamentary secretary for Asia Engagement and the veteran MP’s links to Chinese lobby groups.
A fired up Mr Andrews said today he wouldn’t talk about the Australian Council for the Peaceful Reunification of China, or the Chinese Community Council of Australia.
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The Herald Sun has revealed MP Hong Lim was a long-term adviser to the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China’s honorary board.
The role was not declared on Mr Lim’s register of interests.
“Every MP clearly understands that they have obligations and you can raise those matters with him,” Mr Andrews said.
Mr Andrews was asked whether Mr Lim’s role as chair of the Chinese Community Council of Australia Victorian advisory council should be noted on the parliamentary register of interests.
“They would need to be an office bearer, and I think the obligations on every single MP are very well known and people should declare everything that the legislation requires them to properly declare,” he said.
“I have been very clear with you, I have nothing further to say about this story.”
Mr Lim, the member for Clarinda, said he would “have to look at” why he was listed as an adviser to the group, which a parliamentary inquiry heard was a Communist Party “United Front” body pushing pro-Beijing views in Australia.
“I know what this organisation is about so I keep 100 miles from them,” Mr Lim said.
Mike Yang, Mr Andrews’s senior adviser on China until 2013, is a current vice president of the ACPPRC.
The Herald Sun can also reveal Mr Lim has not declared his role as the chair of the Chinese Community Council of Australia’s Victorian advisory council.
The CCCAV — which works to ensure the “needs of Chinese-Australians” are recognised by governments — won taxpayer-funded grants totalling $70,000 last year from Mr Lim’s own department and the Premier’s department.
A Herald Sun investigation has uncovered close links between the CCCAV and the Labor Party.
It also received a $50,000 donation from controversial Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Parliament that Mr Xiangmo, the former president of the ACPPRC, was an “agent of a foreign country” after his links to Sam Dastyari were exposed, ending the Labor senator’s political career.
A Labor whistleblower is now calling for an inquiry into any potential collusion or corruption involving the Andrews Government. The Herald Sun can reveal:
— FOUR of Mr Lim’s electorate officers and one of the Premier’s media advisers are part of the CCCAV’s executive, and Mr Yang was its former president.
— THE CCCAV’s former public officer is now an adviser to Multicultural Affairs Minister Robin Scott. Mr Scott’s Preston Labor branch secretary is also a former CCCAV secretary.
— DR STANLEY Chiang, a CCCAV advisory council member, is a former Labor candidate and was appointed to the board of Austin Health last year.
— MR LIM’S Labor branch in Clarinda used the same PO Box as the CCCAV for donations.
— SEVERAL members of Mr Lim’s branch are registered with the party using the CCCAV’s address, fuelling claims from the Labor whistleblower that the association is used for branch-stacking.
— THE group failed to submit its financial statements for 2016 and 2017 until earlier this month — an apparent breach of incorporated association laws, which require annual statements be lodged within one month of annual general meetings.
Mr Lim said his role with the CCCAV was about “looking seriously at our stock here, why we’re not doing as well as other communities”.
Asked why he had not declared his position, Mr Lim said he “didn’t think about that” and he could not “see any conflict of interest”.
“I did not gain any money from this relationship at all so my conscience is clear,” Mr Lim.
He said his electorate officers were involved voluntarily. Asked about the branch stacking claims, Mr Lim said other ethnic communities had “done very well” and the Chinese community “probably can learn from them”.
“To be suggesting we are doing something inappropriate because we are Chinese, I find this pretty horrendous,” Mr Lim said.
He said he met Mr Xiangmo in 2015 and that reports about his Chinese links were “a lot of bullcrap, a lot of bravado, chest-beating”, because he “fled” China after his friend was arrested.
A government spokeswoman said the CCCAV was a “bipartisan organisation”, formerly headed by a Liberal candidate, and that all grants from the government follow “proper processes”.
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THE sudden demise of Labor senator Sam Dastyari sent shockwaves through Australian politics last year.
Allegations that he had given counter-surveillance advice to controversial Chinese political donor Huang Xiangmo and had defied his own party to defend China’s policy on the South China Sea led the government to label him a “double agent”, and swiftly ended his political career.
But as a high-level intelligence official said recently, the Dastyari case was merely “the tip of the iceberg — and there’s a lot going on underneath”.
Today’s revelations of the Andrews Government’s Chinese links show the pattern of Communist Party influence extends beyond Sydney, the epicentre of the activities of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China.
Professor Clive Hamilton, who is about to publish a book on Chinese interference in Australia, told parliament last month that the Communist Party was waging a “highly sophisticated campaign” to “influence and infiltrate Australia’s institutions”.
He named the ACPPRC as part of the “United Front” network which pushed pro-Beijing political positions and caused “constant low-level fear” for Chinese Australians.
“The involvement of senior Australian politicians has always been a means of gaining influence for the PRC,” the professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University said.
Hong Lim, Victoria’s parliamentary secretary for Asia engagement, has been listed as an adviser to the group’s honorary board in five of its seven terms.
Mike Yang, now one of the ACPPRC’s vice-presidents, got his break in politics working for Mr Lim, before becoming adviser on China to then Opposition leader Daniel Andrews.
Mr Yang, who left before Mr Andrews became Premier, told Chinese media the Labor leader had tried to convince him to stay on, and he had considered running for parliament.
Instead, he pursued a career beyond politics. He was president of the Chinese Community Council of Australia’s Victorian branch and set up a business group, the Australian-Hubei Chamber of Commerce.
The Herald Sun can reveal Mr Yang is also involved in the Australian Hubei Association, which Prof Hamilton told parliament was another “United Front-linked business group”.
He has received awards from China as an “eminent overseas young Chinese” leader and has been invited to attend events with President Xi Jinping.
Mr Yang has maintained a close relationship with the government, which appointed him to the multicultural business ministerial council and the visitor economy ministerial advisory committee.
Despite concern from some in Labor about Mr Yang’s activities, he says it is an example of the “Communist Party phobia” that has gone “to the extreme” in Australia.
He says he doesn’t go to the ACPPRC’s meetings, and that it is “just another Chinese community group”.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it, not that I have been involved with it much at all,” Mr Yang said.
He says the ACPPRC is up front about wanting the peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan, which he says is backed by most Chinese people overseas.
He believes Australia is “putting ourselves in a hole” by fearing that Chinese community groups are “agents” with a “hidden agenda”.
But it doesn’t take much to raise eyebrows in this space. That was the case in 2015, when Mr Andrews differed with federal Labor and Trades Hall to talk up the Chinese free-trade deal, in a speech watched by Mr Yang and Mr Huang.
THE KEY FIGURES
Hong Lim
— Labor MP since 1996 who holds the seat of Clarinda, and is the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Asia Engagement
— Listed as a former adviser to the honorary board of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, which has ties to China’s Communist Party
— Chairman of the Chinese Community Council of Australia’s Victorian branch advisory council, which received $70,000 in government funding last year
Mike Yang
— Senior adviser to Daniel Andrews on multicultural and China affairs between 2011 and 2013 after working for Hong Lim
— Vice president of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China
— Former president of the Chinese Community Council of Australia’s Victorian branch
— Appointed by the Andrews Government to the Visitor Economy Ministerial Advisory Committee and the Multicultural Business Ministerial Council
Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China
— Describes itself as a non-government community organisation which aims to foster dialogue for the peaceful reunification of China and encourage economic and cultural exchanges between Australia and China
— Parliament has been told it is part of a Communist-run “United Front” network which pushes pro-Beijing political positions in Australia
Chinese Community Council of Australia — Victorian branch
— Peak advocacy body for Chinese Australians to ensure governments recognise their needs
— Hong Lim is the chair of its advisory council and Mike Yang is its former president
— Appears to have breached incorporated association laws by failing to submit financial statements within required time frame
— Received $40,000 from the government’s multicultural festivals and events fund and $30,000 from the community advancement fund last year
— Four of its executive committee members are electorate officers for Hong Lim
— Its former public officer works for Multicultural Affairs Minister Robin Scott, and his Labor branch secretary is the CCCAV’s former secretary
Huang Xiangmo
— Former president of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China
— Described by Malcolm Turnbull in Parliament as “an agent of a foreign country”
— Donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Labor and Liberal parties
— Was reportedly warned by former Labor senator Sam Dastyari that his phone was likely being tapped by intelligence agencies
— Provided a “diamond sponsorship” worth at least $50,000 to the CCCAV’s national conference in 2015 through his company
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