Businessman Di Sanh Duong stands trial over $37,450 donation to Royal Melbourne Hospital
A businessman with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party is accused of donating to a Melbourne hospital to buy influence and lobbying a key Liberal to sign Australia up to China’s Belt and Road initiative.
Police & Courts
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A Melbourne businessman with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party lobbied a senior Liberal to cut ties with the US and let China build a high-speed rail in Australia, a court has heard.
Di Sanh Duong faced the County Court on Friday for the second day of his trial after he was charged with preparing an act of foreign interference over a $37,450 donation to the Royal Melbourne Hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
It is alleged Mr Duong, a former Victorian Liberal candidate and long-time party member, used the donation to cultivate a relationship with Liberal MP Alan Tudge so he could in future influence him to be favourable to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) positions.
In his opening address on Thursday, prosecutor Patrick Doyle SC told the jury Mr Duong in March 2019 sent then Liberal Party president Robert Clark a list of ideas the Coalition should take to the federal election.
The alleged suggestions included China build high speed rail from Melbourne to Brisbane funded with mining resources, Australia join the Belt and Road initiative and it reconsider its partnership with the United States.
Mr Doyle said Mr Duong, a prominent businessman and leader in Melbourne’s Chinese community, was recruited by United Front, a global CCP organisation that advocated policies such as the reunification with Taiwan.
The prosecutor said he was the president of an organisation known as the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and also a senior member of another group.
Mr Duong was allegedly in contact with CCP officials, was picked up on intercepted phone calls discussing how China’s interests could be advanced and met with officials from China’s Ministry of State Security during overseas trips.
In June 2020, Mr Duong donated $37,450 to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, which was allegedly part of a broader preparatory act to curry favour with Mr Tudge.
Mr Doyle said Mr Duong believed the minister was a potential future prime minister who was “gentle” and not prone to step on other people’s toes.
He said the case was not about espionage but rather about how the government of one country sought to interfere in the governance of others.
“Before you start thinking of spy novels and James Bond films, this is not really a case about espionage,” he said.
“It’s not really a case about spies as such. It’s a case about a much more subtle form of interference. It’s about influence.”
Mr Doyle said while it was not illegal to be associated with the CCP or lobby on behalf of governments, such interests needed to be declared.
“You’re entitled to lobby government but the disclosure that you are acting on someone’s behalf is critical,” he said.
On Friday, during his opening address, Mr Duong’s defence barrister Peter Chadwick SC told the jury his client admitted making the donation but as part of his organisation’s “regular charitable work”.
“The evidence will show (the donation) was a genuine attempt to help frontline healthcare workers and to demonstrate that the ethnically Chinese community was concerned for the situation in Melbourne during the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
“It is denied in the strongest possible terms that he was recruited, directed or otherwise collaborated with … the CCP.”
Mr Chadwick said Mr Duong also denied that he “sought to influence” Mr Tudge on behalf of the CCP or was preparing to do so.
Multiple witnesses are expected to be called during the four-week trial, including Mr Clark who will give evidence on Friday.
Jurors were provided secure laptops to assist with containing confidential information, with the judge warning them breaches of national security laws could result in prosecution.
The trial, before Judge Richard Maidment, continues.
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