By Nick McKenzie, James Massola and Richard Baker
An explosive tape recording shows for the first time that Senator Sam Dastyari delivered a scripted, deliberate and detailed defence of the Chinese government's aggressive land grab in the South China Sea, despite the senator's repeated attempts to deny it.
A brief report in a Sydney-based, Chinese-language newspaper last year about the June 17, 2016, press conference was partly responsible for Senator Dastyari being sacked from the Labor Party frontbench last September.
However, Senator Dastyari blamed a spontaneous, "garbled... wrong answer" to a curve-ball question, or inaccurate reporting, for the comments, in which he suggested Australia should remain neutral on China's border policy.
Now, however, a tape recording of the press conference has been obtained by Fairfax Media. It shows Senator Dastyari clearly and deliberately contradicted Australia's foreign policy, and Labor policy, by saying Australia and the ALP should observe "several thousand years" of Chinese history in respecting Beijing's claims to disputed territory, which includes islands in the South China Sea.
Senator Sam Dastyari on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
These comments repeat the Chinese government's position, which was subsequently rejected by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
The "role Australia should be playing as a friend is to know that, with the several thousand years of history … where it is and isn't our place to be involved," Senator Dastyari said.
Senator Dastyari made the comments as he stood alongside Chinese Communist Party-aligned political donor, Huang Xiangmo. The recorded comments sound scripted and deliberate, and are carefully delivered.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that intelligence collected by national security officials corroborates that Senator Dastyari planned to make the comments before he delivered them, and had told Mr Huang of his intentions – things the senator has denied.
Huang Xiangmo and Sam Dastyari at a press conference for the Chinese community in Sydney on June 17, 2016.
The revelations come after Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday morning that Senator Dastyari had, in October 2016, met Mr Huang in person at his house and warned him his phones were tapped, and that he should not speak near his phone or inside his home.
Senator Dastyari did not deny the story on Wednesday, but said he was acting on "gossip" from journalists in respect of his dealings with Mr Huang at his family home. This claim was made despite Senator Dastyari delivering the counter-surveillance advice after multiple media reports that ASIO was interested in Chinese Communist Party aligned donors and after ASIO had briefed senior Labor officials about Mr Huang's CCP links.
After details of the tapped phone warning emerged, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the senator should consider resigning and questioned if he had betrayed Australia.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said on Wednesday that he'd given Senator Dastyari a final warning.
"I have made it clear to Senator Dastyari that that this is not the first time his judgement has been called into question, but I certainly expect it to be the last," Mr Shorten said.
Speaking to Fairfax Media on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Dastyari said his last contact with Mr Huang was 14 months ago and "I haven't spoken to him since'.
"In September last year, I resigned from the ALP frontbench, over comments I made at a ... press conference which were wrong and not consistent with ALP policy. I have acknowledged this a number of times previously. I paid a price for this error.
"I expect Turnbull and the Liberals to smear me, but for he and his colleagues to suggest that I am not a true or loyal Australian is incredibly hurtful – and hurtful to all overseas-born Australians.
"I might've been born overseas, but I'm as Australian as he is."
Senator Dastyari's South China Sea comments came the day after Labor's defence spokesman, Stephen Conroy, had publicly lambasted Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea as destabilising and "absurd".
That statement during the 2016 election campaign prompted Mr Huang to tell the ALP he was withdrawing a promised $400,000 donation.
Earlier this year, Senator Dastyari told the ABC's Australian Story that he did not recall ever speaking to Mr Huang about foreign policy, and that he made comments attributed to him only after he had "questions thrown at me from the Chinese media".
"It was later reported that, in a very garbled answer, I said something along the lines of 'that's a matter for China'," Senator Dastyari said.
"I gave the wrong answer to a complicated foreign policy question that I was naive enough and perhaps silly enough to take. What I should have done is taken it on notice or got them a proper answer," he told the ABC program.
"What I tried to do was give an answer at a press conference. That was the wrong thing to do. I'm not the first, I certainly won't be the last Member of Parliament to take a question and give the wrong answer."
Senator Dastyari went on to say of the answer that he had "mumbled it and answered it incorrectly".
However, on the tape recording, Senator Dastyari states clearly that "the Chinese integrity of its borders is a matter for China".
He then refers to China's historical defence of its land claims, referring to how Australia and Labor policy should approach the issue.
"And the role Australia should be playing as a friend is to know that with the several thousand years of history, thousands of years of history, where it is and isn't our place to be involved.
"And as a supporter of China and a friend of China the Australian Labor Party needs to play an important role in maintaining that relationship and the best way of maintaining that relationship is knowing when it is and isn't our place to be involved."
Beijing's claims to disputed territories such as the South China Sea are partly based on evidence it says shows ancient historical rights. Chinese President Xi Jinping has insisted for several years that South China Sea islands "have been China's territory since ancient times".
Mr Huang, who stood alongside Senator Dastyari at a podium engraved with the Australian coat of arms, has publicly stated his commitment to "unswervingly support the Chinese government's position to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity".
Before the tape recording emerged, the only evidence that Senator Dastyari had made pro-Beijing comments was a single quote in a Chinese-language newspaper report.
"The South China Sea is China's own affair. On this issue, Australia should remain neutral and respect China's decision," Dastyari was reported as saying in a Chinese news outlet.
That quote, along with revelations that Mr Huang, a generous Labor and coalition donor, had given $5000 to Mr Dastyari to help him settle a legal bill, led to Mr Dastyari's resignation from Labor's front bench on September 7, 2016.
However, he was promoted again in February to the position of deputy senate whip, and has sought to bury the scandal that led to his resignation.