Chris Crewther throws spanner in foreign meddling bill

Links between a Liberal backbencher and the Ukrainian embassy have increased pressure on the PM over a foreign influence clamp.

Chris Crewther’s relationship with the Ukraine ambassador is awkward for the Coalition.

Links between a Liberal backbencher and the Ukrainian embassy have increased pressure on the Turnbull government to change its planned crackdown on foreign influence.

Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said that if the government cared about the issue so deeply it needed to sanction Liberal backbencher Chris Crewther for his involvement with Ukrainian ambassador Mykola Kulinich.

At Mr Crewther’s suggestion, the ambassador made a submission to the Australian Electoral Commission which is considering boundary changes to Mr Crewther’s Melbourne electorate of Dunkley.

Mr Crewther told Fairfax Media that encouraging the ambassador to make a submission to the Electoral Commission did not amount to promoting interference in the political system.

However Mr Dreyfus said the incident focused attention on whether the government would now sanction Mr Crewther.

“The government says it is taking the issue of foreign interference very seriously,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“Under the government’s proposed laws, it appears one of its own MPs would have to register as a foreign agent thanks to his collaboration with the Ukrainian ambassador to influence electoral redistributions in his favour.

“Surely Mr Turnbull and Mr Dutton would not be happy with a ‘foreign agent’ — as defined by their own laws — within their ranks?”

Mr Dreyfus’s intervention comes soon after legal academic Anne Twomey warned that the government’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme bill was so sweeping and poorly drafted it would force thousands to register as agents of other countries.

Also, the Salvation Army has told a parliamentary committee it is worried that more than 10,000 of its officers and employees might be affected because the head of the Salvation Army is a citizen of another country living overseas.