Shorten a ‘hypocrite’ over Huang

Attorney-General Christian Porter has accused Bill Shorten of being a hypocrite over Chinese tycoon Huang Xiangmo.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Labor member for Richmond Justine Elliot meet with locals during a visit to North Coast Radiology in Ballina, NSW.

Attorney-General Christian Porter has accused Bill Shorten of being a hypocrite after the Labor leader blasted a Coalition cabinet minister for meeting with Huang Xiangmo, despite leaked photos showing him at the wedding of the Chinese billionaire’s daughter.

A stoush between the major parties over each other’s links to Mr Huang ramped up yesterday on the cusp of the federal election being called, as new photos showed the Opposition Leader at Mr Huang’s daughter’s wedding at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney in January 2016.

ASIO warned Labor and Liberal officials in 2015 about taking donations from foreign Chinese entities and companies alleged to have links to the Communist Party. Mr Huang’s name was reportedly included in that briefing.

Bill Shorten (circled, left, bottom right) attends the wedding of the daughter of Huang Xiangmo (circled, top right) at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney in 2016.

Politicians’ associations with Mr Huang are back on the agenda after the ABC’s Four Corners reported on Monday that the political donor, who was trying to get Australian citizenship, paid former Liberal minister and lobbyist Santo Santoro to set up a 2016 meeting with then immigration minister and now Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

Mr Porter said the wedding photos undermined Mr Shorten’s credibility, after he and former PM Malcolm Turnbull labelled Mr Dutton’s lunch meeting with Mr Huang a national security issue.

“Here is a man who offers up the most remarkable, overcooked criticism of a minister for having lunch with a person who is a prominent Chinese figure in the Australian community at the time of that lunch and, while he offers up the criticism, Bill Shorten knows in his own mind that he himself was the VIP guest of honour at the same person’s daughter’s wedding,” Mr Porter said.

“It cannot be the case that the credibility part of your brain is firing particularly well if you offer criticism of a fairly standard meeting at the same time that you in your own mind know that you have been to an intimate function which demonstrates a high level of closeness to the same person in the nature of a personal invitation as the guest of honour to that person’s daughter’s wedding.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott yesterday accused Mr Turnbull and others of “trying to create something out of nothing” over Mr Dutton’s meeting with Mr Huang, declaring no one in the government had been “bought” by the Chinese billionaire.

Mr Abbott said he was not aware of any fast-tracking of Mr Huang’s citizenship application when he was prime minister.

“Frankly, it strikes me as a story in search of a scandal,” he said. “Nothing wrong has been done by anyone.

“I particularly note that, sure, Peter Dutton met with the gentleman in question … but (after the meeting) he’s even had his permanent residency revoked.”

Mr Shorten’s office refused to explain a lunch he attended with Mr Huang in 2015 after the Chinese billionaire made a $55,000 donation to the Labor Party. It also would not say what wedding gift he took for Mr Huang’s daughter.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari was forced to quit federal parliament in part due to his relationship with Mr Huang.