He’s wrong on all fronts: Bob Carr lashes Porter on foreign influence register comments

Bob Carr has lashed out at Attorney-General Christian Porter over comments about him leaving the Australian-China Relations Institute.

Bob Carr says he hasn’t resigned from ACRI — his contract is up. Picture: Joel Carrett/AAP

Former foreign minister Bob Carr has blasted Attorney-General Christian Porter for suggesting he may have stepped down from the Australia-China Relations Institute to avoid registering on the Foreign Influence Transparency Register.

Mr Carr, set to step down as director of the Australia China Relations Institute in April, angrily dismissed Mr Porter’s suggestion today, saying neither he, nor ACRI, would be registering under the new foreign influence scheme, and that Mr Porter didn’t understand his legislation.

“He’s wrong on all these fronts,” Mr Carr said.

It came after Mr Porter defended the register meant to track the role of foreign agents in local politics, saying it was already changing behaviour despite only a handful of declarations.

Growing fears of political influence from foreign states, particularly China, saw Canberra pass a raft of new laws last year to curb potential meddling.

The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme register was operational from December, with a grace period ending Sunday.

But only nine institutions or individuals have so far declared their foreign links.

Defending the scheme, Mr Porter told the ABC “we’ve already seen some reasonably high-profile resignations from organisations in the weeks leading up to this register becoming live, so it’s likely that the register is also changing behaviour and contractual arrangements between individuals in the Australian political system”.

“Bob Carr recently resigned from the Australia-China Relations Institute, which is one of those organisations that I think a lot of people might have considered would need to ask itself, ‘is it a foreign principal within the definition of the Act?’”

Mr Carr said Mr Porter was “wrong on all those fronts”.

“I now see why Christian Porter is in so much electoral trouble in Western Australia,” Mr Carr said.

“He doesn’t seem to understand his own legislation and hasn’t taken the trouble to look at publicly-available information about my term at ACRI or my plans,” Mr Carr told The Australian.

The Australian China Relations Institute, run out of the University of Technology in Sydney, has faced questions over a $1.8 million donation from property developer Huang Xiangmo.

Mr Huang has had his visa revoked by Australian authorities over accusations of foreign interference which he has rejected.

Mr Carr said he had not resigned. Rather, he had come to the end of his contract.

“I was appointed in April 2014 on a five-year contract that will end in April this year,” he said.

“The five years expire in April this year. It was announced publicly in October last year. I’d not be extending and I would be moving to a new responsibility at UTS.”

A spokesman for UTS said the university did not intend to register under the foreign influence scheme.

“UTS does not consider any of its activities, including those of ACRI, to be registrable under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (FITS), but will continue to monitor this over time.”

with AAP