No hiding the blunder as limits to China ties exposed

The serious limits on Australia-China relations were exposed in a fiasco yesterday when just before 9am Malcolm Turnbull abandoned his attempt to ratify the 10-year-old extradition treaty between the nations after Bill Shorten told the Prime Minister the Labor Party had decided on ­rejection.

The fate of the treaty is now cast into semi-permanent doubt. This is an embarrassment for the Turnbull government, a risk for Labor in its ties with China and will cause China to become more suspicious in dealings with Australia.

This was a significant event — the first effort by a prime minister to seek parliamentary ratification since the Howard government signed the treaty in 2007. But Turnbull’s courage was not matched by his reading of the parliamentary mood — he faced a ­revolt from sections of his party, with Liberals threatening to cross the floor, a resistant Senate crossbench and a Labor Party sensitive to domestic opinion and ready to send China a message.

For China, this is a big lesson about Australia — our government wants the extradition treaty but our parliament says “no”. Yet Labor figures insisted yesterday they remain open to changing their mind down the track depending on events in China.

There remains a case for the treaty. The discretions vested in the justice minister mean Australia can deny any extradition. While not directly related to the treaty, the plight of Australians in China cannot be overlooked — there are four on death row, a stack of Crown employees being held and hopes of release for Stern Hu, the former Rio executive.

The Turnbull government and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will stand by the treaty and seek ratification in future. But Labor’s rejection sealed the issue yesterday. The shadow cabinet was unprepared to authorise extraditions given alarm about China’s legal system and human rights concerns. This was Labor sending China a message — we are not transactional on core values.

A shadow is cast over the successful weekend visit by China’s Premier, Li Keqiang, who pushed for the extradition treaty.

The government was surprised by the extent of Liberal revolt and, once again, Tony Abbott’s strong public opposition to ratification has aroused internal contention and differences.

Government sources say ­Abbott as prime minister told China on two occasions his policy was to ratify the treaty. The first was during a visit to China in autumn 2014 and the second was in his talks with Xi Jinping when the Chinese President visited Australia in late 2014.

When this was put to Abbott last night, he issued the following statement: “This was a process ­initiated by the Howard government so I wasn’t going to repudiate it. But I had no intention of seeing it come to a conclusion, given my concerns about the Chinese legal system.”

The truth is that three prime ministers — Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Abbott — were committed to the treaty but none moved to seek its ratification, a revealing omission. What was happening? It sounds like a process of “kicking the can down the road”.

It is revealing of Turnbull that, first, he wanted to get the issue sorted and, second, that he misjudged the politics. The alliance against the treaty was extraordinary — Labor, Greens, crossbenchers, Cory Bernardi, a section of conservative and progressive Liberals. In the end, Turnbull was correct to pull the ratification.

It would have been disastrous to force a Senate debate with the huge criticism of the Chinese system that would have been involved followed by a losing vote — a humiliation for Turnbull, probably a bigger humiliation for China.