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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday said that his government would launch a fresh “review” into the decision by the previous Liberal government to lease the port of Darwin to a Chinese company for 99 years under a deal struck in 2015.
“What I've said is what I said prior to the election and I will do what I said I would do on this and every other issue, which is we'll have a review of the circumstances of the Port. The Chief Minister (of Northern Territory) is, is conscious of the fact that we will do that and we'll do that in an orderly way,” Albanese said during a press conference in Darwin.
The provincial government of Northern Territory awarded the port of Darwin to China’s Shandong Landbridge Group, a decision vetted by the then federal government. At the time of the signing of the lease, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was the federal Treasurer and put his signature on the final deal, as per Albanese.
Albanese, who came to power last month, was critical of the Darwin port lease during the election campaign.
“The government and Scott Morrison as Treasurer provided a $20 million (Australian dollars) incentive to the Northern Territory government under its asset recycling program to sell the port of (Darwin) … to a company that had interests connected with the Chinese Communist Party,” Albanese, then opposition leader, said during a parliamentary debate on 12 May.
Albanese has described the Darwin port as Australia’s most “strategic asset” owing to its location looking towards Asia.
“When I was a minister, we put US Marines into Darwin. When you have been a minister we have had the port of Darwin sold to a company connected with the Chinese Communist Party,” Albanese remarked on 8 May.
The reference was to a 2011 agreement between the US and Australia, under which 2,000 American marines will be stationed in Darwin on a “cross-rotational basis” until 2040.
In fact, at the time of Australia’s decision to award the port’s lease to the Chinese company, then US President Barack Obama told Turnbull that Washington should have been given a “heads-up” about the decision.
Canberra’s frayed ties with Beijing were a major poll issue during the last month's election campaign.
Labor accused the Morrison government of “policy failure” over growing Chinese footprint in Australia, which remains Canberra’s biggest trading partner. Beijing also unveiled its security cooperation agreement with the Solomon Islands a month before the Australian federal election, raising hackles in Canberra.
The remarks on the Darwin port by Australia's new prime minister come amid escalating tensions between Beijing and Canberra, after the Chinese defence ministry accused a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P-8 spy plane of violating its sovereignty in the South China Sea during a surveillance mission on 26 May.
Albanese rejected Beijing's concerns during his press conference on Wednesday, reiterating that the incident took place in "international" waters.