October 21, 2023
Defence experts have criticised a decision to leave a Chinese company's 99-year lease on the Port of Darwin in place, warning that it leaves investment decisions on critical national infrastructure in the hands of a potential foreign adversary.
The federal government announced yesterday afternoon that a review by key security agencies of the Darwin port lease had found "robust" systems were in place to manage the risks.
The lease was signed by the former Country Liberal Party government in the Northern Territory in 2015 and prompted a Defence Department review by the then Morrison government, which found there were insufficient grounds to scrap the lease.
Former US president Barack Obama also expressed displeasure to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull when the lease was first signed, asking that the US be kept in the loop on such decisions in future.
During the 2022 election campaign Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised the 2015 decision to lease the port to Land bridge for $506 million, and indicated a willingness to use foreign veto laws to cancel the lease if necessary.
The review has not been publicly released but in a statement released yesterday, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet said it had found there was insufficient national security grounds to over turn the lease.
It concluded "there is a robust regulatory system in place to manage risks to critical infrastructure, including the Port of Darwin" and that "existing monitoring mechanisms are sufficient and will be ongoing".
"As a result, it was not necessary to vary or cancel the lease," the statement said. "Monitoring of security arrangements around the Port of Darwin will continue. Australians can have confidence that their safety will not be compromised, while ensuring that Australia remains a competitive destination for foreign investment."
The review was conducted by spy agency ASIO, the Office of National Intelligence and four government departments.
The decision to allow Landbridge's lease to remain in place comes just weeks before Albanese travels to China meet President Xi Jinping.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said that in opposition, Albanese had called the lease of the Port of Darwin "a grave mistake".
"Despite promising to deal with it, now he's squibbed it, cynically dropped it on a Friday afternoon after parliament has risen and after his media appearance for the day."
The head of the Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, John Coyne, and Australian Defence Association director Neil James both criticised the review for failing to examine the broader implications of a Chinese-owned company controlling acritical deep water port.
Coyne said the issue with the Darwin port lease was not that it could open the door to spying but that the Landbridge lease left "future development in the hands of Landbridge, and I don't think their interests will align with ours".
"Beijing will be happy, it reinforces their capacity to invest in critical infrastructure," he said.
"Did the government consider the broader impact on development in Darwin Harbour and how the lease will affect that?
"The key problem is, no matter how many safeguards you have, to initiate any of them during a time of tensions, you're doing it at the worst possible time.
"Anything you do will be escalatory [sic],that's the fundamental problem and that will never change," he said.
