NSW LPAB, Law Council Australia obligated to hand over Top Group ,Sydney City Law School documents that Cth AG Christian Porter needs to uphold the law
by Ganesh Sahathevan
The Commonwealth Attorney General Christian Porter is obviously having difficulty enforcing foreign influence laws introduced last year. The area of primary concern, according to the SMH (see story below) is influence (and one presumes interference) by Chinese agents.
Meanwhile Mr Porter's fellow senior judicial officers at the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board and the Law Council Australia have remained silent on the matter of the support and approvals granted Zhu Minshen and his Top Education Group Ltd to grant LLB degrees; a "one and only" licence granted a private company.
That Zhu has actively promoted the interests of the Chinese Government ,and that he has used his Top Group to do so is a matter of public record:
AG NSW Speakman and senior judicial officers at the LPAB ignored the fact that Zhu Minshen undermined an Australian Federal Police directive
That Christian Porter has had to use mass media in a strategy to obtain documents he requires to uphold the law of this land does not speak well of his own colleagues at the NSW LPAB (which is chaired by the Chief Justice NSW Tom Bathurst) and at the Law Council Australia who Zhu says supported his application to issue law degrees.
Suspected foreign agents ordered to hand over documents as new unit targets China links
By Anthony Galloway
March 7, 2020 — 11.05pm
Chinese government-funded language and culture institutes operating at Australian universities, community groups linked to Beijing’s overseas propaganda arm and organisations looking to harm Australia’s critical infrastructure will be targeted by a new unit set up to enforce the Morrison government’s flagship foreign influence scheme.
Attorney-General Christian Porter has warned potential agents of foreign powers will be ordered to hand over documents in coming months, and has not ruled out going after agents acting on behalf of foreign embassies in Australia if they have not declared their activities on the foreign influence register.
Attorney-General Christian Porter in Canberra last week.CREDIT:ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN
The Sunday Age and The Sun Herald understands the new unit will focus on Confucius Institutes operating at some Australian universities and groups linked to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.
The Attorney-General's Department is working with domestic spy agency ASIO and the AFP in its revamped bid to enforce the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme
It is also expected foreign companies and organisations will be served with notices requesting them to hand over documents relating to potential agents under their influence.
Only two notices have been served on individuals or groups since the scheme came into operation in late 2018, including a Chinese company suspected of engaging in influencing activity which was ordered to hand over documents in recent weeks.
Asked in an interview whether more notices would be served in the coming months, Mr Porter said: "The short answer is yes."
He said his department was now in the "second round" of administering the scheme and it was "quite conceivable" that some organisations that were trying to influence government policy and democratic processes were not being open about who was directing them.
"Now that we have seen, after a year, what entities have registered as either foreign principals or foreign government-related entities, there are other entities … which bare some similarity, on the face of them at least, to entities that have registered," Mr Porter said.
"And where an entity looks like they may have some of the features of a foreign government enterprise, we will be enquiring of them about their structure, their constituent nature, who makes up leadership and director positions inside the entity, so that we can make a determination to our satisfaction that they are either are or not a foreign government enterprise."
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The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age can reveal the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China will be a target of the dedicated new unit.
China experts have said the council is the Australian arm of a foreign influence network run by the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, but the organisation has always denied any link.
Another target will be the 13 Confucius Institutes operating at Australian universities, which were last year sent letters by the AG's department alerting them to the introduction of the scheme, according to senior government sources.
The centres are joint ventures between the host universities and Hanban, a Chinese government entity that provides funding, staff and other support.
While not naming Confucius institutes directly, Mr Porter said individuals who were employed through a university that connected back to a foreign power could be captured by the scheme if they were "trying to affect democratic outcomes or influence government".
"Universities need to obviously be very live themselves to who it is who is seeking to influence their decision-making, their structure, their expenditure, their outcomes, and those people who are seeking to influence universities in that respect universities themselves need to be very mindful about who those people are working on behalf of," he said.
Mr Porter said diplomats registered at foreign embassies would unlikely be captured by the scheme, but agents being directed by ambassadors or an embassy could be captured.
"The nature of the scheme is where people want to hide the nature of that influence then we have to dig through the layers of secrecy and make the relationships transparent," he said.
"If it's the case that someone is engaged in a registrable activity and they are not directly an ambassador, then it may be that their connection with the government is through what looks like more official channels, but it not known that they are - or they don't self-declare - that they're engaging in activities.
"The purpose of this regime running in tandem with espionage and foreign interference laws is to make sure all of the behaviour should be either uninvestigable or knowable to the Australian people.
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"Behaviours are changing because the costs of engaging in that behaviour has increased."
Mr Porter said another key focus of the new unit would be to crack down on foreign agents looking to secretly trying to influence decisions about Australia’s critical infrastructure.
"So where we see influencing behaviour that relates to big ticket areas like foreign ownership of infrastructure, decisions around the sale of infrastructure, a very live question would be: who is this person working for?" Mr Porter said.
More than 200 people or organisations have signed up the register, but it has come under the spotlight for failing to force harmful agents of foreign powers to register.
Mr Porter criticised his own department for sending its first notice to Andrew Cooper, from the conservative think-tank LibertyWorks, and for asking former prime minister Tony Abbott to sign up to the scheme.
Mr Abbott was asked to sign after making a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney, which was jointly organised by LibertyWorks and the American Conservative Union.
The Commonwealth Attorney General Christian Porter is obviously having difficulty enforcing foreign influence laws introduced last year. The area of primary concern, according to the SMH (see story below) is influence (and one presumes interference) by Chinese agents.
Meanwhile Mr Porter's fellow senior judicial officers at the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board and the Law Council Australia have remained silent on the matter of the support and approvals granted Zhu Minshen and his Top Education Group Ltd to grant LLB degrees; a "one and only" licence granted a private company.
That Zhu has actively promoted the interests of the Chinese Government ,and that he has used his Top Group to do so is a matter of public record:
AG NSW Speakman and senior judicial officers at the LPAB ignored the fact that Zhu Minshen undermined an Australian Federal Police directive
That Christian Porter has had to use mass media in a strategy to obtain documents he requires to uphold the law of this land does not speak well of his own colleagues at the NSW LPAB (which is chaired by the Chief Justice NSW Tom Bathurst) and at the Law Council Australia who Zhu says supported his application to issue law degrees.
The NSW LPAB and the Law Council Australia are obligated by the rules of their profession to hand over Top Group ,Sydney City Law School documents that Porter must have to uphold the law.
END
Suspected foreign agents ordered to hand over documents as new unit targets China links
By Anthony Galloway
March 7, 2020 — 11.05pm
Chinese government-funded language and culture institutes operating at Australian universities, community groups linked to Beijing’s overseas propaganda arm and organisations looking to harm Australia’s critical infrastructure will be targeted by a new unit set up to enforce the Morrison government’s flagship foreign influence scheme.
Attorney-General Christian Porter has warned potential agents of foreign powers will be ordered to hand over documents in coming months, and has not ruled out going after agents acting on behalf of foreign embassies in Australia if they have not declared their activities on the foreign influence register.
Attorney-General Christian Porter in Canberra last week.CREDIT:ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN
The Sunday Age and The Sun Herald understands the new unit will focus on Confucius Institutes operating at some Australian universities and groups linked to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.
The Attorney-General's Department is working with domestic spy agency ASIO and the AFP in its revamped bid to enforce the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme
It is also expected foreign companies and organisations will be served with notices requesting them to hand over documents relating to potential agents under their influence.
Only two notices have been served on individuals or groups since the scheme came into operation in late 2018, including a Chinese company suspected of engaging in influencing activity which was ordered to hand over documents in recent weeks.
Asked in an interview whether more notices would be served in the coming months, Mr Porter said: "The short answer is yes."
He said his department was now in the "second round" of administering the scheme and it was "quite conceivable" that some organisations that were trying to influence government policy and democratic processes were not being open about who was directing them.
"Now that we have seen, after a year, what entities have registered as either foreign principals or foreign government-related entities, there are other entities … which bare some similarity, on the face of them at least, to entities that have registered," Mr Porter said.
"And where an entity looks like they may have some of the features of a foreign government enterprise, we will be enquiring of them about their structure, their constituent nature, who makes up leadership and director positions inside the entity, so that we can make a determination to our satisfaction that they are either are or not a foreign government enterprise."
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NATIONAL SECURITY
Sleeper agent operated in Australia for years before ASIO caught himAdd to shortlist
The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age can reveal the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China will be a target of the dedicated new unit.
China experts have said the council is the Australian arm of a foreign influence network run by the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, but the organisation has always denied any link.
Another target will be the 13 Confucius Institutes operating at Australian universities, which were last year sent letters by the AG's department alerting them to the introduction of the scheme, according to senior government sources.
The centres are joint ventures between the host universities and Hanban, a Chinese government entity that provides funding, staff and other support.
While not naming Confucius institutes directly, Mr Porter said individuals who were employed through a university that connected back to a foreign power could be captured by the scheme if they were "trying to affect democratic outcomes or influence government".
"Universities need to obviously be very live themselves to who it is who is seeking to influence their decision-making, their structure, their expenditure, their outcomes, and those people who are seeking to influence universities in that respect universities themselves need to be very mindful about who those people are working on behalf of," he said.
Mr Porter said diplomats registered at foreign embassies would unlikely be captured by the scheme, but agents being directed by ambassadors or an embassy could be captured.
"The nature of the scheme is where people want to hide the nature of that influence then we have to dig through the layers of secrecy and make the relationships transparent," he said.
"If it's the case that someone is engaged in a registrable activity and they are not directly an ambassador, then it may be that their connection with the government is through what looks like more official channels, but it not known that they are - or they don't self-declare - that they're engaging in activities.
"The purpose of this regime running in tandem with espionage and foreign interference laws is to make sure all of the behaviour should be either uninvestigable or knowable to the Australian people.
RELATED ARTICLE
EXCLUSIVE
NATIONAL SECURITY
ASIO's counter-terrorism powers to be widened to catch foreign spiesAdd to shortlist
"Behaviours are changing because the costs of engaging in that behaviour has increased."
Mr Porter said another key focus of the new unit would be to crack down on foreign agents looking to secretly trying to influence decisions about Australia’s critical infrastructure.
"So where we see influencing behaviour that relates to big ticket areas like foreign ownership of infrastructure, decisions around the sale of infrastructure, a very live question would be: who is this person working for?" Mr Porter said.
More than 200 people or organisations have signed up the register, but it has come under the spotlight for failing to force harmful agents of foreign powers to register.
Mr Porter criticised his own department for sending its first notice to Andrew Cooper, from the conservative think-tank LibertyWorks, and for asking former prime minister Tony Abbott to sign up to the scheme.
Mr Abbott was asked to sign after making a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney, which was jointly organised by LibertyWorks and the American Conservative Union.
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