Here are the contents of an email Jacqui Lambie sent me, deconstructing the PM’s great China visit, 50 years after Gough went to see Chairman Mao. She has got a re-election fund going, and does good work and is worth supporting.
“The Prime Minister is back from China – apparently - there were warm handshakes all round with the PM saying that the meeting wasn’t ‘transactional’.
Which I guess means that we didn’t promise anything.
And nothing was promised. Good to know – because even if the Chinese Communist Party make a promise, they can break that promise the very next day. That’s how a dictatorship works!
This isn’t news to Chinese Australians they know how the CCP works!
What I worry about is the deals that have already been made in Australia – the Chinese already own 7.8 million hectares of Australian farmland, and The Foreign Investment Review Board gave the tick to 700 million bucks of residential real estate proposals – and that was just in the first three months of this year!
Tasmanians know this story well too - In 2014 Liberal Premier Will Hodgman was showing the Chinese President around Tassie – the story goes that the Chinese said they wanted to buy Tas Ports – apparently the Premier said he couldn’t make that work.
Thank God.
Instead, he directed the Chinese Government reps to nice bit of crown land on the waterfront in Hobart. Then - in 2015 - without any consultation with the community – the premier put out a press release that this prime land would be gifted to a Chinese Company to build a massive hotel and hospitality centre.
The local Council – headed up by a mayor who was a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party waived the deal through.
Fast forward to 2023 and it seems that this deal is dead in the water – thanks mainly to local community. Well done you guys!
I am not saying I am against overseas investment – we need it – but it’s Australians who should be the first in line when it comes to owning our land and our assets – like ports!
And we should not be selling any off anything to countries like China that aren’t democracies and don’t follow a rules-based order.
It's just bloody common sense.
Ken, my re-election is coming up and I've been hearing on the grape vine that the majors are going to spend big in Tassie to try and knock me out. I guess they're sick of having someone around who tells it like it is.
If you've got a few spare dollars (and only if you do!), can you chip in to my re-election fund?
Chip in to help me →
Thanks mate, I can't do this without your support.
Jacqui Lambie