Security concerns sufficient to 'break China's lease on the Port of Darwin'
May 19, 2020, Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells says it's time to start looking at how Australia could “get out of the contract” which allows China to lease the Port of Darwin for the next 99 years. The clause in the Port of Darwin lease, renders the deal null and void in the case of a national security emergency. “I have advocated for us to look at a plan to decouple from China, to reduce the dependency we have on the communist regime and also examine ways we can recover billions incurred as a consequence of the virus,” Ms Fierravanti-Wells said. The circumstances, particularly those relating to security, are such that we should seriously look at “breaking the lease”. She added “the predicament we are facing today is symptomatic of the attitude we have taken towards the communist regime which regrettably has erred on the side of appeasement instead of standing up to often bellicose and illegal actions of the communist regime in Beijing”. According to Ms Fierravanti-Wells, “it’s vitally important to overhaul the critical infrastructure framework, the foreign investment framework and most importantly revisiting the whole issue of the national interest”.
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