But while NSW Labor is most commonly associated with Yum Cha plots and cash-stuffed Aldi shopping bags,it’s the state Liberals who have received a $1500 donation from the Australia China Economics,Trade&Culture Association (ACETCA),an organisation which has,for years,faced allegations that it’s a little too close for comfort to Beijing.
Liberal MP Jonathan O'Dea at an ACETCA event.Supplied
Now,whether ACETCA is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front network of overseas influence peddlers remains contentious – representatives have called such allegations “absurd”.
ACETCA was described as having close ties with the Chinese government in a submission written by academicClive Hamilton,who tends to fall on the more hawkish side of the spectrum.
Then again,billionaire developerHuang Xiangmo,famously banned from Australia on national security grounds,was a patron,and the organisation has endorsed positions close to the CCP on Hong Kong and Taiwan.
We reckon it’s the kind of group no politician would want to get too close to. After all,just hours afterScott Morrison accused then-opposition leaderAnthony Albanese of being Beijing’s “Manchurian candidate” last year,the News Corp papers just happened to get a video of Albo speaking Mandarin at one of ACETCA’s events.
A sick burn,if you ignore the fact that politicians of both sides had been attending their gala dinners – at least until about four years ago when everyone became a China hawk – and that ACETCA have been far more generous to the Liberals than to Labor.
REEFER MADNESS
InFrank Ocean’s 2016 masterpieceBlonde,weed smokers are described as “sluggish,lazy,stupid and unconcerned”. In their battle for a spot in NSW Parliament,the Legalise Cannabis party are trying to disprove that stoner sloth myth.
But the Nimbin-based outfit has a problem:Facebook keeps rejecting their ads. The tech giant,based in California where the devil’s lettuce has been legal for years,has a “hemp and related products” clause in its advertising policy that prohibits ads promoting THC or cannabis products.
The party’s NSW leaderJeremy Buckingham says the ads in question weren’t selling weed – they merely had a picture of a marijuana leaf,accompanied with the words “end the nanny state”. And Meta’s own policies allow an advertiser to “educate,advocate or give public service announcements” related to hemp products.
Buckingham and friends even have preliminary legal advice about the constitutionality of it all,when we sent questions to Facebook’s parent company Meta. Happily,the company told us the ads had been removed in error,and were reinstated on Wednesday afternoon.
CASH ADVANCE
Hot on the heels of news that the No campaign for the upcoming Voice referendum is getting some taxpayers’ money – well,a pamphlet will be produced – the naysayers have received another boost,courtesy of one of conservative Australia’s most prolific donors.
Waste of money:The Noes have it.John Shakespeare
Former fund managerSimon Fenwick has offered to match donations to right-wing campaign outfit Advance Australia,up to a cool $250,000,with the Canberra-based group hoping to raise $500,000 to use campaigning against what it calls “Albo’s Indigenous Voice”.
It’s a little strange that Advance is planning to chuck more than half-a-million bucks at a referendum it insists is “a waste of time and money”,but it’s their – and Fenwick’s – dough.
The Sydney-based financier has form in donating to Advance. Two of his funds;Silver River Investment and Cartwright Investments slung $1 million at Advance – which likes to think of itself as a sort of rightwing GetUp – a few years ago.
TheMatthew Sheahan-led group – which to the ACT Liberal party – also plays on the edge of the rules,and was warned by the Australian Electoral Commission about material it produced predicting ChinesePresident Xi Jinping as voting for Labor.
South Australia’s electoral commissioner found last year the group had breached that state’s electoral laws by publishing “misleading and inaccurate” material.
So we can’t wait to see what they do with their latest windfall.
PARLIAMENT HOUSE CLUSTER
Most of us are trying to put the pandemic behind us,but for inmates of Canberra’s Parliament House,that’s not easy when coming to work every day is like stepping into a weird time-warp straight back to 2020.
While running around the building’s dunnies,stuffing rolls of toilet paper into a backpack,it’s all very COVID-abnormal over there.
Those silly hand sanitisation stations still dot the corridors,there’s “social distancing” in the chambers and public galleries,and even a couple of those perspex screens still in place at the House of Representatives dispatch box.
Security guards are still putting pens used by visitors into special boxes to be sanitised before re-use,and the toilets are still sporting those “good hygiene is in your hands” signs.
So when is all this going to end? We asked the offices of house speakerMilton Dickand Senate PresidentSue Lines who pointed us to their latest joint statement on the health regime in the building,issued all the way back in July last year.
“The situation will be closely monitored,and any changes will be communicated to building occupants,” the statement reads.
Building occupants are still waiting.
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