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Aus govt: opposition's China concerns 'absurd'
AFP - Sunday, March 29
SYDNEY (AFP) - - Australia's centre-left government defended its ties with China Sunday, describing opposition concerns about Beijing's influence over senior ministers as "absurd".
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Amid intense debate in Australia over moves by Chinese state-owned entities to buy into the country's vast resource base, the conservative opposition has put the spotlight on several ministers' links to China.
Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard accused the opposition of playing "cheap politics" for pursuing Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon over his failure to declare two trips to China paid for by a Beijing-born businesswoman.
"This is all getting a little bit absurd," Gillard told ABC television.
"We now have the opposition carrying on as if there is some huge conspiracy here.
"That if you've ever met a Chinese person, if you've ever discussed an issue with relation to China and if you've ever spoken a word of Mandarin -- apparently this is all some huge conspiracy against Australia's national interest."
Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull last week linked Fitzgibbon's trips to China, taken in 2002 and 2005 when he was an opposition member of parliament, to China's recent interest in Australian resources.
"China has a vested interest in acquiring our natural resources at low prices," Turnbull said. "The question is how much has Mr. Fitzgibbon not told us."
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey broadened the attack to include more ministers and Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat and avowed Sinophile.
"I'm concerned about the pattern of behaviour at the moment," Hockey said.
"Kevin Rudd received free trips when he was in opposition from Chinese interests. Wayne Swan the treasurer received these trips, Tony Burke the agriculture minister. Now we hear about the defence minister receiving free trips from China... what's going on?"
Gillard said it was natural that the government had contact with China.
"China is our second biggest trading partner... they're the superpower in our region, obviously being engaged and speaking about China is a proper policy for an Australian government," she said.
"I think the opportunism, the cheap politics flowing from the opposition here... is really very distasteful."
Fitzgibbon's China trips were revealed last week after newspaper reports that defence officials launched a secret investigation into the minister due to concerns about his links to Beijing-born businesswoman Helen Liu.
After initially denying he received gifts from Liu, Fitzgibbon was forced to apologise and officially declare the trips in a parliamentary gift registry.
Gillard said his failure to declare the trips was "an innocent lapse".
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