CHINESE financial interests in Australian ports are again under the microscope after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would release the results of a review into the 2015 lease of the Port of Darwin to Chinese company Landbridge.
But an existing national security review of the Darwin lease - and by implication a separate 2018 review of another Chinese company's half-stake in the Port of Newcastle - are being kept under wraps by Defence officials against Freedom of Information requests by the ABC.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved to defuse the issue yesterday by saying the government would release the results of a review that he announced in June, soon after taking office.
Defence released "talking points" but not the full content of an earlier review of Darwin, which former defence minister Peter Dutton had said in late December had cleared the Landbridge lease of security concerns.
At the same time, Mr Dutton said that the 2014 lease of Newcastle - a year before Darwin - had been reviewed by Defence in 2018, with no security concerns over the transaction.
While the documents commissioned by the Coalition and sought by the ABC are reportedly remaining "Cabinet in confidence", Mr Albanese said the review that Labor commissioned would be made public.
"I have said that we will be reviewing the Darwin port ownership of the lease," Mr Albanese told reporters yesterday.
"People would be aware that it was leased out to a company connected, very directly, with the government of the People's Republic of China . . . we opposed it.
"I have asked for advice and when we receive it, we will make it public."
The China Merchants Port Holdings 50 per cent stake in Newcastle became an election issue when the port was named on a three-site shortlist for a nuclear submarine base. Former submariner Rex Patrick - in his final months as a senator - was among those raising concerns.
Asked to respond yesterday, Port of Newcastle chief executive Craig Carmondy said: "The ownership structure for Port of Newcastle has been previously reviewed and found to comply with all foreign ownership requirements.
"We have never been advised by any level of government that there is an issue with Port of Newcastle ownership."
"The ownership structure for Port of Newcastle has been previously reviewed and found to comply with all foreign ownership requirements."
Mr Carmody said the port was run by an Australian management team and the two shareholders were equally represented on the board with an independent chair.
The Northern Territory government leased Port of Darwin to Landbridge in 205 for a cash price of $506 million along with commitments on the Chinese side to invest $20 million in the first five years - which it says it has done - and another $200 million over 20 years to expand the port's export capacity.
The Darwin lease is for 100 per cent Chinese control and came a year after the NSW government accepted $1.75 billion from a 50/50 consortium of Australian and Chinese interests for a 98-year-lease of the Port of Newcastle.
