Peter Dutton has doubled down on his controversial claims that China would like Labor to defeat the Morrison government at the upcoming federal election, prompting Malcolm Turnbull to warn that such “reckless” comments had “no basis in fact” and harmed Australia’s national security.
The defence minister said on Friday there was “no doubt in [his] mind” about what he described as a “statement of the obvious” regarding China’s preference of Labor. He claimed he based Thursday’s inflammatory allegation on “open source and other intelligence”.
