Australian leaders plan to take back port lease from Chinese owners

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Beijing has sent a warning to Australia's leaders over their plans to take back the lease from the Chinese owners of the Port of Darwin. It comes as a former NT government minister defends the decision to lease the port in the first place, blaming federal inaction for letting it happen.

Transcript

00:00The port was leased to Chinese-owned firm Landbridge for 99 years by the country

00:07Liberal Party NT Government in 2015. Ten years on both the Coalition and Federal

00:13Labor have pledged to return the port to Australian hands. The Coalition not

00:18concerned about the overnight message from Beijing. Look I'm concerned that

00:23China have been sending their boats around our country. The behavior that

00:30they've displayed toward Australia has been threatening behavior. But it's not

00:35only China criticizing the federal pledges. A former NT minister defending

00:41his government's decision to lease the port and accusing the federal parties of

00:45staying silent when the deal was done and ignoring pleas to upgrade port

00:51infrastructure. The federal government's response was measured in decibels of

00:56around zero. They simply weren't interested in supporting the Northern

01:02Territory with this infrastructure. The decision was made when it was made we're

01:06in now these current circumstances where geopolitical circumstances have changed.

01:10For some the focus now is on the port's workforce and what happens next for

01:15almost a hundred Darwin-based Landbridge employees. When the country Liberal

01:20Party and their Coalition counterparts sold it there was a lot of uncertainty and

01:25we've got that uncertainty again. As for Landbridge it says it won't engage

01:29with either federal Labor or the Coalition until after next month's election.

Category

Transcript

Recommended