Darwin Port lease dominates PM’s visit

U.S. President Barack Obama, right, talks with Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during their meeting in Manila, Philippines, Tuesday, November 17, 2015, ahead of the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

The outcry over foreign investments could cast a pall over the sale by the government of New South Wales, Australia’s largest state, of its electricity grid in a deal expected to bring in at least A$8 billion.

Mr Turnbull, who diverted from a multi-city Asian tour to open a health research facility in Darwin, said the deal with Chinese company Landbridge Group had not posed any concerns for Defence.

The port in the Northern Territory is close to the base through which US Marines have been rotated for the past three years.

“The government is going to have to back off on this”, Mr Katter said on Friday.

Powerful crossbench Senator Nick Xenophon issued draft terms for an urgent Senate inquiry into the deal, accusing the government of double standards after Mr Morrison blocked the S. Kidman and Co sale.

“What doesn’t make sense here is that an iconic cattle property is to be kept in Australian hands on national interest grounds, but a key strategic asset like the Port of Darwin is subject to a foreign takeover with barely a whimper form the Foreign Investment Review Board”, Xenophon said Thursday.

To which Mr Turnbull replied the lease process had not been a secret, and that the President might have been informed had he been reading the NT News.

“The reason we are reviewing the rules is not because we regret the decision made”.

Turnbull said his government would consult all state governments to ensure “all foreign acquisitions of the relevant size (are) subject to the same process”.

“Under our legislation, under our law in Australia, the Department of Defence or this Federal Government can step in and take control of infrastructure like this in circumstances where it’s deemed necessary for purposes of defence”.

“We do need to be very careful that we’re not sending out mixed messages”, said James Laurenceson, deputy director of University of Technology Sydney’s Australian-China Relations Institute.