It’s with programs like 4 Corners on Monday night that the ABC, rarely, from time to time redeems itself.
If you haven’t watched it yet you must on ABC Iview or at the direct link below.
Forget the Russians and the US elections, this is real. It’s about the influence of Chinese money on both the Liberal and Labor parties and individuals like Labor’s Sam Dastyari and the Liberals Andrew Robb who inked the 99 year lease deal on Darwin Port to the Chinese company Landbridge.
Robb now works for Landbridge as a consultant to the tune of $73,000 a month ($800,000 a year) and has done so from the day BEFORE he stepped down from politics so they must have been working on the arrangement well before.
I suspect most people assumed he was stepping down to deal with his mental health/depression issues. That made sense and no one had any right to question his motives in that basis.
This is in effect is a deferred “consideration” amortised over time, into the future, dressed up as a post political sinecure, that is, a position requiring little or no work but giving the holder a financial benefit.
In anyone’s language it would be regarded as corruption.
The former NSW Minister for mines, Ian McDonald went to jail last week for 10 years for his dealings. Andrew Robb has questions to answer because in the minds of the casual observer the only difference between Robb and McDonald is the level and degree of sophistication. Power And Influence