The special minister of state, Scott Ryan, has defended former trade minister Andrew Robb who took a contract with Chinese-owned Landbridge, a day before he left office, saying politicians need to work after parliament.

Ryan said the ministerial code of conduct said former ministers should not lobby, advocate or have meetings with members of the government or public service on any matter on which they have dealt with in the previous 18 months.

“People do need to work after they leave parliament, there are not parliamentary pensions in place, nor should they be for people elected after 2004,” Ryan told 3AW.

“So as long as he is not taking advantage of information or lobbying with respect to his ministerial job he was doing, I appreciate it can be portrayed in a certain way but he is obeying the rules.”

Landbridge won the 99-year lease to the Darwin port in 2015, sparking a backlash. Robb was still trade minister at the time and negotiating the China-Australia trade agreement. There is no suggestion Robb did anything wrong.

But Four Corners revealed that after Robb stepped down as trade minister, he was allegedly appointed as a consultant to Landbridge on 1 July, the day before he retired from politics. Landbridge announced Robb’s appointment in September 2016.

According to Four Corners, from 1 July 2016 Robb was reportedly paid $73,000 a month, or $880,000 a year, plus expenses. He told Four Corners he acted in line with his obligations as former trade minister.



“I haven’t seen any claim that he is lobbying,” Ryan said. “I think I have spoken to Andrew once since he left parliament and it wasn’t about anything to do with this, anything to do with his outside job.”

Ryan said it would be hard to further limit politicians to industries not covered by a ministerial portfolio because it would rule out a lot of areas.



The fallout continued in federal politics from the Four Corners-Fairfax investigation that revealed Asio had warned major political parties about two wealthy political donors and their alleged links to the Chinese government.

Bill Shorten has promised that Labor will not to take donations from donors Australian resident Huang Xiangmo and the Australian Chinese citizen Chau Chak Wing, who were featured in the program.



“I made it clear before last night that I don’t want the Labor party accepting donations from these people,” Shorten said.



“Fair’s fair … we don’t want these individuals or their associates’ money. How is it fair that the Liberal party won’t make the same commitment?”

The opposition leader has written to Malcolm Turnbull to ask for his support for a parliamentary review of direct and indirect foreign influence on the Australian election.

Shorten favours a review by the powerful parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS,) which could consider the creation of a foreign agents register – similar to the United States register which tripped up Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, US citizens who lobby on behalf of foreign governments or political entities must disclose their work to the Justice Department or risk five years’ jail or a $10,000 fine.

“Any attempt by a foreign power to interfere in the domestic political and electoral affairs of sovereign nations such as Australia is obviously highly concerning, especially where it involves direct or indirect interference in the electoral process,” Shorten wrote in his letter.

The Labor party has had a policy to ban foreign donations since 2007 but Shorten was under pressure over allegations that Labor senator Sam Dastyari contradicted Labor’s South China Sea policy to stop Huang cancelling a $400,000 donation. The promised donation was never paid.



Shorten said Dastyari had been penalised for his accepting donations and payments to cover legal and travel bills of $5,000 and $1,670, after he stood down from the shadow ministry for five months.

Shorten described the revelations concerning Robb as “red hot”.

“This is red hot – this sort of conduct where you move seamlessly from working at senior levels in government to some of the people you were making policy for the day before in government,” Shorten said.



Shorten defended Dastyari’s attempts to inquire on Huang’s citizenship application, saying many MPs have to make similar constituent inquiries.

The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said the only way to clean up the political system was to establish a national anti-corruption watchdog, ban corporate and foreign donations and end the revolving door between parliament and big business.

“The revelations that foreign governments are buying influence in Australia once again demonstrate just how critical it is that the government and Bill Shorten support the Greens legislation to clean up politics.”



“We call on the Liberals and Bill Shorten to support our legislation for a federal Icac, comprehensive donations reform and a five-year ban on former ministers working as lobbyists.”

