Man of many dimensions

The way Huang built his Australian network is all the more remarkable given his humble beginnings in the back blocks of southern China’s Guangdong province.

As a 15-year-old, Huang left school for a year to look after his impoverished family after the sudden death of his father.

“Life was a struggle, especially with five children to feed,” he recently told a Chinese magazine. “Despite the hardships we were a close family.”

In 2001, he scraped together enough funds to form the Yuhu Investment Development Company in Shenzen, a buzzing metropolis in Guangdong. He built upmarket villas and apartment blocks before diversifying into energy and agriculture. He also formed the close Communist Party connections expected of any billionaire property developer in China.

In 2011, Huang moved to Australia. He claims to have been seeking new business opportunities and a place to raise his children where the “people are warm and friendly and the air is clean, very clean”.

Australia was also free of the endemic corruption and corresponding anti-graft purges of the Chinese Communist Party that created an uncertain and sometimes hostile business environment for entrepreneurs. In 2012, one of Huang’s key Communist Party contacts in his home town of Jieyang was targeted for corruption, a fact Huang has privately brushed off as irrelevant.

After arriving in Sydney, Huang developed a shopping centre and launched a philanthropy blitz, donating millions of dollars to medical research and universities, including $1.8 million to help found the Australia China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. The institute is headed by Bob Carr, whom Huang claims he hand-picked. Carr (who declined an interview request) disputes this, although it’s unquestionable that Huang’s large donation provided an open channel to the former foreign minister and premier.

Huang quickly became known as a “whale” in political fundraising circles. The nickname was earned with his very first donation: $150,000 to the NSW branch of the ALP on November 19, 2012. That same day, two of Huang’s close associates, Chinese businessmen and peaceful reunification members Luo Chuangxiong and Peter Chen, gave an additional $350,000.

Huang’s political donations declared (2012-16)

Huang and his allies’ large donations were initially handled by the then ALP NSW secretary Sam Dastyari, along with Chinese community leader and ALP identity Ernest Wong, who quickly became one of Huang’s point men in Labor. As well as encouraging Huang’s campaign fundraising, Dastyari requested the developer donate $5000 to settle an outstanding legal bill he had accumulated as party secretary.

In the Liberal camp, Huang was also dealing with high-flyers. They included trade minister Andrew Robb, whose Victorian fundraising vehicle was given $100,000 by Huang, and Tony Abbott, who encountered Huang at Liberal fundraisers where, in the lead-up to the 2013 election, the Chinese businessman donated $700,000.

Huang moved with ease across the political aisle. Dastyari and Robb both effusively praised Huang’s philanthropy at charity or community events organised by the developer.

“He is a man of many dimensions, from what I’ve already been able to determine,” said Robb at a December 2013 charity event. “He’s a very thoughtful, cerebral fellow. I’ve had many interesting conversations already with Mr Huang on an endless range of topics.”

Robb said Huang’s donation to Bob Carr’s Australia China Relations Institute showed he was a “visionary”.

“China is going to be an integral part of all of our futures and it is absolutely imperative that we build the closest possible relationship,” said Robb.

Huang Xiangmo at an AFR business lunch in Sydney in 2016. Photo: Ryan Stuart

Seeking favours

Huang first turned his political connections into a request for a favour in around early 2013. Court records show it involved a minor immigration matter. His ally, Ernest Wong, was at the time an ALP deputy mayor, who Huang would recruit as an adviser to his Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (Wong had, years earlier, been part of the council under its previous leadership).

Wong wrote a letter of support to help Huang secure a work visa for a Chinese employee. The Migration Review Tribunal later rejected the application because the proposed job referred to was not genuine.

Shortly after Wong penned the letter in question, in May 2013, he was parachuted into a NSW State Parliament upper house seat left vacant by the resignation of former Labor member Eric Roozendaal. It was a curious affair, if only for the timing.

Roozendaal was suspended from Labor on November 7, 2012 over a corruption scandal (he was later not found to have engaged in any improper behavior). This meant his place on the ALP’s upper house ticket would need to be filled eventually. Twelve days later, Huang and two fellow Peaceful Reunification Council members donated $500,000 to the NSW ALP. After Wong took Roozendaal’s place in the upper house, Huang employed Roozendaal to work in his development firm.

Huang’s donations to both major parties continued. Records reveal that over four years, Huang and his close associates or employees gave at least $2.6 million to the major parties.

It was these donations, along with Huang’s Communist Party ties, that led to him being featured in the briefing that spy chief Duncan Lewis gave the three political party chiefs in 2015.

The same qualification that applies to Chau Chak Wing also covers Huang: Huang’s donations were legal, and ASIO said the parties were under no obligation to refuse them.

Huang declined to answer detailed questions, but has denied any wrongdoing. In a statement to Fairfax Media and Four Corners he said: “It is regrettable that without knowing me, Four Corners would seek to question my motives and undermine my reputation based on recycled news reports, dubious assertions and innuendo.

“While your program may seek to reinforce negative stereotypes about Chinese involvement in Australia, I am committed to more positive endeavours, such as investment, philanthropy and building stronger community relations.”

In the right company, though, Huang himself has made no secret of his more political views. Around the time of the ASIO briefing, he spoke at an event at the Chinese consulate to celebrate 66 years of Communist Party rule.

“We overseas Chinese unswervingly support the Chinese government’s position to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity [and] support the development of the motherland as always,” he said.

Huang’s desire to champion Beijing’s territorial claims eventually led to a clash with ALP policy.

But in the months leading up to the election, Huang’s most pressing concern was his application to become an Australian citizen. It had been temporarily blocked as ASIO attempted to understand his relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and other discrepancies in his application.

Huang did not know that Australian authorities had concerns, at least not initially. All he knew was that his application was taking far longer than he believed it should. The answer, he believed, lay not with a migration agent or lawyer, but with the intervention of his political friends.

“In China, the system works like that,” explains a well-placed source.

Huang attempted to recruit a number of politicians to his citizenship cause, including former prime minister Tony Abbott. Several politicians agreed to help, but it appears only one followed through – Sam Dastyari. On four separate occasions over the first six months of 2016, Dastyari or his office called the Immigration Department to quiz officials about the status of Huang’s application. The senator made at least two of these calls personally.

In response to questions from Fairfax Media and Four Corners, Dastyari said, “it’s my job to assist constituents with migration matters including liaising with the Department of Immigration”.

He said he had never “spoken to any representative from Australia’s security agencies” and he was “never given any reason to have concerns about Mr Huang up to and including my final contact”.

An Immigration Department spokesperson said citizenship was granted only to people of good character who could meet identity requirements and who were not subject to adverse ASIO assessments.

“The Department is not influenced by representations, no matter who they are from, if the applicant does not meet the requirements of the Citizenship Act.”

As for Dastyari’s calls on Huang’s behalf, one official said: “It shows a pattern of conduct, beyond a single call the department might get from a politician about a constituent.”

Huang Xiangmo and Sam Dastyari on June 17, 2016.

Dastyari’s last call

Around the time of Dastyari’s last call, and as the 2016 election neared, Huang promised the ALP another $400,000 in donations – money the party desperately needed to fund its campaign. But then Huang received some bad news. The ALP was publicly and unexpectedly challenging one of the core doctrines of Beijing’s foreign policy.

At a lunchtime address on June 16, Labor shadow defence spokesman Stephen Conroy told the National Press Club that China’s actions in the South China Sea were destabilising and “absurd”. Labor, he said, was open to the Australian Navy conducting freedom-of-navigation exercises in the area.

In Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party viewed this as an unwelcome challenge. In Sydney, Huang decided to act.

He called ALP fundraising officials in Victoria. Conroy’s comments meant he could no longer deliver the promised $400,000 in donations. The ALP pushed for Huang to honour his commitment, but he stood firm. Conroy had crossed the line and his comments would cost the ALP dearly.

Still, Huang wasn’t prepared to give up on Labor entirely. Just a day after Conroy launched his South China Sea salvo, Dastyari and Huang spoke at adjacent lecterns at a press conference attended by the Chinese-language media.

“The South China Sea is China’s own affair,” Dastyari stated. “On this issue, Australia should remain neutral and respect China’s decision”.

There is no suggestion Dastyari knew directly of the threat to the $400,000 donation.

Dastyari’s comments on the South China Sea cost him his frontbench job amid a storm of publicity after the election over why he had allowed Huang to pay for the $5000 legal bill in 2014, and a second Chinese donor to contribute to pay a $1670 office travel expense.

Dastyari said in answer to questions that he had broken contact with Mr Huang after “the events of last year”.

Huang’s use of a $400,000 donation as leverage over the ALP’s foreign policy has remained hidden until now. It came about a year after ASIO had first put the political parties on notice about Huang’s likely connections back in China.

“It’s precisely the kind of example of economic inducement being turned into economic leverage or coercion,” says the ANU National Security College’s Rory Medcalf. “It’s a classic example of a benefit being provided but then withheld as a way of punishment, and as a way of influencing Australia policy independence.”

A few a days after Huang said he would withdraw his offer of the $400,000 donation, Huang appeared at a Labor press conference to announce two Chinese candidates for the last two spots on the ALP’s senate ticket.

One of the men was Dastyari’s office staffer Paul Han, whom Huang has also appointed to a Chinese community organisation, and who is believed to have been a conduit for some of Huang’s lobbying of Dastyari’s office over his stalled citizenship application.

The second candidate was active ALP member Simon Zhou, a close Huang associate and member of Huang’s peaceful reunification council. Zhou has also helped raise funds for the NSW ALP, with two of Zhou’s business associates donating $60,000 in May 2016. Huang also asked the NSW ALP to appoint Zhou as a multicultural adviser (the ALP insists he was appointed on merit).

At the event announcing Zhou and Han’s candidacy, Huang told Chinese-language media that “the Chinese realise that they need to make their voices heard in the political circle, so as to seek more interests for the Chinese, and let Australia’s mainstream society pay more attention to the Chinese”.

Huang’s withdrawal of the 2016 donation is understood to have not only concerned some within Labor but to have caused grave concern inside Australia’s security community and the US embassy in Canberra.

Several sources have also confirmed that in September 2016, ASIO briefed Bill Shorten about Huang. Shorten responded by directing his colleagues to cut ties to the donor. The opposition leader also issued a public call for a ban on foreign donations.

Chinese New Year, 2016, and (right) Huang's Yuhu Group donates to a medical research centre back in 2013. Photos: Dominic Lorrimer, James Brickwood

Donations reform

In Washington DC, Australia’s role as one of the only Western nations not to have banned foreign donations continues to cause alarm.

But despite promises for donations reform from senior figures in both parties, nothing firm has happened. Many politicians still appear more interested in attracting foreign cash than ensuring the integrity of our political system.

It’s clear the problem isn’t confined to donations and Australia’s national security agencies continue to sound the alarm behind closed doors.

“There’s an awareness of a problem but the agencies themselves don’t have the mandate or the wherewithal to manage the problem,” warns Medcalf.

“All they can do is sound the alarm and alert the political class. The political class needs to take a set of decisions in the interest of Australian sovereignty, in the interest of Australia’s independent policy making, to restrict and limit foreign influence in Australian decision-making.”

After being briefed on the findings of the investigation by Fairfax Media and Four Corners, and sent a list of questions, the Turnbull government is stressing that it’s not only listening to the warnings but is prepared to act.

In a statement, Attorney-General George Brandis revealed that the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has launched a major inquiry into Australia’s espionage and foreign interference laws.

“The threat of political interference by foreign intelligence services is a problem of the highest order and it is getting worse,” Mr Brandis said.

“Espionage and covert foreign interference by nation states is a global reality which can cause immense harm to our national sovereignty, to the safety of our people, our economic prosperity, and to the very integrity of our democracy.”

Mr Brandis has also flagged the introduction of new laws to “strengthen our agencies’ ability to investigate and prosecute acts of espionage and foreign interference".

His statement is certain to rile Beijing. It will also concern certain political players in Australia, who will be hoping that any inquiry is confined to finding gaps in the law and will not explore too deeply the previous conduct of individuals.