CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
For the first time since Josh Frydenberg’s citizenship status was brought into question during the 2017 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis, the Liberal Party has today put their foot down and said that racism is NOT okay.
This comes as the Member for Chisholm, Gladys Liu MP, faces accusations of light-hearted treason by people who don’t really like the idea of having a Chinese Communist Party sleeper cell infiltrating the ranks of the government.
According to Scott Morrison, these people are also known as racists.
The Prime Minister has dubbed attacks on Liberal backbencher Gladys Liu as a “smear” campaign with a “grubby undertone”.
Morrison says this kind of bigotry is abhorrent, and it’s something that the Liberal Government cannot condone – unless we are talking about Tamil girls in remote Queensland.
This follows the ABC’s revelations that ASIO had advised then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to not attend a meet and greet Ms Liu had arranged in Melbourne in 2018 – because they thought she was suss. Which Morrison says is just a result of ASIO’s grubby undertone of white supremacy.
The advice was given based on the guest list for the event.
That revelation came hours after Ms Liu confirmed she held membership of an organisation linked to China’s foreign interference operations, less than 24 hours after saying she could not recall being a part of it.
Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, has called on the Prime Minister to assure the Parliament Ms Liu was “fit and proper” to be an MP.
Morrison has responded to Penny Wong by saying that he finds it very disappointing to see her so openly discriminating against people of Chinese origin.
“What has Penny Wong got against Chinese-Australian women being elected into Parliament?” asked Morrison.
“I think people should reflect very carefully in the way they have sought to attack Gladys over this matter and the broader smear that I think is implied in that over more than 1 million [Chinese-Australians].”
