Australia’s election campaign has so far focused on issues familiar to most Canadians: inflation, cost of living, housing, immigration, and tariffs. The first leaders’ debate, featuring Labor leader and incumbent Anthony Albanese and the Coalition’s Peter Dutton, was “largely a polite affair,” and polls suggest a hung parliament is likely, although an outright Labor victory is still possible.
The two leaders, despite policy divergences, have both pledged to reclaim a “strategic” Chinese-owned port in Australia’s Northern Territory.
In 2015, a Chinese company, Landbridge Group, signed a 99-year lease for the Port of Darwin. According to the port’s director, “there is no input from China.”
A former minister from Australia’s Northern Territory said successive federal governments “simply weren’t interested in supporting the Northern Territory with this infrastructure.” The Australian Broadcasting Corporation suggested that U.S. security concerns over the port may have sparked Labor’s change of heart.
Beijing also made a cameo in Canada’s election campaign. Ottawa’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force reported Monday that it uncovered “positive and negative narratives” on WeChat about Liberal Leader Mark Carney in an operation linked to the Chinese government.
