Today’s SMHscoop
revealing Chinese government officials interrogated 50 Chinese
immigrants on our soil raises disturbing questions: not least, just who
is running our immigration policy? It also poses a question for the
Opposition: is it too hard for Labor to be anti-Chinese government and
support the Chinese living here in Australia?

China is a cleft
stick for Labor. But if the party can’t do that sort of balancing act
this early in Opposition, maybe it never can. On the broader detention
policy, there was an interesting tonal change from Opposition spokesman
Laurie Ferguson this morning. He almost gave support to the Georgiou
bills – his only qualification was they were “largely” the same as
Labor policy.

C’mon Laurie, you’re almost there. Time to embrace
the Coalition refuseniks. And while you’re at it, time to stand up to
Beijing. Otherwise, today’s
claims by the latest Chinese defector, academic Yuan Hongbing, that
China is trying to turn Australia into a political colony, may start to
gain traction.