Beijing has sent a warning to Australia's leaders over their plans to take back the lease from the Chinese owners of the Port of Darwin. It comes as a former NT government minister defends the decision to lease the port in the first place, blaming federal inaction for letting it happen.
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00:00The port was leased to Chinese-owned firm Landbridge for 99 years by the country
00:07Liberal Party NT Government in 2015. Ten years on both the Coalition and Federal
00:13Labor have pledged to return the port to Australian hands. The Coalition not
00:18concerned about the overnight message from Beijing. Look I'm concerned that
00:23China have been sending their boats around our country. The behavior that
00:30they've displayed toward Australia has been threatening behavior. But it's not
00:35only China criticizing the federal pledges. A former NT minister defending
00:41his government's decision to lease the port and accusing the federal parties of
00:45staying silent when the deal was done and ignoring pleas to upgrade port
00:51infrastructure. The federal government's response was measured in decibels of
00:56around zero. They simply weren't interested in supporting the Northern
01:02Territory with this infrastructure. The decision was made when it was made we're
01:06in now these current circumstances where geopolitical circumstances have changed.
01:10For some the focus now is on the port's workforce and what happens next for
01:15almost a hundred Darwin-based Landbridge employees. When the country Liberal
01:20Party and their Coalition counterparts sold it there was a lot of uncertainty and
01:25we've got that uncertainty again. As for Landbridge it says it won't engage
01:29with either federal Labor or the Coalition until after next month's election.