Chinese Whispers. Broken promises on Port of Darwin buy-back

In the last election, both sides of politics promised to return Darwin Port to Australians. The FOI reveals that an unfulfilled (stupid) promise will become an unfulfilled (unfulfilled) promise. Rex Patrick reports.

stupid and stupid

Imagine announcing, or even promising, that you definitely plan to buy something from a monopoly owner who has no strong desire to sell.

During the election campaign, both the Opposition and the Government did exactly this.

On 4 April 2025, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the returning Labor government would ensure that the Port of Darwin, leased by Landbridge, a subsidiary of the China Shandong Land Bridge Group, was returned to Australian hands.

“Australia needs to have Darwin Port,” the Prime Minister said.

When Albanese heard that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would announce the following day that the Coalition government would return the Port to local control, he called Darwin radio station to announce his plans.

Albanese’s plans centered around a super fund buying the lease.

Dutton pledged the same and issued a press release advising that he would act in the national interest to immediately ensure the security of the Port of Darwin by facilitating its return to an Australian Government-approved operator.

Although Landbridge isn’t interested in selling it, the whole thing is for sale if the price is right. Whatever the ‘right price’ was before the announcement, the idiot and the fool had made it even more expensive.

Politics takes precedence over national interests. Labor stuck in Darwin Port nonsense

compulsory acquisition

Dutton’s plan was to appoint a specialist commercial advisor who would work with officials from the Northern Territory Government and the Departments of Treasury, Finance, Defense and Infrastructure to provide advice and liaise with potential new operators of the Port.

The Coalition continued: “If a private lease cannot be secured within six months of the commencement of the process, as a last resort, we will take action to acquire the Commonwealth’s share of the lease in the Port using compulsory purchase powers.”

The only problem is that this is not possible.

The Government has mandatory powers if it needs to acquire land to build an air force base or an AUKUS high-level radioactive waste facility or for any other public purpose. A 1984 Supreme Court case (Clunies-Ross v Commonwealth) confirmed that the Government cannot compulsorily acquire property (such as your house) simply because it dislikes the owner and wants to deprive him of it.

Promise me you won’t go anywhere

Six months (and 10 years) after the Albanian Government came back to power.he anniversary of the lease being acquired by Landbridge) MWM has requested access to briefings from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) on advice given to Albanese under Freedom of Information laws.

But there were ‘crickets’ from PM&C to FOI.

They did not respond to the request and only responded with limited documentation five months later under pressure from the Information Commissioner.

The FOI’s decision is interesting. We’ll get back to that in a minute.

99 year lease to Landbridge

Before November 2015, Darwin Port was operated by Darwin Port Corporation, a business division of the Northern Territory Government.

The port was suffering from a lack of investment to meet growing demand, and after the Federal Government refused to help fund new infrastructure, and after analysis by numerous consultants, in January 2015 the NT Government launched an investigation process to gauge the level of national and international private sector interest in taking over the Port of Darwin.

33 private investors, including Landbridge, have expressed interest in leasing the port.

As part of its plans, the NT Government contacted the Department of Defense (from early 2014). The dialogue continued and in May 2015 Defense was notified that Landbridge had bid to lease and operate the port.

In June 2015, Landbridge met with the federal Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) to advance its proposal and then submitted a FIRB application in July 2015. As part of FIRB’s initial work, Treasury consulted the Ministry of Defense, which carried out due diligence, and told them there were no concerns.

In September 2015 FIRB contacted Landbridge and advised them that the acquisition of shares in the Port would be exempt from their approval as the asset was owned by the NT Government. State, Territory or local governments were exempt from Foreign Acquisition and Takeover Act approval (which changed after the uproar over leasing).

In October the NT’s Premier announced Landbridge had been successful in its bid for a 99-year lease on Darwin Harbor for a total price of $506 million.

Landbridge followed the rules.

2022-23 Review

In June 2022, soon after taking office, Albanese announced a review into the decision to lease the Port of Darwin to Landbridge.

The review was conducted by PM&C and submitted to the Prime Minister in March 2023. The review concluded that it was not in the national interest to change or repeal the rent regulation.

In August 2023, Albanese accepted the review recommendations and in October 2023 Review suggestions are open to everyone.

Back to Dumb and Dumber

Seeing the review and accepting the recommendations made Albanese’s election announcement even more foolish. He knew there was no problem to solve.

The FOI response revealed that 12 documents relating to Darwin Port had been created since the 2025 election, but that they were all exempt under Section 33(a)(iii) of the FOI Act; Releasing them would damage Australia’s international relations.

FOI Document Program

We can only guess how many times the word China appears below the edited text.

The Empire strikes back

On January 29 this year, the Chinese Ambassador to Australia made a public statement and criticized Albanese for his Darwin Port plans.

“Landbridge has invested a lot in the last 10 years. Starting last year, Darwin Port stopped losing money and started making money.”

“All of a sudden we hear that the Australian government wants to roll this back,” he said.

“When you lose money, you rent it to a foreign company, and when you start making money, you want to take it back. This cannot be done.”

Then came the crucial point.

“If there is something like a port [being taken] “If we return by force or coercive measures, then we have an obligation to take measures to protect the interests of the Chinese company.”

It was a strong message from our largest trading partner: No forced sales, otherwise!

bargaining card

The Chinese government was shooting across the bow regarding all Chinese investments. However, there is a possibility that it will focus on price negotiations.

Albanese’s plan was to have an Australian pension fund take over ownership. The problem is that Albanese increased the price as soon as he made his election promise.

Australian super funds could have invested in 2015, when the Port of Darwin was initially leased. After all, it also has stakes in other major ports such as Melbourne, Brisbane, Port Botany and Port Kembla. Darwin Harbor is small-scale by comparison. But they chose not to do this.

Why would they change their minds, especially considering that Albanese has put Landbridge in a commercially advantageous position? You might hope your own super fund steers clear of a politically motivated, price-inflated small-cap port purchase.

Unless there was a backroom deal paid for by taxpayers, it is hard to see how the Albanians could not make it through this tenure in government with a broken promise.

He sabotaged his chances of selling by reacting to the hunts.

Watch US: Fears about Chinese investment in Australia are exaggerated

Rex Patrick is a former South Australian Senator and formerly a submariner in the armed forces. Known as an anti-corruption and transparency warrior, Rex is also known as “Transparency Warrior“