An Australian politician has been sacked over comments on the South China Sea by Simon Thomsen on Nov 30, 2017, 1:52 AM Advertisement
 - An Australian senator has lost several positions after audio emerged of him contradicting his party's, and Australia's, foreign policy on the South China Sea.
- Senator Sam Dastyari said at an event last year that Australia should know "where it is and isn’t our place to be involved" in the issue.
- Dastyari previously lost a job because of his China connections.
Australian Labor senator Sam Dastyari has been sacked by the Opposition leader, after damning audio emerged of Dastyari contradicting Labor policy on China at a media conference last year.
Labor leader Bill Shorten sacked Dastyari as the party’s Senate deputy whip and removed him as a senate committee chair, though he still holds his Senate seat. Just 18 months ago Dastyari’s Chinese connections cost him another government position. Shorten told Dastyari to resign last night, issuing a statement saying he expects the senator “will learn from this experience.” 
Yesterday, claims surfaced Dastyari had warned a Chinese donor he was under surveillance. Within 12 hours Shorten was forced to dismiss Dastyari after the recording emerged. “I told Senator Dastyari that his mischaracterization of how he came to make comments contradicting Labor policy made his position untenable,” Shorten said this morning. “I also told him that while I accept his word that he never had, nor disclosed, any classified information, his handling of these matters showed a lack of judgment.” When doubts were raised about his comments last year after they first appeared in a Chinese-language newspaper in Sydney, Dastyari attempted a lost in translation defence. But the audio reveals he said the “role Australia should be playing as a friend is to know that, with the several thousand years of history … where it is and isn’t our place to be involved.” His comment aligns with the China Communist Party’s position of the South China Sea territorial dispute and contradicts both Australian foreign policy, and Labor’s policy. Dastyari announced his resignation from Labor’s leadership team in the Senate this morning saying he was “shocked” by the recording, and claims that he was “anything but a patriotic Australian deeply hurtful”. He denied passing on classified information saying he’d never had any in his possession. Here’s part of what he said: In June last year, I held a press conference where I made comments that were in breach of Labor Party policy. I have never denied this. The price I paid for that was high but appropriate. More recently, my characterization of that press conference was called into question. A recent audio recording shocked me as it did not match my recollection of events. I take responsibility for the subsequent mischaracterisation. Dastyari’s comments also put him in danger of being expelled from the party. But Shorten stopped short of asking him to resign from the Senate.
This morning Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Dastyari should resign from Parliament. “Sam Dastyari should get out of the Senate, fullstop. That’s his duty. If his statement is not a statement of resignation, then he is letting everybody down and Bill Shorten has to take responsibility for this. All of this merely-mouthed ‘He’s on his last warning.’ That is nonsense. This is not a lapse of judgment, this is a failure of loyalty,” he said. Last year, Dastyari resigned from the ALP’s shadow ministry in the wake of a scandal over a getting an education company with close links to the ruling Chinese communist government to pay his travel expenses. In recent months, Australia’s first Iranian-born politician was running a slick redemption campaign off the back of the 34-year-old’s autobiography “One halal of a story”. Things started to go awry for Dastyari yet again yesterday when Fairfax Media detailed a visit to a Chinese businessmen and political donor, Huang Xiangmo, at his Sydney home to warn him that his phone was being tapped by governments, including the US. Fairfax alleges Dastyari gave Huang counter-surveillance advice, telling him to leave their phones inside while they spoke outside. Dastyari denied the claims.
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