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Mr Hastie said he had received the information during briefings from US authorities during a recent visit by members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to Washington.

Labor MP Anthony Byrne,who is the deputy chair of the committee,was in the chamber when Mr Hastie gave his speech. As he gave leave to Mr Hastie to table US documents relating the bribery case,Mr Byrne said:"Leave is most definitely granted in support of my friend and colleague."

China’s foreign ministry responded directly to Mr Hastie’s allegations by saying they were “creating something out of thin air and not worth refuting”.

Fairfax Media has been told there was disagreement within Labor over whether to pursue Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull politically over Mr Hastie’s speech. One Labor MP who opposed pursuing the government “absolutely did his head” about the decision,according to an opposition source.

Some sources insisted bipartisanship would hold,however,and the committee would find compromises to the existing disagreements about the foreign interference legislation. Key Labor figures support the intention of the laws. Labor defence spokesman Richard Marles said Mr Hastie's speech showed"how important it is that we get our foreign interference laws passed".

Labor’s first three questions from Mr Shorten in Parliament’s Question Time were about Mr Hastie,focussing on whether he provided details from “a confidential briefing” from US authorities.

Mr Turnbull had earlier in the day stressed he had no advance warning that Mr Hastie would be naming Mr Chau.

Mr Turnbull said he had consulted with security agencies to ask if there had been any implications to Mr Hastie’s disclosure.

The Labor split spilled into the public last night when MP Michael Danby congratulated Mr Hastie on his speech.

“Personally I give credit to Hastie for having the guts to stand up and do that,"Mr Danby said."I’d be surprised if he’d done it with a confidential briefing. I think that would have been wrong but as it seems,as the Prime Minister admitted,it was non-confidential.

“I think sometimes you have parliamentary privilege and big blokes like him have to stand up and do it.”

The committee has already gone past its original reporting date on the government’s foreign interference legislation,though it is a complex package of changes that will update espionage laws and create new offences.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus,who has been most public in questioning some details of the proposed foreign interference laws,denied there were fractures within the committee.

“Labor is currently working constructively with government members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on the[foreign interference] bills and will continue to do so,” he said.

The laws are in response to what ASIO has called “unprecedented” levels of activity by foreign agents to influence Australian politics.

While the government says it is not aimed at any country,experts widely agree that China is the main concern.

Any significant delays to the passage of the legislation could mean that Australia faces its next election without the laws in place,if Mr Turnbull were to call the poll for later this year.

Meanwhile Trade Minister Steven Ciobo refused to repeated Defence Minister Marise Payne’s condemnation of Chinese military activity in the South China Sea.

While Senator Payne had branded the placement of bombers on artificial islands as"destabilising",Mr Ciobo told Sky News:"That's a decision for China."

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