Time and again during question time on Wednesday,Morrison and his senior ministers sought to portray Labor Leader Anthony Albanese and his fellow Labor MPs as not just soft on China,but as something approaching collaborators.
From the very start,Morrison turned a question from his side – about how his government was standing up to countries involved in bullying and coercion – into just such an attack.
He implied Labor was China’s “fellow traveller” – a derogatory term used in McCarthyist America during the 1940s and 50s to describe those supposedly sympathetic to communism.
“Mr Speaker,my government will never be the preferred partner of a foreign government,Mr Speaker,that has chosen to intimidate this country and has sought to threaten this country,Mr Speaker,” the Prime Minister said.
“They will not find a fellow traveller when it comes to threats and coercion against Australia in my government,Mr Speaker.”
Later,he called Labor’s deputy leader Richard Marles a “Manchurian candidate”.
Morrison attacked Marles for having given a speech in 2019 in Beijing where he reportedly said Australia should seek to build its relationship with China,“not just in economic terms,but through exploiting political cooperation and even defence cooperation”.