Huawei: Did the Coalition just play us all?

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blog I don’t know about everyone else, but when I see a bunch of senior Coalition Ministers holding a public debate through the media on an issue of national security, I can’t help but be suspicious that it’s controversy being manufactured for political aims. In a piece in Delimiter 2.0 today (subscriber content), I investigate the possibility that the Coalition’s internal Huawei debate over the past several weeks was generated deliberately as a show. A sample paragraph:

“If you believe everything you read, over the past several weeks a ferocious debate took place between senior Government Ministers about whether Huawei should be allowed to bid for National Broadband Network contracts. But the discipline and unity historically displayed by Tony Abbott’s Cabinet hints at a more nuanced process, and one that may have all just been for show.”

Is it really believable that Tony Abbott’s formerly highly disciplined front bench spontaneously started debating the Huawei issue through the media, despite the fact that the Prime Minister has notoriously drawn all the strings of the media close to his chest? Or is there something more at work here — a coordinated effort, designed to meet multiple, complex aims simultaneously?

Image credit: Huawei