Australia bans covert foreign interference in politics
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's Parliament has passed sweeping national security legislation that bans covert foreign interference in domestic politics and makes industrial espionage for a foreign power a crime.
The two bills covering foreign interference, espionage and influence transparency have been criticized as criminalizing dissent. The Senate made them law on Thursday with the support of the center-left Labor Party opposition on the last day of Parliament before mid August.
The conservative government says the legislation, first proposed in December, is the major cause of a rift in diplomatic relations with China, Australia's most important trading partner.