Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd came under fire yesterday for accepting free overseas trips while in opposition from a Chinese businessman with links to Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho (何鴻燊).
Rudd said there was nothing untoward in allowing businessman Ian Tang's company, Beijing AustChina Technology, to pay for the trips, and rejected suggestions it left him vulnerable to influence peddling.
He said opposition politicians in Australia received no taxpayer funding for overseas trips and it was accepted practice for them to take trips financed by private entities.
"It's just a reality," Rudd told public radio after acknowledging he accepted the travel before coming to power but declared it in official records.
"If you are trying to do these jobs from opposition then you are relying upon private sponsorships, whether it's by companies with interests in the resources sector, the commercial sector, the financial services community or wherever, to make sure that that travel is possible. The key thing is transparency and declaration," he said.
16 trips
Tang's Beijing AustChina paid for 16 trips for Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Agriculture Minister Tony Burke and two backbenchers between 2005 and last November's election, when Rudd's center-left Labor Party won office.
Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker, also flew to China at Tang's expense in 2006 to give a speech at the launch of a multi-billion dollar Beijing development in which Tang and Ho were partners.
Rudd denied accepting the trips indebted him to Tang, who also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to both the Labor Party and its conservative rival, the Nationals.
judgement
The opposition said Rudd's acceptance of the free travel raised questions about his judgement and left the public wondering what Tang expected to gain by cultivating the man who would become prime minister.
"Was that meant to open doors for when they got into government? Was it meant to curry favor?" opposition politician Don Randall said.
Rudd said he would be willing to consider funding some overseas travel for opposition politicians from the public purse to prevent them being reliant on donations from private companies.
"I'm all for having these things looked at into the future," he said.
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