WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Peter Dutton was the defence minister who sold off the Port of Darwin to China.
OUR VERDICT
False. Dutton was not the defence minister in 2015 when the Northern Territory government leased the port to a Chinese company.
AAP FACTCHECK - Claims Peter Dutton was the defence minister responsible for leasing a major port to a Chinese-owned company for 99 years have been sunk by facts.
The opposition leader was the immigration minister in 2015 when the Port of Darwin was leased to Landbridge Group by the Northern Territory's Country Liberal Party government.
Both Labor and the coalition have pledged to end the $506 million lease and return the critical port to Australian ownership if they form government after the May 3 federal election.
However, Facebook posts have blamed opposition leader Peter Dutton for the 2015 lease.
"Wow -- talk about the audacious lie -- and rewriting history : Dutton was Defence Minister when he and Turnbull sold off the strategically important Port of Darwin on a 99 year lease to a Chinese operator in 2015!!" one Facebook post reads.
This, however, is incorrect.
Mr Dutton was not the defence minister in 2015.
He was the immigration minister - from 2014 to 2018 - and only took over the defence portfolio in March 2021, according to his parliamentary profile.
Kevin Andrews was defence minister until September 2015, after which Senator Marise Payne took over the portfolio.
As immigration minister, Mr Dutton did say in 2015 that he wasn't concerned about the port hosting a new border force berthing facility, the ABC reported.
However, the NT government awarded the port lease, not the federal government.
Charles Darwin University fellow and Supreme Court lawyer John Garrick said the lease also required Commonwealth government approval.
Several federal agencies would have been consulted, he said, including Infrastructure, Defence and Treasury, and "ASIO may have also been asked to comment".
While Mr Dutton would have known of the port lease, Mr Garrick explained, other coalition ministers were more influential than he in 2015, and there was no appetite to oppose the deal.
Although China's massive Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure and investment project had already begun, he said, the port wasn't being promoted as a BRI deal.
"China's 'Wolf Warrior' approach to international diplomacy hadn't fully emerged at that time," Mr Garrick told AAP FactCheck.
"No alarm bells were ringing then, although some security analysts saw potential folly in a 99-year lease term."
In 2018, however, the geopolitical atmosphere began to change, with China's economic expansion into the Pacific Islands region.
As defence minister in 2021, after a request from the then-prime minister Scott Morrison, Mr Dutton asked his department for advice about the future of the lease.
Mr Dutton said at a press conference on April 5, 2025, that the department advised him in 2021 that "there wasn't a need to act", but he disagreed with that advice.
The Facebook post also stated accurately that former trade minister Andrew Robb took a job with Landbridge in 2016 after leaving federal parliament, which ABC reported at the time.
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