Playing the China card may win votes, but it’s bad for Australia

But the debate about Chinese ownership has stepped up a notch in this final week in response to this Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union television and online ad.

The ad ends with the line: "Selling the electricity network is wrong; selling it to another country is just not on."

The ads have been widely criticised for "dog-whistling". Race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane – who has previously worked for Labor governments under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Bob Carr – tweeted his disappointment.

But when asked on Radio National about whether his union supporters were resorting to "dog-whistling", Labor leader Luke Foley said it was "entirely legitimate for there to be scrutiny of what Mr Baird and his coalition parties are up to with respect to the sale of the state's electricity network".

Screening for security risks

As a last-ditch ploy to win some votes on Saturday, it's not hard to see why the opposition is trying this line of attack. The Lowy Poll has been saying for years that a majority of Australians think the government is "allowing too much investment from China".

But many of the dark warnings about the risk posed by State Grid don't stand up to scrutiny.

For instance, this week the Labor leader said "perhaps ASIO might want to be asked their views" about a State Grid bid for the NSW networks.

Yet as Foley presumably knows, as a state-owned company, State Grid cannot invest a single dollar in Australia without first being scrutinised and approved – with conditions attached where appropriate - by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). The FIRB approval process involves checks with government agencies including ASIO.

And as the Grattan Institute's Tony Wood has noted, there has been Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese and Singaporean Chinese investment in Australia's power industry for almost 20 years – State Grid among them.

However, what's less easily dismissed is that this latest political campaign is not an isolated event. Instead, it's part of a wider trend, where both sides of politics have been once again been tapping into deep-rooted fears of China for political gain.