The ABC has long held a reputation as Australia’s sober, publicly-funded bulwark against tabloid sensationalism – the broadcaster you turn to when you want analysis, not alarmism.

Which is why their recent report “Company in charge of proposed incinerator outside Geelong has direct links to the Chinese government” on a proposed waste-to-energy plant near Geelong reads more like a Netflix drama: Red Furnace – China’s Great Bin Fire.

Let’s start with the headline act: the revelation that the company behind the plant, Prospect Hill International, has “direct links to the Chinese Government". Sounds serious – until you realise that this “link” consists of the company hiring a Chinese state-owned engineering firm.

You know, our iron ore exporters deal with heaps of Chinese state-owned firms too – almost every single day. Frankly, it’s a surprise the ABC isn’t investigating them as well.

If doing business with a Chinese SOE means a “direct link to the Chinese Government”, then a vast chunk of Australia’s trade relationships are now suspect. Minerals, agriculture, renewable energy – welcome to the People’s Republic of Imports and Exports.

And while we’re here: most of the steel-containing products, electronics, wind turbine components, EV batteries, and even everyday consumer goods we import from China, are manufactured by firms with state backing or state-linked oversight.

Rare earths? Same story. If the ABC’s logic held, should we just cut off all trade with China? Scrap our supply chains? Stop driving Teslas with Chinese batteries? It’s an absurd and unsustainable standard.

The article breathes heavily over the fact that the company’s business address is — wait for it — a multi-million-dollar house in Deepdene. Which, in the Melbourne property market, means nothing new; that’s just Melbourne. It’s framed as suspicious, but anyone familiar with early-stage infrastructure development knows that small companies often operate from residential addresses. This is not investigative gold – it’s property snobbery.

Let’s be clear: community opposition to infrastructure projects is part of a healthy democracy. Questions about emissions, planning and consultation are legitimate. Local residents have every reason to challenge, to ask, to demand more transparency.

And in this case, there are genuine concerns worth covering: Prospect Hill has been frustratingly opaque about its funding sources, and local groups say they’ve been unable to engage with the company directly. That’s not a China problem – that’s a transparency problem. And it deserves scrutiny.

But when an article leans more heavily on a director’s street address and a minister’s trip to China in 2017 than on emissions modelling, local planning policy, or the actual power of environmental regulators, it’s totally off the hook. You’ve got to ask: is this really about the project – or just about where the engineers were born?

The ABC report name-drops China’s State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission like it’s some kind of underground intelligence agency, rather than the bureaucratic equivalent of ASIC. Every Chinese SOE reports to SASAC – that’s not a secret, it’s how the system works. But by name-dropping it without context, the article turns a routine commercial structure into Cold War code.

Then comes what the article seems to frame as its smoking gun: the suggestion that the project’s association with Chinese state-owned partners might trigger Foreign Investment Review Board scrutiny.

Here’s the thing: that’s not an unreasonable question. Australia does have rules about foreign government-linked investment in critical infrastructure. If major funding or control is coming from state-owned enterprises overseas, FIRB review may indeed apply. It should — and does — apply across the board, whether it’s Chinese, Emirati, or Canadian money. That’s not the problem.

The problem is the tone. Instead of treating this as a regulatory process to be explained, the article leans into insinuation – presenting FIRB scrutiny like a looming geopolitical red flag, rather than a standard part of investment oversight in a globalised economy.

And if we’re going to talk about Chinese SOEs triggering FIRB concerns, let’s apply that lens consistently. Most of the steel, electronics, and rare earths that power Australia’s clean energy transition come from Chinese companies – many of them state-owned. Should we apply FIRB scrutiny to every imported battery? Should we interrogate every EV charger or solar panel for state links?

Yes, a 400,000-tonne incinerator located one kilometre from a town centre deserves close scrutiny. Its scale, proximity and environmental impact should absolutely be debated. But we should scrutinise it based on what it does – not who it reminds us of.

If we selectively apply scrutiny only when Chinese firms are involved, we’re not safeguarding national interest – we’re playing identity politics with infrastructure.

This isn’t just lazy journalism – it’s dangerous narrative-setting. It trains the public to see Chinese participation in normal market activity as inherently suspect. And that has consequences: for Australia’s reputation as a trading nation, for multicultural communities who bear the brunt of racialised fear, and for policymakers trying to balance openness with strategic caution.

Scrutiny is not the problem. Selective scrutiny is.

If the public is to trust media investigations, especially around infrastructure, we need a higher bar than guilty by association – or worse, guilty by nationality.

Especially for a public broadcaster like the ABC, whose job is to inform – not inflame.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.

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