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149 Turnbull also introduced legislation to establish a new Department of Home Affairs which, among other roles, would house a national counter-foreign-interference coordinator who would integrate intelligence and enforcement and coordinate policy development. On December 16, 2017, at the height of this debate—and days after Turnbull introduced the new laws—the coalition government passed a serious electoral test by winning a by-election in the Sydney seat of Bennelong. According to one opinion poll, two-thirds of voters support the foreign interference legislation, with just 11 percent opposed—in a seat that has one of the largest ethnic Chinese communities in the country. And yet, despite this policy progress, strong evidence of electoral support, and favorable international recognition, the Turnbull government found the politics and the diplomacy to be heavy going. At one level this is not surprising. The CCP excels in using covert and deceptive means to work preexisting fault lines of open, democratic societies. It has shown itself prepared to use the levers of economic engagement as a tool of political coercion. And there is no precedent for a mid-sized, open, multicultural nation standing its ground against a rising authoritarian superpower that accounts for a large proportion of its migrants and one in every three of its export dollars. After seizing the political and policy initiative in 2017, the Turnbull government went quiet over the first half of 2018. It faced pushback from powerful domestic lobbying groups arguing that the proposed legislation went too far. Media firms targeted the espionage law, charities the donations law, and universities the proposed transparency law. Further resistance was mounted by multicultural lobbyists who maintained that Australia’s reputation as an inclusive society was challenged by mention of foreign government interference in community affairs. Prominent business leaders and academics with China contracts called for an end to “China-bashing.” China’s embassy in Canberra also played a part, publicly intervening as if it were a champion of Chinese Australian communities to confront “racist bigotry” in Australia. China’s government consistently portrayed the counter-interference policies and conversation as an attack on “China” and “Chinese people.” And Beijing framed Canberra’s efforts to defend its institutions as an attack on the bilateral relationship. As if to confirm its own judgment, Beijing was reported to have frozen ministerial and official meetings across a range of key portfolios. In the ensuing silence, some of the CCP’s most potent narratives filled the vacuum. It was not clear that the Turnbull government could push through the most significant overhaul of counterintelligence legislation in forty years without explaining why it was necessary. It took a series of further explosive media investigations and some unorthodox political interventions to regain control of the conversation and ensure bipartisan support for the Appendix 2 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020608