G'day Trojan
I don't think the department did leak it! That would be giving them far to much credit. I'll qualify that, I don't believe they found out about it, maybe someone did leak it from there. In a way I'm more worried that the 'spy' agencies had no idea about any of it.
I think the one person who could answer the question (but won't) is the jurno who asked the Defence minister " did Ms Liu ever pay for a trip for you to China" to which the defence minister answered IMHO with a direct bold face lie. I'm sure the jurno was shocked with the answer as well, because I'm sure his next question was why haven't you declared it. But he got an even better story!
I wonder how anyone else who has the top security clearance would go with this on the record. How could America pass on any 'controversial' intelligence about China to the ADF now. It also raises questions about how much access you give to the ADF about aircraft we might want to buy. The Americans won't sell the Raptor to anyone because they don't want its secrets getting out....this proves the theory correct. All it takes is a suspicion.