Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under fire from all sides on Q+A for using parliamentary privilege to label Deputy Opposition Leader Richard Marles a "Manchurian candidate" and using the issue of national security as a tool by which to smear the opposition.
Mr Morrison later withdrew the words, but Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said the Prime Minister went beyond the pale.
"It was utterly disgraceful, inaccurate and appalling."
Mr Bowen said he understood China's policies, along with those of its key ally Russia, were an issue of interest, but said one of Australia's biggest assets was bipartisanship in the national interest.
He accused the PM of undermining that.
"We come together as one in the national interest," he said.
"The Labor Party has done that consistently and to undermine that in parliament is utterly appalling.
"Dennis Richardson, probably our most esteemed diplomat, former head of ASIO, former ambassador to the United States, former head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, said it was beyond grubby, and he's right.
"It is utterly irresponsible, deeply reprehensible and entirely inaccurate and frankly, desperado from the government.
Andrew Constance, the Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Gilmore and a former NSW transport minister, was asked by host Stan Grant whether the Prime Minister's words were "politically … a mistake".
Mr Constance refused to condemn the PM but admitted ASIO head Mike Burgess, who this week told 7.30 that the politicisation of national security was "not helpful", should be listened to.
"I think that we should be listening to the experts in terms of this … there is no room for loose language," Mr Constance said.
However, Mr Constance did defend the government's stance against China.
"This country needs to be very strong in its position, its language, its determination, its sovereignty," he said, adding that Australia should not bow to coercive pressure from China on issues such as trade.
While he too felt Australia must remain firm when facing pressure from China, foreign editor of The Australian newspaper Greg Sheridan also took aim at Mr Morrison for his comments and defended Mr Marles.
"I am very critical of Scott Morrison for uttering the words 'Manchurian candidate'," Sheridan said.
"They were absolutely wrong.
"This week, I think that the government has substantially overdone its China rhetoric, [even though] it's right to be critical of China.
"It's wrong to say the Labor Party has been disloyal or un-Australian or not followed Australia's interests while it's in opposition," he said.
"However, I think that the government is perfectly entitled to subject Labor's actual record on national security to withering scrutiny — in its last term of government, Labor cut the defence budget to record lows."
Questioned on national security, Mr Bowen said there was currently no difference in policy between Labor and the Coalition.
Could Russian invasion of Ukraine embolden China in Taiwan?
China's strongest ally on the global stage is Russia, and with the threat of an invasion of Ukraine continuing to teeter on a razor-thin line, discussion turned to that issue.
Mr Bowen said the actions of Russia and China hinted at a shift in global power but said Australia would have to be guided by its own values and interests.
"Our values would say that a big powerful country like Russia should not be invading a country like Ukraine," Mr Bowen said.
"Our interests are a calm, stable, international order, and that is the very opposite of a calm, stable, international order.
"We hope that it de-escalates."
That hope was almost snuffed out by host Stan Grant, who pointed out that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already annexed the Crimean Peninsula, invaded Georgia and propped up Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.
Grant added that Chinese President Xi Jinping "reserves the right to take Taiwan by force".
China is already claiming territorial waters in the South China Sea and has implemented sweeping reforms in Hong Kong that impinge on individual freedoms.
Sheridan suggested that if Russia were to invade Ukraine and nothing more than economic sanctions were implemented against the Kremlin, that might further embolden Mr Xi to take Taiwan.
He also put the blame for the rising boldness of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the feet of the US government and President Joe Biden.
"The Biden administration made a debacle of the way it withdrew from Afghanistan," Sheridan said.
"That diminished its sense of competence, the sense of consequence in the world.
"There are different ways that Ukraine can affect what happens in Taiwan.
"If Putin just manages to keep a sense of crisis in Ukraine all the time, he will hope to divide NATO and draw America into sending a lot of resources to Europe, which are resources that he takes away from the Indo-Pacific.
"I don't think there's a simple one-to-one relationship that if the Russians invade Ukraine that the Chinese will think that that is good timing, but if the Americans react without consequence … this will affect the way China views its prospects in Taiwan.
"And just as Putin has many, many options in Ukraine … Beijing has many options in Taiwan, from cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, grey zone activities, maybe taking one outlying island first.
International relations expert Lavina Lee agreed.
"It is a litmus test of the resolve of the United States and its allies and partners," Dr Lee said.
"Are they willing to expend blood defending values, defending small states against authoritarian nations trampling on sovereignty?
"Joe Biden said explicitly, he's not going to put American troops in Ukraine. So they seem to be ratcheting up their deterrent capabilities, trying to make it as unpalatable as possible, to effectively deter Russia from actually crossing that line.
"But it seems as though they're spending more efforts to make an invasion more difficult as opposed to stopping the invasion in the first place."
Watch the full episode on iview or via the Q+A Facebook page.
