key ally of President Donald Trump, in the past has been critical of the world's second-largest economy and its record on human rights as the two countries remain embattled in an escalating trade war.

"Human rights are important to us in America," the senator said. "There's no human rights over there. They're trying to take them away from China, or from Hong Kong."Remember James Ashby?

We were reminded of him this week, when he told the Federal Court he would no longer be proceeding with his sexual harassment suit against Peter Slipper.

The fresh-faced young political staffer was once the centre of a major media storm, after leveling sexual harassment allegations at the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Peter Slipper.

At the time, it was the biggest show in town. Slipper, a strange and complex man, had been elevated to the office by the Labor government of Julia Gillard. Lacking a majority in the House of Representatives and desperate to hang on to power, Labor engineered a deal to get Slipper to turn the tables on his Coalition colleagues.

Slipper, who’d been dis-endorsed by the Coalition in his own seat, turned out