As stated in the article, the Perth Mint's original deal with Shanghai Gold had included Shanghai Gold testing the gold to make sure it met the 99.999% standard

As stated in the article, the Perth Mint's original deal with Shanghai Gold had included Shanghai Gold testing the gold to make sure it met the 99.999% standard of Shanghai Gold as part of signing the contract. After that point, Perth Mint intentionally chose to dope the gold they were delivering down to 99.99% in order to save ~$670,000. This wasn't them switching to a cheaper process or less pure source material - they had an actual employee go into their gold supplies and dope them with lesser metals in order to save money. As soon as Shanghai Gold complained and they realised it had been detected, said employee stopped doping the gold that same day - this wasn't a dispute over standards, them stopping as soon as they were discovered shows they knew they were in the wrong. This was, very clearly, not an accident. It was also not a "small number", it was $8.7 billion dollars worth of gold that will need to be recalled. We also don't need to take the "chinese gov" on good faith, Perth Mint tested it themselves and found non-compliance. They then attempted a cover-up, reporting separate findings of compliance to Shanghai Gold and intentionally withholding their own testing that had found non-compliance. This isn't a storm in a teacup, it's high level corruption in nearly $9Bn worth of trade. The fact that China is the victim really shouldn't factor into it, should it? It's also a bit rich of the WA Premier, as good as he can be on some other issues, to say that this particular issue is a storm in a teacup when he used to run the Perth Mint and may be personally implicated in any finding of corruption.