Will the Opus Dei School Investigation Smear the Liberal Party?

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet speaks to media during a press conference at NSW State Parliament, in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 1, 2023. AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts

Commentary

In political commentator James Morrow’s words, the ABC Four Corners program that aired on Jan. 30 smacks of a “smear campaign” against a group of Opus Dei Catholic schools and New South Wales (NSW) Premier Dominic Perrottet ahead of the upcoming March state election. Several NSW Liberal MPs, including Perrottet, are alumni of these schools.

The NSW Department of Education is now conducting an investigation into these schools. However, when one looks deeper, there are serious concerns that any such investigation will be conducted honestly and independently.

As former Fairfax Newspapers reporter Kelsey Munro wrote back in 2016, an FOI request revealed that a memorandum of understanding for the Department to host a Confucius Institute program, overseen by Chinese agency Hanban to teach Mandarin in NSW government schools, was signed in July 2010. A formal agreement was finalised a year later.

Under the program, schools that signed up were eligible to receive up to $10,000 (US$7,100) in funding from the Confucius Institute. The officer who represented the NSW Department of Education to negotiate with Hanban was Dr. Shuangyuan Shi. More about Shi later.

The department’s decision was not well received by parents, many of whom petitioned the state government to shut the program down due to legitimate concerns that, since it is run entirely by the Chinese regime, it would be open to propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Then-Chinese vice chair Xi Jinping unveils a plaque at the opening of Australia's first Chinese Medicine Confucius Institute at the RMIT University in Melbourne on June 20, 2010. William West/AFP via Getty Images

Parents alerted the Daily Telegraph to this back in 2016. The department defended its decision to sign the agreement, telling the Telegraph that: “The institute aims to improve students’ understanding of Chinese language and culture and facilitates partner school relationships with China.”

“In 2012, the Department of Education signed a memorandum of understanding with the institute headquarters in China, enabling NSW public schools to establish Confucius Classrooms,” the spokesman said. , adding the lessons were delivered by department teachers.

“In addition, each Confucius Classroom has a teaching assistant appointed by the Confucius Institute to complement authentic language and culture experience delivered by the classroom teacher.”

At the time, it was reported teaching assistants were being vetted by the Chinese regime for “good political quality” and love of “the motherland.”

Investigations Stop CCP Funding

The then-Baird government ordered a review of the program. The report handed down following that review recommended that the program be shut down owing to a perception that “the Institute is or could be facilitating inappropriate foreign influence, and that NSW is the only government department in the world hosting a Confucius institute.”

“Having foreign government appointees based in a government department is one thing. Having appointees of a one-party state that exercises censorship in its own country working in a government department in a democratic system is another,” the review concluded.

The NSW government finally decided to close the Institute and scrap its Confucius Classrooms program in mid-2019, following the passing of the then-federal Coalition government’s anti-foreign interference legislation the previous year.

The department also announced a new initiative and additional funding to replace money received from Hanban through the Institute.

Returning to Shuangyuan Shi, he is a former employee of China’s Ministry of Education. The manner of his appointment to the NSW Department of Education is unclear, as is the status of his appointment at the Department after the closure of the Confucius Institute.

But a report by Leo Shanahan for The Australian back in 2019 confirmed that Shi still kept a high public profile, and with the help of his wife, he became a regular SBS commentator.

According to the report, he also allegedly regularly appears in the Chinese state-run newspaper People’s Daily, discussing the Chinese language and culture in Australia.

As can be seen from the Confucius Institute debacle, it would seem that any fair-minded person would have serious concerns as to whether the ABC, with this attack on Opus Dei schools, has handed those within the NSW Department of Education who were sympathetic to the Confucius Institute program an opportunity to take revenge on the Liberal Party that forced its closure, conveniently weeks out from a state election.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.