Friday, June 26, 2020

Sam Dastiyari of Top Group & Zhu Minshen fame calls for public inquiry into foreign influence in politics: Will NSW AG Speakman & NSW LPAB Chairman Tom Bathurst CJ ought to lead the way.......

by Ganesh Sahathevan



Troy Grant MP
NSW Libs received donations of $44,275 from TOP Education Group just before after TOP was granted the "first & only" license issued a private company to award law degrees: AG Speakman and his LPAB refuse to disclose all details in the LPAB Annual Reports



From The Age, 27 June 2020, quoting Sam Dastirayi:


"We have to have a process in place and frankly you need to have some kind of a large public judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of what actually is foreign influence in Australian politics," he said.
"A lot of these are being conducted by agencies, like [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] ASIO and ... others, has to happen behind closed doors because of the nature of those kinds of things.
"We need to have a large, public inquiry, be that a royal commission or a commission of inquiry, [to] shine some light on this and get to the bottom of it because I think this is very serious."

"Look, what happened to me in my career a few years ago really should have been a canary in the coalmine when it comes to foreign influence and these kinds of pressures," 

"The question you have to ask yourself is - are you using them or are they using you? And it's become very, very clear, and my case demonstrated this, is that they are using you.
Dastiyari is best known for his dealings with Zhu Minshen, whose Top Group is the the first and only private company in Australia  granted a license to issue law degrees. The issuing authority, the NSW LPAB, which is chaired by the Chief Justice NSW Tom Bathurst and overseen by the AG NSW Mark Speakman have refused to say why they favoured Zhu. They have also failed to make full disclosure of their dealings with Zhu in the NSW LPAB Annual Reports that are tabled in the NSW Parlliament.

TO BE READ WITH 


Wednesday, December 25, 2019


“perhaps the only accredited degree program in Australia that counts agitating for a foreign power towards its qualifications": Why the Law Soc Australia & NSW LPAB's business with Zhu Minshen is a matter of national security

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Troy Grant MP



The progressive Left leaning Sydney Morning Herald reported in August this year:

Chinese international students now dominate campus politics at the University of Sydney, which has long been a breeding ground for political luminaries including Gough Whitlam, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

Today, the presidencies of the student representative council (SRC) and the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) are both held by candidates from Chinese international student blocs as are about half of the elected positions on student union boards

As recently as 2015, international students were scarcely involved in campus politics but that changed in 2016 with the election of Yifan "Koko" Kong, the first Chinese international student to win a seat on the student union board.

That ended the lock domestic students aligned with Labor, the Liberals and the Greens have held on campus for decades.

In blunt terms a bastion of whiteness has fallen swiftly. The fall can be attributed to a Vice Chancellor who was determined to see his university become more "diverse". 

Meanwhile, the Law Council Australia and the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board, which is chaired by the Chief Justice Of NSW, Tom Bathurst, made history by authorising a private company to grant law degrees; that company happens to be listed in Hong Kong and has strong links to the Communist Party Of China.As reported by this writer: 

Zhu's teaching methods are unique. In his 2018 book "Silent Invasion" Professor Clive Hamilton reports that Top Education Group's Zhu Minshen organised students , including students from his Top Education Institute to protest against Tibetans at the 2008 Olympic Torch rally, which counted towards the Top students’ assessment.As he puts it, Zhu’s Top Institution is “perhaps the only accredited degree program in Australia that counts agitating for a foreign power towards its qualifications.”

Zhu's law school will soon be producing LLB graduates who will qualify for admission to practise law in NSW and in Australia. As members of the various law societies they can, like the Chinese students at Sydney University gather sufficient support to control the leadership of those societies. 


The conduct of the Law Council Australia and the NSW LPAB in the matter of Zhu Minshen has obvious national security implications that require immediate investigation. The recent introduction of foreign interference laws makes that requirement mandatory, if the objectives of those laws are to be achieved. 


END

SEE


Chinese students dominate the cradle of Australian politics
By Nick BonyhadyAugust 12, 2019 — 12.00am
AAA
Chinese international students now dominate campus politics at the University of Sydney, which has long been a breeding ground for political luminaries including Gough Whitlam, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
Today, the presidencies of the student representative council (SRC) and the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) are both held by candidates from Chinese international student blocs as are about half of the elected positions on student union boards.

Amid concerns about Chinese government influence in Australia and ongoing protests in Hong Kong, As recently as 2015, international students were scarcely involved in campus politics but that changed in 2016 with the election of Yifan "Koko" Kong, the first Chinese international student to win a seat on the student union board.
That ended the lock domestic students aligned with Labor, the Liberals and the Greens have held on campus for decades.
And it mirrors broader trends at Sydney University, where international student numbers have more than doubled since 2012. Those students, a majority of whom are Chinese, constitute about a third of the student population and pay tens of millions of dollars a year to the university on which it increasingly depends on.
The largest international student faction on campus is Panda, which is more conservative. It prioritises delivering services to students, wants cheaper transport for international students and generally mistrusts activism. Advance, its more progressive opponent, is more activist, with members decrying racism, opposing the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and fighting for abortion access.
Such is the rancour between factions on campus, including Advance and Panda as well as domestic student groups, that the August SRC council meeting was cancelled because council staff deemed the level of hostility between all sides "unsafe", according to student newspaper Honi Soit.
Michael Rees, a former student union president, said there was a positive side to the division because it showed international students' diversity.
"There is this view that international Chinese students are a homogenous political community and it’s just so so wrong," Mr Rees said.
And a university spokeswoman said it was pleased to see international students getting involved.
"We have a strong history of political debate, activism and advocacy in our student body, and it’s encouraging to see this tradition extending to our international students to ensure our representative bodies are as diverse as our student population," the spokeswoman said.
SRC president Jacky He, a Panda leader who is from China but has permanent residency in Australia, said disagreements between his group and the more progressive Advance bloc were like clashes between different Labor factions.Mr He's chief antagonist is Decheng Sun, honorary secretary of the student union and an Advance leader. When Panda aligned itself with a Liberal faction on campus, Mr Sun said he "couldn't accept it because it was not my ideology."
On the question of democracy in Hong Kong that has rocked other campuses, leading to physical clashes at the University of Queensland and the intimidation of at least one pro-democracy protester via threats to his family in China, both Mr Sun and Mr He are cagey.
Mr He said he could not "express any opinion on any of these things" and could not say how other Panda supporters would think about the issue while Mr Sun said he would "encourage representatives from my faction to vote upon their conscience. People have arguments on both sides, so it's complex."
Other Chinese students take a different approach.
Weihong Liang, who served two terms as SUPRA president until resigning in July when he graduated to take a job in China, is a member of the Chinese Communist Party. He said being a party member was common in China and did not mean he was a representative of the government.
"It does not mean all party members are leaders of the communist party, it just means [they are a] party member," Mr Liang said.
Nick Bonyhady
Nick is a journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald. 
"You know how Labor left and Labor right can't really stand each other. They're still all Labor but you can't figure out why they can't stand each other?" Mr He said. "Sometimes it's like this."Chinese student leaders at the University of Sydney are divided over issues of how progressive or conservative their peers should be in Australia. 

SEE ALSO

TEQSA's Nicholas Saunders granted Zhu Minshen's Top Group self accreditation rights despite Zhu granting academic credits for defying an AFP directive


Australia's decision to allow a Communist Party China linked school to produce lawyers who can practise in Australian courts is a world first: Scrutiny of senior judicial officers under Australia's foreign interference rules unavoidable, as would be scrutiny by agencies in the US,UK






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