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October 29, 2021
The government funding for Australia’s largest Asian festival is at risk over claims of political interference in a Hong Kong performance.
The OzAsia Festival in Adelaide said in September that a local Hong Kong group would not be able to put umbrellas on their stand during the festival because of their symbolic links to the 2014 pro-democracy umbrella movement in Hong Kong.
The festival is run independently but is sponsored by the Australian Department of Infrastructure, the Department of Foreign Affairs linked National Foundation for Australia-China relations and the Hong Kong government’s cultural and economic office in Sydney.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Thursday during a Senate estimates hearing that any “political interference or censorship in arts and cultural events is unacceptable”.
“I have encouraged the department to contact the organisers of the festival to express that view,” she said.
James Paterson, the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, said if any element of political censorship can be demonstrated, then the government should consider asking the festival to return its funding.
The Senate estimates questions followed reports by SBS Cantonese and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Wednesday. Emails show a festival organiser told the Hong Kong Cultural Association of South Australia that it could not use umbrellas in its performance.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to approve the use of the yellow umbrellas as props or decor.”
The umbrella movement was the beginning of the pro-democracy protests that inspired millions of Hongkongers to fill the streets in 2019 to protest Beijing’s rising influence.
The team of five had planned an interactive workshop that would take spectators through Hong Kong’s food and cultural scene, then through a century of transformation from a fishing village to an international financial hub.
The Hong Kong group reluctantly agreed to remove the umbrellas but were then told that the festival could not supply them with audio equipment. The performers insisted they would bring their own. A month later they were told that all workshops in the Lucky Dumpling Market section of the festival had been cancelled due to the extra staff required to maintain COVID restrictions.
They were not offered the opportunity to reschedule, but when the final program for the performances at the festival arrived, they found five Chinese mainland groups had been locked into slots on the timetable.
A spokesperson for the OzAsia festival said on Wednesday that the Moon Lantern Trail and Lucky Dumpling Market performances had been promoted as inclusive community and family events.
“As such, activities with political or religious content are not scheduled,” the spokesperson said.
Paterson said that if political pressure was placed on the organisers of the OzAsia festival not to host the Hong Kong group by the festival’s other sponsors - the Hong Kong government or the Chinese-government affiliated Confucius Institute - then that could be seen as an attempt to manipulate Australia’s domestic politics.