Family First National Director and NSW Legislative Council candidate Lyle Shelton is urging Australians to attend Shen Yun’s Australian tour in the wake of the bomb threat that forced Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to evacuate The Lodge.
A Chinese-language email warned that explosives had been placed at the Prime Minister’s residence and that “blood will flow like a river” if Shen Yun’s Gold Coast performance proceeded. Police later confirmed the threat was a hoax.
Mr Shelton said while it has not been proven that the threat originated from the Chinese Communist Party, Australians would be naïve not to consider that possibility.
“Given the CCP’s long-running hostility to Shen Yun and its global campaign to silence critics, it is not wrong to suspect the regime or its sympathisers may be involved in bomb threat.”
The Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney, along with the Chinese Consulate in Melbourne, has issued public statements urging Australians not to attend Shen Yun performances. Those statements have described the show — which is presented by a group linked to Falun Gong — as inauthentic or politically motivated, and warned against what they call its “political framing”.
Mr Shelton said such interventions amount to foreign interference in Australia’s cultural life.
“It is completely unacceptable for foreign diplomatic missions to pressure Australians about what cultural performances they should or should not attend,” he said.
“Shen Yun presents ‘China before communism’ — a celebration of 3,000 years of civilisation before the violent Leninist takeover of 1949.”
In 1949, the CCP seized control of mainland China following civil war. Historians estimate that up to 100 million people perished under communist campaigns, purges, famine and political violence during the twentieth century.
Mr Shelton attended a Sydney performance by Shen Yun Performing Arts last year.
“I greatly appreciated the production’s honest portrayal of the persecution of religious believers and dissidents under communist rule,” he said.
“This is the China the CCP does not want Australians to see — a rich cultural heritage that predates and contradicts communist ideology.”
Mr Shelton said the appropriate response to threats and intimidation is not retreat but resolve.
“Australia is a sovereign nation. We will not have our Prime Minister threatened, nor our artistic freedoms curtailed, by foreign powers,” he said.
“If anything, Australians should turn out in even greater numbers to support Shen Yun and send a clear message: intimidation will not work here.”
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