EYES CLOSED TO FASCIST LEFT
MICHAEL Spence gets $1.45 million a year to run Sydney University, so I was surprised to find he still needs my help to do his job. He may be vice-chancellor, but Spence apparently has no idea who is organising the protests to stop conservatives from meeting and speaking at his university. He must be too busy to watch them on TV, or read them sounding off on Facebook and in his students’ Honi Soit magazine. He must be also be so stuck in his office that he doesn’t see their posters plastered over his campus. Nor can he find his security people to tell him which protesters they were wrestling with when psychologist Bettina Arndt tried to give a lecture this month questioning his university’s alleged “rape culture”. Either that, or Spence just doesn’t care that his university is getting a name as one of the worst for turning a blind eye to thuggery, as long as it’s thuggery from the Left.
I say this after reading Spence’s smart-alec response last week to new Education Minister Dan Tehan.
Tehan has been alarmed by the rise of the fascist Left and its recent attempts to physically shut down speakers who are conservative, Right-wing, or libertarian.
The Left’s riots against Milo Yiannopoulos, Cory Bernardi, the Australian Christian Lobby, Geert Wilders and Lauren Southern were bad enough, but to see similar protests now tolerated by our universities is a frightening clue to our future.
Tehan is particularly offended that Spence ordered his university’s Liberal student club to pay for security costs before he let Arndt, its guest, come to speak.
The Liberal students handed over nearly $500, yet the security turned out to be virtually useless.
Dozens of Leftist protesters deliberately choked the entrances to the hall where Arndt was meant to speak, and blocked, shoved, pushed and abused anyone trying to get in.
Police had to be called to clear a passage, and when Arndt’s speech was finally about to start the protesters turned on a fire alarm.
A week earlier, socialists also drowned out Arndt’s speech at La Trobe University. So Tehan last Thursday met university vice chancellors — Spence was a no-show — and asked to see their policies to guarantee free speech.
Why should speakers fear for their safety just for speaking their minds? And at our universities, of all places?
Tehan also asked why some universities, like Sydney, charged the victims of these protests for security costs when they should charge the protesters instead.
As he explained yesterday: “Why should it be that those putting on the peaceful event should have to pay the security costs when the protesters — those trying to disrupt the event — have no costs put on them at well? It just seems to be absurd, because it will lead to those protesters trying to up the costs placed on those trying to put on peaceful events.”
He’s right. That protection money — like the $68,000 Victoria Police charged Lauren Southern — becomes a tax on conservatives, since Leftists don’t have their own meetings attacked.
But Spence objected to Tehan’s suggestion. His spokeswoman snarked: “We’d be interested to hear any suggestions the minister has in practice for charging a crowd of protesters, only some of whom may be members of the university.”
Well, vice-chancellor, it took me just 30 minutes of research to find some of the protesters you could charge. The University of Sydney Women’s Collective, for instance, on September 10 posted this on Facebook: “Angry about Bettina Ardnt (sic)? Come to the protest at 6pm tomorrow evening.” The Sydney University Education Action Group also posted an appeal to the mob: “Join the University of Sydney Women’s collective in protesting Bettina Arndt’s disgusting tour of misogyny and misinformation.” That post was backed by the university’s Queer Action Collective and its Student Representative Council, whose “wom*n’s officers”, told Honi Soit: “We refuse to allow (Arndt’s) rhetoric to go unchallenged.”
The “wom*n’s” collective later posted a link to a report on the mayhem at Arndt’s lecture and took the credit: “Glad we made security work for their $320 event fee this evening.”
And the SRC’s education officer gloated: “Fun times protesting the reptilian, sexist creep Bettina Arndt.”
Indeed, video on Arndt’s website shows specific individuals active at the protest.
If Spence still claims he doesn’t know who organised the protest that bullied Arndt, it makes you wonder if he has any intention of knowing.