Great new website. Lets look at their funding: China Construction Bank John Holland King & Wood Mallesons MA Financial Group TLDR: China is state funding speech in Australia.

China Construction Bank Is a one of the big four banks in China. State owned. It is essentially part of the Government of China. John Holland Sounds Australian but in reality its a subsidy of China Communications Construction. Another large state owned enterprise.

KW Mallesons Works with both PRC and Australian Governments. Has a strong presence in China and works on a number of Belt and Road Projects. https://www.law.com/international-edition/2023/11/06/report-raises-security-concerns-about-australian-law-firms-acting-for-chinese-entities/?slreturn=20240729191158…

MA Financial Group Was previously called Moelis Australia. Like ACRI Moelis had a very strong ties to Huang Xiangmo. Moelis made a great deal of money from high net worth Chinese investors seeking residency in Australia.

A bit on Huang Xiangmo. He was exiled from Australia for foreign interference. New South Wales’s Independent Commission Against Corruption heard evidence in 2019 that Huang had given an illegal $100,000 donation to an Australian political party. He also gave the initial 1.8m donation to establish ACRI.

Lets talk about compliance. The Australian Government has a Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme. You'd think accepting money from a foreign state owned entity is something you have to declare? Yes. But ACRI never has.

What about when ACRI authors public commentary? Surely they'd have to comply with disclosure rules? 59 articles at The Conversation, no disclosure. Same at the Fin Review.