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Inside the Chinatown museum that after four years and millions of dollars never opened

Inside the Chinatown museum that after four years and millions of dollars never opened

The Age4 days ago
But as the institution enters its fourth year of a five-year lease with little progress made, impatience is brewing in some parts of the Chinatown community over the extensive delays. So why hasn't the Museum of Chinese in Australia opened yet?
History in the making
Sydney's Chinatown is one of Australia's best-known and most frequented, with roots tracing back to the 1870s, when Chinese migrants shifted their fruit and vegetable trading from the Rocks to settle around Haymarket.
Chinese people began arriving in Australia as part of the massive migration wave during the gold rush of the 1850s. During the 1900s, they spread into other trades and services, finding prosperity in fruit and vegetable trading, shopkeeping, tobacco farming and clothes laundering. The end of the White Australia policy in 1973 brought another wave of migrants.
But unlike Melbourne and regional cities such as Bendigo (which established its Golden Dragon Museum in 1991) and Ararat (which opened its Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre in 2001), Sydney has fallen behind in establishing its own museum to showcase the contributions of Chinese Australians.
That looked to finally change in mid-2020. As the pandemic set in, Lord Mayor Clover Moore announced the council would lease the property to the Museum of Chinese in Australia.
It would feature a gallery and exhibition space, programming activities, community spaces for events, an artist-in-residence program, and a cafe and shop. It is chaired by 82-year-old Daphne Lowe Kelly, who has spent most of her career serving Chinese-Australian organisations, and was presided over by Dr John Yu, a Chinese-born Australian paediatrician and 1996 Australian of the Year.
But neither the council nor the museum's leadership anticipated the challenges of establishing a new gallery in a heritage-listed 19th-century building. While the site has given the museum a spiritual and physical home, with rent subsidised by the council, the lease agreement contains pages of added requirements, heritage restrictions and red tape.
'This is an amazing gift,' new MOCA chief executive Peter Cai said of the building. 'And it came with a lot of conditions, and some conditions are not easy to address. There are a lot of costs to remedy.'
The initial renovation proposal, overseen by Tony Stephens, the previous chief executive who departed the organisation in January, came to roughly $4.7 million, said Kelly, who estimates the true cost would have been closer to $6 million or $7 million after factoring in contingencies and other unanticipated expenses.
Figures from the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) show revenue from donations and bequests came to $1,766,821 in the four years between fiscal 2021 and 2024.
This figure doesn't include rent subsidies from the City of Sydney's accommodation grant program, $2.28 million from Create NSW given in 2022, or two grants from the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations that exceeded $400,000.
In the absence of local donations, lobbying government has been crucial. 'It was almost impossible trying to raise any funds during COVID,' Kelly said.
'People are now questioning many things'
A number of departures on the museum's board has added to perceptions of volatility. Only three inaugural board members remain: Kelly, Joanna Capon and Yin Cao. Dr John Yu, Stephen FitzGerald and Su-Ming Wong have departed the board. Since then, a number of others have come and gone.
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One former director, speaking anonymously to discuss confidential matters freely, said board members had at times disagreed on the best approach to raising money.
'It's become a fundraising issue. They need a certain amount of money to open. They haven't been able to achieve that yet,' they said.
Despite being volunteers for the charity, the former board member described the work as a 'full-time job'.
'It was very intense,' they said. 'I found myself spending a lot of time on the wrong things.
'While I've stepped off the board, I'm still a big supporter and would love to see it open.'
An active representative of the Chinatown community, who declined to be named, said the museum had lost a lot of the goodwill it initially had. 'Because it's been years, people are losing interest or faith,' they said. 'People are now questioning many things; where has [the money] gone, how has it been spent?'
The same Chinatown community representative feels the museum has had little to show. 'If you can't fix the building with the money you have, what are you delivering in the meantime?' they asked. 'They're not engaging in the community at all.'
Kelly is aware of the critiques. 'They don't really know what goes behind the scenes, what has to be actually done, and how difficult it is to achieve a lot of what it takes to actually get it open,' she said.
Putting on a show
Plans are now being redrawn for a 'reduced scope' refurbishment. Even then, Kelly estimates opening will cost $3 million to $4 million. 'That's still a lot of money,' she said. 'You've got to remember, we also need to have funds for the programs and operational costs.'
The race is on to pull the various pieces together for a soft launch. On top of refurbishment plans to be redrawn, costed and commenced, an exhibition director (historian and Chinese art and photography curator Shuxia Chen) has been drafted to conceptualise the museum's first exhibition, which will focus on local stories about Haymarket habitants that have been there for generations, such as the Lam family of Asian grocer Dong Nam A, or the Pang family, which ran a Chinese restaurant in Haymarket for nearly three decades and have donated large sums to the museum.
'We must put on a good show for people,' Cai said. Decisions need to be made about the exhibition's budget. 'You're talking about special lighting, casings, you have to hire expert consultants to put it all together. It's not as easy as hanging something on a wall.'
Meanwhile, Kelly is hustling for donations, having visited Canberra to lobby Wong and Plibersek, and sharing bank details in community newsletters. 'I've been lobbied about this so much,' Wong said at the April event.
The museum has secured its tenancy for another decade, which Kelly hopes will help to encourage donations after hearing feedback that some felt reluctant to donate money for a building that belongs to the council.
'A refit is not as sexy to the philanthropic community,' said another former board member, speaking on the condition of anonymity. 'We spoke to a lot of other Chinese museums around the world ... The Chinese Canadian Museum took eight years to get running from conceptualisation to open doors. It just takes a little while.'
Cai is excited to showcase the many contributions of Chinese Australians over the decades and is at pains to convey the 'complicated nature' of the project to supporters, whom he said had been generous and full of goodwill.
'I can empathise with some of our supporters who just want to see the building open soon,' he said. 'I want as much as I can to speed things up.'
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Chery has multiple ute options on the cards for Australia
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That's another thing, we really let the local experts help us tune the vehicle, maybe even special versions." MORE: Everything Chery Content originally sourced from: Chery, in its current state, may have only been operating in Australia since 2023, but a global executive says the feedback of Australians could help the brand's cars see success in the United States down the line. Locally, Chery has enjoyed substantial growth in its first few years. To the end of June 2025, the brand had recorded a whopping 228.8 per cent increase in sales from the same period in 2024, the largest of any brand – even the hard-charging BYD. This success has provided Chery with a wealth of feedback and guidance on how to improve its vehicles, with brand chief engineer David Xianqiang Lu telling CarExpert that the lessons learned can also help prepare it for potential future efforts in countries like the US. "From any point of view, the Australian market is very, very important, and that's a reason to come here and try and start in the market," he said. CarExpert can save you thousands on a new car. Click here to get a great deal. ABOVE: Chery Himla "We consider at least two directions right now. One is, in my opinion, that the user here, and the user conditions here, are very close to the USA market. "That's our next target where we want to go, I don't know whether that's the right words or not, but that's our ambition." The US market is uncharted territory for Chinese brands. Efforts to stop Chinese cars from infiltrating its market have led the US Government to impose substantial tariffs on vehicles from the country, which means there are currently no Chinese brands operating in the US, though there are Chinese-owned ones such as Volvo, Polestar and Lotus. A 100 per cent tariff was slugged on Chinese EVs in 2024, followed by reciprocal tariffs imposed on the US by China. Despite that, brands like Chery are planning for the US' stance to soften in the coming years, opening the door for expanded global operations. ABOVE: Chery E5 "I know there are a lot of issues there, but that's a different story. As a company and an engineer, we are looking for the markets where we want to go," Mr Lu told CarExpert. "I believe the Australian market can help us learn a lot about the USA market. We've mentioned about a [pickup], with important towing capacities, which are also very big in USA market, so we can learn a lot." Indeed, Chery has been developing new utes for some time, after earlier efforts like the Karry Higgo and Aika were phased out. It revealed a new ute, the Himla, at this year's Shanghai auto show, and it's understood several others are waiting in the wings – including a yet-to-be-revealed plug-in hybrid (PHEV) expected to come to Australia. ABOVE: The F700 ute, from the Chery-owned Jetour brand. It seems Australia could serve as a test bed for these vehicles, which will undoubtedly vary in size, powertrains, and construction (i.e. body-on-frame or unibody), to prove their worth before being shipped elsewhere. "The other thing is the geographical position, this off-season. For us, in China right now it's summer, very hot, here it's winter," Mr Lu told CarExpert. "Australia also has some mountain area with snow and these kinds of things; we can test a vehicle here. Working together, leveraging global resources, we can further speed up our development process." Any local development undertaken by Chery would follow similar efforts from other Chinese brands, including GWM, which recently hired former Holden handling tuner Rob Trubiani to spearhead local development efforts. Non-Chinese brands like Ford, Kia and Mitsubishi are also heavily involved in Australian vehicle tuning. ABOVE: Chery Tiggo 8 Additionally, Mr Lu outlined feedback received from Australian customers and media was always relayed to Chery's head office in China, which has informed the development of new models and tech, as well as updates for its existing lineup. "Also the user here is different. I remember the first article I saw was from [CarExpert], the gentleman wrote about Chery's vehicle, he mentioned that the vehicle tuning and handling was not that good, suspension not that good," he told CarExpert. "We really take a lot of comments, and try to [improve] that. That's another thing, we really let the local experts help us tune the vehicle, maybe even special versions." MORE: Everything Chery Content originally sourced from: Chery, in its current state, may have only been operating in Australia since 2023, but a global executive says the feedback of Australians could help the brand's cars see success in the United States down the line. Locally, Chery has enjoyed substantial growth in its first few years. To the end of June 2025, the brand had recorded a whopping 228.8 per cent increase in sales from the same period in 2024, the largest of any brand – even the hard-charging BYD. This success has provided Chery with a wealth of feedback and guidance on how to improve its vehicles, with brand chief engineer David Xianqiang Lu telling CarExpert that the lessons learned can also help prepare it for potential future efforts in countries like the US. "From any point of view, the Australian market is very, very important, and that's a reason to come here and try and start in the market," he said. CarExpert can save you thousands on a new car. Click here to get a great deal. ABOVE: Chery Himla "We consider at least two directions right now. One is, in my opinion, that the user here, and the user conditions here, are very close to the USA market. "That's our next target where we want to go, I don't know whether that's the right words or not, but that's our ambition." The US market is uncharted territory for Chinese brands. Efforts to stop Chinese cars from infiltrating its market have led the US Government to impose substantial tariffs on vehicles from the country, which means there are currently no Chinese brands operating in the US, though there are Chinese-owned ones such as Volvo, Polestar and Lotus. A 100 per cent tariff was slugged on Chinese EVs in 2024, followed by reciprocal tariffs imposed on the US by China. Despite that, brands like Chery are planning for the US' stance to soften in the coming years, opening the door for expanded global operations. ABOVE: Chery E5 "I know there are a lot of issues there, but that's a different story. As a company and an engineer, we are looking for the markets where we want to go," Mr Lu told CarExpert. "I believe the Australian market can help us learn a lot about the USA market. We've mentioned about a [pickup], with important towing capacities, which are also very big in USA market, so we can learn a lot." Indeed, Chery has been developing new utes for some time, after earlier efforts like the Karry Higgo and Aika were phased out. It revealed a new ute, the Himla, at this year's Shanghai auto show, and it's understood several others are waiting in the wings – including a yet-to-be-revealed plug-in hybrid (PHEV) expected to come to Australia. ABOVE: The F700 ute, from the Chery-owned Jetour brand. It seems Australia could serve as a test bed for these vehicles, which will undoubtedly vary in size, powertrains, and construction (i.e. body-on-frame or unibody), to prove their worth before being shipped elsewhere. "The other thing is the geographical position, this off-season. For us, in China right now it's summer, very hot, here it's winter," Mr Lu told CarExpert. "Australia also has some mountain area with snow and these kinds of things; we can test a vehicle here. Working together, leveraging global resources, we can further speed up our development process." Any local development undertaken by Chery would follow similar efforts from other Chinese brands, including GWM, which recently hired former Holden handling tuner Rob Trubiani to spearhead local development efforts. Non-Chinese brands like Ford, Kia and Mitsubishi are also heavily involved in Australian vehicle tuning. ABOVE: Chery Tiggo 8 Additionally, Mr Lu outlined feedback received from Australian customers and media was always relayed to Chery's head office in China, which has informed the development of new models and tech, as well as updates for its existing lineup. "Also the user here is different. I remember the first article I saw was from [CarExpert], the gentleman wrote about Chery's vehicle, he mentioned that the vehicle tuning and handling was not that good, suspension not that good," he told CarExpert. "We really take a lot of comments, and try to [improve] that. That's another thing, we really let the local experts help us tune the vehicle, maybe even special versions." MORE: Everything Chery Content originally sourced from:

‘Musk on mute' as pet project crashes
‘Musk on mute' as pet project crashes

News.com.au

timean hour ago

  • News.com.au

‘Musk on mute' as pet project crashes

Tesla has posted one of its weakest quarters in years, as CEO Elon Musk battles to keep the once dominant EV maker's market share. In its earnings for the second quarter released in the US on Wednesday, the company announced that revenue was down 12 per cent year-on-year with profit falling short of Wall Street expectations. It was the greatest fall in quarterly revenue for Tesla in more than a decade. Adjusted earnings for the second quarter came in at USD $0.40 per share, missing analysts' forecasts. Free cash flow plunged 89 per cent compared to a year earlier. Company revenue fell to $US$22.5bn ($34.1bn) for the April-June quarter down from $US25.5bn a year before. Profit fell from $US1.4bn to US$1.2bn. 'AUTONOMY IS THE STORY' Despite the figures, Tesla remains the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the United States however Q2 delivers were down 14 per cent, the second straight quarterly fall. The company is facing growing competition, particularly from Chinese rivals like BYD, XPeng, Zeekr, GWM and Chery. It has also faced brand damage following CEO Elon Musk's high-profile political activity and brief advisory role to the Trump administration. In the earnings call with analysts, Musk focused on the future of Tesla, particularly its plans for autonomous driving, calling the push into self-driving taxis critical to the company's future. 'Autonomy is the story,' he said. Musk said he has plans to expand Tesla's limited robotaxi service in Austin to half of the US population by end of next year. But he acknowledge that the timeline was heavily dependent on regulatory approval. BUYING INTO MUSK'S PROMISES Stake market analyst Samy Sriram said investors were left with more questions than answers. 'There's very little in Tesla's earnings report that will change anybody's mind on the stock,' she said. 'Bears will point to bleaker than predicted numbers, with revenue, EPS and cash flow all down and declining sales in core markets. Bulls will note pre-production of a more affordable model, a refreshed Model Y SUV, an uptick in Asia and the promise of Robotaxis.' However, when Tesla CFO Vibhav Taneja was asked about the progress of the Robotaxi pilot, he said only a 'handful of vehicles' were active and that the program has logged 7,000 miles of operation since launching on 22 June 2025. Sriram said the numbers 'don't make for pretty reading,' pointing in particular to a 51 per cent drop in revenue from automotive regulatory credits, what other car makers buy from Tesla when they can't comply with government emissions rules. 'Analysts flagged beforehand this could be a sore spot for Tesla, but it's still a pain point on the balance sheet,' she said. However, she added there are 'some bright spots'. 'There's an 18 per increase in Supercharging stalls added, and gross profits from energy storage deployments hit a record $846 million this quarter,' she said. Investors and analysts still remained cautious as Tesla shares fell more than four per cent in after-hours trading and data from Stake showed 56 per cent of trades were weighted towards selling following the earnings call. 'The market seems to be cautious. There's definitely a bit of scepticism from Wall Street - after the earnings call,' she said. 'Ultimately, the results and reaction are probably a reflection that if you buy into Elon Musk's promises, you'll probably still buy into Tesla. If you don't, you won't.' eToro market analyst Josh Gilbert said the results show a company 'caught in transition'. 'There's a road ahead, but Tesla is stuck in the slow lane, carrying the weight of underwhelming vehicle sales today while pushing the ambitious promises of Robotaxis, AI, and energy dominance tomorrow,' he said. Tesla's shift towards AI, robotics and energy storage was a point of conversation during the earnings call but Gilbert said there was a lack of detail regarding delivery timelines or commercial impact. 'While Tesla insists its energy and AI businesses are 'more critical than ever', the company is offering little detail on how or when these emerging divisions will meaningfully move the needle for investors,' he said. CHEAP MODEL ON THE WAY The company confirmed its lower-cost Tesla model has entered early production, but volume output is not expected to ramp up until late 2025, pushing its commercial impact further out. Gilbert said Musk's low energy during the earnings call may not help rebuild confidence. 'Musk's low-energy tone on the call will likely disappoint shareholders; it felt like Musk on mute rather than Musk the magician, particularly at a time when a steadier, more confident hand at the wheel was needed,' he said. While Tesla continues its plans for full autonomy and global energy dominance, with no update on delivery guidance and Tesla's second-quarter drop, the future looks uncertain. 'The bigger picture here is that Tesla is undoubtedly a technology business rather than an automaker,' he said. 'But with its traditional profit engine stalling, Tesla's visionary plans need to start producing rather than just promising. 'Tesla's long-term vision continues to evolve, from the rollout of its Robotaxi platform to leadership in AI and robotics, and the eventual launch of more affordable models. But in the short term, with weakening fundamentals, leadership distractions and continued delivery shortfalls, the pressure on the share price is unlikely to ease anytime soon.'

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