The far-right figures teaching students at a Sydney college

6 days ago 3

Stephen McInerney and Stephen Chavura both teach at Campion, a well-connected college in Sydney’s west that promises undergraduates a vibrant campus, Catholic values, and a focus on the classics.

The pair also promote white nationalism.

Campion College staff Stephen McInerney and Stephen Chavura are promoting far-right rhetoric.

Following questions from this masthead, Campion College is now investigating the academics, who argue that Australia’s Anglo-European culture is under existential threat.

McInerney, the dean of studies, gave a speech this month saying Australia must one day form new political parties dedicated to the interests of “our people”, meaning white Australians.

A former deputy head of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, McInerney has also argued the White Australia Policy did not go far enough and that white Australians may need to live in separate neighbourhoods as a form of “tactical retreat”.

Chavura, a senior lecturer in history, has launched an all-male club to celebrate Anglo-Celtic culture and deter “leftist thugs” from interfering with “pro-Australia” rallies.

Stephen McInerney speaking at a March for Australia rally in Sydney.

Both staff members have praised Enoch Powell, the British MP sacked from shadow cabinet in 1968 after delivering his anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech.

“I was not aware of the vast majority of the rhetoric or other things you have brought to my attention,” Campion College president Paul Morrissey said.

“They will be thoroughly investigated. All people, no matter their background, race, or religion are made to feel welcome at the college.”

Campion, which admits only about 50 students a year, has powerful connections with politics and the media.

The Campion College library named after Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.

Board directors include former Liberal federal minister Zed Seselja and former union powerbroker Joe de Bruyn. Several News Corp commentators and senior journalists have been appointed as honorary fellows.

Former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott has attended several events at the Toongabbie campus, which has a library named after Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart.

In 2021, the NSW and federal governments committed $5 million each to the college’s building works program.

McInerney, a poetry specialist and associate professor of literature, told a podcast this year that the White Australia Policy was “commonsensical”. On X, he said it should have been enshrined in the Constitution.

Stephen McInerney is a former deputy chief executive of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation.

In another post, McInerney suggested – without providing supporting evidence – that a rise in some forms of violence was linked to the decline of white Australians as a demographic.

He has argued that “recklessly throwing together different cultures and races” had led to disaster in Western countries including Australia and that young Australians had to learn “ad nauseam about Aboriginals, Jews etc”. He has questioned whether “Greeks, Jews, Chinese and Indians in Australia” would remain loyal in the event of a war with their homelands, and suggested dual citizens be given financial incentives to leave the country.

On August 31, McInerney was among the speakers at the March for Australia rally in Sydney, one of several anti-immigration events held around the country.

Wearing a suit jacket and sunglasses, he spoke of an “unacceptable and radical transformation” of Australia’s racial and cultural character. He said that descendants of immigrants from the British Isles and Europe had formed a new Australian ethnicity, “a people bound together by the crimson thread of blood”.

He said he wished well those who lacked this ancestry “to the extent” that they recognised “our claim on this continent”.

The speech was reproduced in full by The Noticer, an Australian platform that publishes articles on crime emphasising the perpetrators’ racial heritage, as well as opinion pieces by far-right figures. The Noticer described McInerney as a Sydney writer and a former director of the Ramsay Centre, but made no mention of his role at Campion.

McInerney, who shared The Noticer’s post about his speech, did not respond to questions.

Earlier this month, he spoke at a conference held by the British Australia Community, another group dedicated to the interests of Anglo-Celtic Australians, alongside his Campion College colleague, Stephen Chavura.

Stephen Chavura is a regular Sky News commentator as well as an academic.

A lecturer in European and Australian history, Chavura told the audience that the country should prefer an immigrant called David Smith to another called Mohammad Jihad, where the latter was a law-abiding, taxpaying, English-speaking Muslim.

Chavura is also busy recruiting for a new group called Australia’s Sons, which he hopes will swell to become a “standing force of hundreds of thousands of men” defending Anglo-Celtic heritage.

According to a post on X earlier this month, the group would oppose multiculturalism and mass immigration, with a focus on education, fitness, camping and the hosting of “friendly fights”. It would also provide a security presence at events like the March for Australia rallies, which Chavura promoted online.

“Leftist thugs will fear it, haters of Australia will fear it, anti-Australia politicians will fear it,” the Sky News and Spectator commentator posted.

No Nazis would be allowed, he said. But according to the group’s social media chat, membership is “primarily for Anglo-Celtic Europeans and their descendants”.

On X, Chavura has described multiculturalism as a cancer and a poison. He has also reposted content from racist accounts, including a message on X that described Indian people as a “dangerous and subversive foreign fifth column” in Western societies.

In response to written questions, Chavura said he would never knowingly repost “genuinely racist” content, did not mix in neo-Nazi circles and did not discuss his personal views in his classes.

“I would invite anyone to find any student I have taught over the past nearly 25 years who would accuse me of racism in any of my behaviour or teaching,” he said. “My conscience is completely clear of that accusation.”

Chavura said he would not describe himself as “white nationalist” or “anti-immigrant” but repeated his desire for Anglo-Celtic Australians and Europeans to become once more a “supermajority”.

“I generally try to avoid the term ‘white’ because it is purely racial and I’m also concerned with culture, not to mention the fact that it’s a term used a lot by people I don’t particularly want to be associated with,” he said.

Morrissey, the college president, said he was unable to comment on whether Chavura and McInerney would remain in their roles during the investigation.