Anger over Beijing’s backyard blitz in Adelaide

China’s reputation as a bad neighbour plays out in Adelaide as fed-up residents share horror stories of life next to Beijing’s sprawling compound.

China’s reputation as an unpleasant neighbour is being played out in a leafy Adelaide eastern suburb where fed-up residents are sharing horror stories of life living next door to Beijing’s sprawling consular compound.

They include security cameras popping up overnight in front of private homes, residential fences being knocked over without warning, NBN cables severed, construction materials left lying on the streets, Chinese labourers using loud building equipment on Sundays, even a drone flying above a group of residents before landing back inside the consulate.

All this is happening in a tiny patch of middle-class suburbia in heritage-listed Joslin, a historic garden suburb 5km east of Adelaide’s CBD where the Chinese government controversially bought a 5600sq m block four years ago for an estimated $5m to build its new South Australian consulate.

The block is now surrounded by 3m high security walls, has a sentry box, flood lights, movement sensors and is ringed by cameras on every boundary, with new, bigger CCTV cameras ­installed last year after protesters daubed the words “Free Hong Kong” on the consulate’s white walls.

It is a vast complex of buildings that includes residential dwellings, office space, meeting spaces, carparking and sheds, and unlike most consulates in cities or in Canberra’s designated embassy suburb of Yarralumla, the South Australian Chinese consulate is entirely surrounded by private suburban homes.

This is the consulate that SA senator Rex Patrick has accused of spying, saying that its estimated dozen staff should not be allowed to operate in the state that is home to Australia’s defence and space industries. Liberal senator Alex Antic has also questioned why South Australia — which only has two other consulates, Greece and Italy, that are staffed by foreign nationals — should host this ­“excessively large” consulate.

China’s consul in South Australia, Li Zhang, insisted the consulate was abiding by all laws, was active only in consular and trade matters, and dismissed talk of drones as “totally ridiculous”.

The locals, however, aren’t buying it.

The Weekend Australian spent two days this week talking to residents of Fourth and Fifth Avenue and with just one exception every household had strong complaints about the conduct of the consulate and the appropriateness of having such a vast complex in the middle of suburbia.

While interviewing the residents two staff from the consulate came out and asked The Weekend Australian whether we had permission from either the consulate or police to talk to the residents, to which we replied we were standing on a public Australian street and free to talk to whomever we liked.

“That’s a little slice of Beijing you’re looking at right there,” retired energy executive and active Rotarian Brian Kretschmer said as he pointed across from his front yard towards the consulate.

“They act like they’re a law unto themselves. It’s like they’ve got diplomatic immunity.”

Unhappy residents John, Sharon and dog Odie. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Dodgy workmanship

One of the worst affected residents are couple Sharon and John who declined to give their surnames on security grounds and who live with their teenage son Josh and a white bichon-poodle called Odie.

Sharon and John showed the damage in their backyard that consulate builders had done after they came home to discover their 8m-long back fence had been knocked over.

Their plants and trees were also ripped out and cut down, with one branch landing in their neighbour’s swimming pool, and they now have a 3m-tall security wall installed by the consulate on their rear property with what appears to be a camera or motion sensor looking over their back garden.

Since then the consulate — which neighbours say predominantly uses Chinese nationals as labourers — installed an ugly 3m-high concrete wall along Sharon and John’s rear boundary with a large sensor or camera at one end peering into their yard.

The workmanship on the ­security wall is poor, with cladding already coming loose.

John says the recurring building work at the consulate over the past two years meant his NBN kept dropping out, and he initially did not know why.

“I got onto Telstra and they eventually worked out they just kept cutting through the cable next door with all the construction going on, but we weren’t ­allowed in there to fix it for security reasons, so I just shelled out the money myself to put in a satellite for my internet,” John said.

Conduct unbecoming

Emotions are just as strong at the western end of Fifth Avenue where neighbours Matt Burns and Lisa Medlyn say they don’t know anyone who is happy with the location or conduct of the consulate.

“Having all these cameras surrounding us in a quiet residential area gives me the creeps,” Ms Medlyn says. “Who knows what they’re up to in there.

“My husband was chatting with Brian and a couple of the other neighbours last year and they looked up and saw a light in the sky. It was a drone just hovering above them which then drifted off towards the consulate.”

Another adjoining property is a complex of four small homes where retired teacher Chris, who also declines to give his last name on security grounds, says the growth of the consulate has been “off the charts”.

“There are people working here around the clock and it sounds like the only tool they’ve got is an angle grinder,” he says. “They make a hell of a racket and they leave all their building materials lying on the footpath. They just think they can do whatever they like. That big shed inside there next to the wall only popped up a few weeks back. No development approval required.”

A Chinese official on the consulate grounds. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Odd man out

Several neighbours including Chris say the 3m white wall that stands directly in front of his home was poorly built with no steel reinforcement pins and had to be rebuilt due to concrete failure.

“While they were doing that with all their equipment they ended up knocking down sections of our green front fence,” Chris says. “They were bloody hopeless. We had to get onto the council to get the whole thing replaced.”

That same white wall is the one targeted for graffiti by Hong Kong protesters last year, and where six new security cameras have since been installed along the laneway, one of which points directly at Chris’s place.

After spending about seven hours knocking on more than 30 doors in the two streets, The Weekend Australian could find just one resident who had no complaints with the consulate.

Gareth Parker lives with his wife and three children on Fourth Ave smack-bang next to the consulate’s 3m wall, where a security camera sits directly in front of his own veranda on his large Federation bungalow.

“I know people are fired up about it and think it’s all a bit scary but the reality is that all they’re doing in there is processing visa applications,” Mr Parker said.

“It’s a diplomatic outpost for what has been our most important trading partner.”

Mr Parker adds, rightly, that local tensions have been fuelled by the trade war that has been particularly bad for South Australia, with the wine, barley and seafood industry smashed by Beijing’s tariffs.

Mr Parker and his wife bought the house 18 months ago knowing the consulate was there and say they prefer living next to it than in its former incarnation as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre.

But longstanding residents such as Mr Kretschmer and Ms Medlyn said the rehab centre was unobtrusive and never caused any intrusions for residents.

“Put it this way, they weren’t sticking cameras into people’s yards,” Mr Kretschmer said. “They just kept to themselves while they were trying to get off the turps.”

Part of the 5600sq m block housing the Chinese consulate in Adelaide. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Official run-around

Two retired teachers who, like others with files of correspondence between federal and state MPs and the local council, have endured a run-around as the different tiers of government flick-pass their inquiries elsewhere, with the council often explaining that as a de facto embassy it has no power over what happened on the property.

The consular development was announced by the former Weatherill Labor government in 2016 and the state’s co-ordinator-general gave full approval for its operations as a project of major state significance, allowing work to proceed unchallenged over the past three years.

Norwood Payneham and St Peters mayor Robert Bria confirmed that his planning department had received “two to three” complaints in the past few weeks about the cameras at the consul.

“Clearly at a time when trade tensions have ratcheted up between Australia and China some of those tensions will also be more inflamed about having the consul right here in our community, ­especially when there are cameras apparently facing into people’s homes,” Mr Bria said.

Ms Zhang admitted there had been some complaints over building works but denied that any of the neighbours had been poorly treated or any laws disobeyed.

“Our consulate-general has strictly abided by the relevant local laws, regulations and code of construction,” Ms Zhang said.

“And the work involving the neighbours has also obtained their approval through friendly talks and consultation. We have attached great importance to the occasional complaints from neighbours about the construction noise and solved the problem in a proper and timely manner.

“The other questions you mentioned in your email do not exist. We think these questions, especially the so-called drones are totally ridiculous.

“The consulate-general is committed to providing consular services to the Chinese citizens who live, work and study in SA, actively promoting the exchanges and co-operation in various fields between China and SA, and ­enhancing the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.”