Matt Chun (born Matthew Jones) is an Australian children's book illustrator, writer, and activist. He is a founding editor of The Sunday Paper, which he co-created in 2021.
Early life and family
After his parents divorced, Chun, his sister and his mother changed their names, dropping their father's surname "Jones" and reverted to "Chun", which originated from Chun's maternal great-grandfather, Phillip Jo Chun, who arrived in Australia from China in 1900. Chun also has a Jewish grandmother. He has written that he rarely "foregrounds" his heritage in his activism, due to his view that "identity politics" is often "counter-revolutionary" and that "to weaponise it would be disingenuous".
His name change has drawn criticism in Australian and Israeli newspapers. An article in The Australian in 27 January 2025 claimed that Chun's "real name" is "Matthew Jones", and The Financial Review claimed it was his "legal name".
His sister is the journalist and University of Melbourne academic Mell Chun. Chun's partner is also his publisher at Slingshot Books, Tess Cullity. He has a son.
In 2019, he was appointed Children's Literature Fellow at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. He cut ties with the library in April 2024, citing political differences.
He has received a number of grants from Creative Australia, including in 2017 to attend an artist's residency at the Bamboo Curtain Studio in Taiwan and in 2023 to develop a children's picture book about policing in Australia with writer Amy McQuire.
Chun's sister, Mel Chun, is the audio producer for the Sunday Paper podcast.
Political views
In 2016 Chun's café in Bermagui, Mister Jones,[clarification needed] attracted national media attention when its sign describing Australia Day as "National Dickhead Day" went viral on social media. Chun reported receiving death threats from people offended by the sign.
Chun described the 7 October attacks in Israel as "a courageous act of revolutionary decolonisation". Soon after the attacks, he posted the message: "Power to the freedom fighters. Love to the martyrs. Death to the occupation. Resistance by any means necessary. Liberation from the River to the Sea".
In February 2024, Chun, with Clementine Ford, Randa Abdel-Fattah, and others, published the leaked transcripts of a 600-member WhatsApp group for Jewish Australian writers, arts workers, and academics, along with a spreadsheet containing the names, occupations, social media profiles and photographs of group members and other Jewish creatives. People listed in the spreadsheet and their families subsequently received death threats. The incident was widely cited in public discussions of new doxing laws that were introduced in Australia in 2024.
In August 2025, the Herald Sun reported that Victoria Police had received a letter from a former Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions asking it to investigate Chun for alleged terrorist activity. The police investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to press charges.
Comments on Bondi shootings
On 14 December 2025, 16 people were killed in a terrorist attack at Bondi Beach while attending a Hanukkah celebration organised by Chabad. Two weeks later, Chun published an essay entitled "We Don't Mourn Fascists", criticising public expressions of grief for the victims and the lack of attention paid to Muslim and Indigenous victims of violence. Chun wrote that Chabad is a Jewish-supremacist organisation which has close connections to the Israel Defense Forces which "actively, publicly, and extensively help[s] to facilitate ... the imperialist holocaust of Palestine". Responses to the essay were written by Nick Dyrenfurth in The Australian, by Lillian Kline in the Australian Financial Review and by others on Substack.
Following the publication of Chun's essay, the hate crimes unit of the New South Wales Police Force were reported to be investigating his remarks. Dymocks bookshops withdrew Chun's books from sale and the University of Queensland Press (UQP) announced that it had suspended publication of Bila, A River Cycle, a children's picture book written by Wiradjuri poet Jazz Money and illustrated by Chun. In April 2026, UQP confirmed that it would not be publishing Bila. Several UQP authors cut ties with the publisher in protest, including Randa Abdel-Fattah.
During a federal Senate Estimates hearing in February 2026, Liberal senator Sarah Henderson asked the head of Creative Australia about its funding of Chun's work in light of his comments about the Bondi shooting. In March 2026, Creative Australia said that the funded work had already been completed, but that it would seek to update its future contracts to allow termination of funding should a recipient engage in hate speech or racial or religious vilification.
In August 2026, Chun accused the novelist Richard Flanagan of "ableism" after Flanagan, in an address to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, criticised the pulping of Bila but described Chun's essay on the Bondi shootings as "stupid as offensive".
"Issue 3: Resistance". The Sunday Paper. Other contributors: Writing by Nabil Mustafa / Keiran Stewart-Assheton and Jasper Cohen-Hunter for Black Peoples Union / Tara Alami / Lorna Munro / Sara M. Saleh / Leah House / Hasib Hourani / Mu'in Bseiso / Samih al-Qasim / Louis Allday / Husayn Muruwwah / Prof. Gary Foley / James Tylor / Zeina Kilani. Embroidery by Safa El Samad / Risography by Dennis Grauel / Drawing by Matt Chun / Design by Paul Mylecharane. Slingshot Books. July 2024. ISBN9780645975413.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: others (link) CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link) Description: 43 pages; illustrations; 38 cm.
"Issue 4: The Pitfalls of Liberalism". The Sunday Paper. Other contributors: Commissioning editor: Keiran Stewart-Assheton; Writing: Gurrnoong (Jasper Cohen-Hunter); Steve Salaita; Mell Chun; Derek La Salle; Nita and Jesse Okoko; Tara Alami and Yazan Zahzah for Palestinian Feminist Collective; Elsa Tuet-Rosenberg, Shoshana Rosenberg, and Alana Lentin; Sui Zhen; Drawing: Aliaa Betawi; Yugaamgan (Em Randall); Photography: Ala Kheir. Photography, Gudjerron Club, and pull-out poster artwork: James Tylor; Art object: Clement. March 2026.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑Chun 2025: "My great-grandfather, Phillip Jo Chun, arrived on Aboriginal Land from China... When our parents divorced, my sister Mell and I both dropped our Dad's surname and, along with our Mum, reverted to Chun."
12Chun, Matt (22 August 2021). "Safe Passage". 4A Papers. Archived from the original on 5 February 2026. Retrieved 4 January 2026.
↑Chun 2025: "Zionists might also be rattled to learn that my grandmother was Jewish. But I never foreground that aspect of my heritage either. To weaponise it would be disingenuous... Identity politics – with the obvious exceptions of Indigenous and national liberation struggles – is frequently counter-revolutionary."
↑Heller, Mathilda (3 January 2026). "Australian children's author defends Bondi shooting". The Jerusalem Post. Chun – whose real name is Matthew Jones – published an op-ed... "We don't mourn fascists" refers to Chabad as a "Zionist Jewish-supremacist organization" that holds "events to advance settler-colonization in Palestine amidst the ongoing extermination of Gaza". Chun justified the killing of slain Rabbi Eli Schlanger on account of him visiting the West Bank, fundraising for the IDF, and signing Gaza-bound missiles.
Demetriadi, Alexi; Ferguson, John (10 July 2024). "The faces of a hatred that has no place here". The Weekend Australian revealed on Friday how Chun was a key figure in the widespread dissemination of the documents... His real name is Matt Jones, a NSW South Coast local who used to own a cafe...
Gusmaroli, Danielle (8 January 2025). "May God Crush Them". The Daily Telegraph dailytelegraph.com.au. Chun, real name Matthew Jones, did not respond to requests for comment.
Langton 2025 "Matt Chun, whose real name is Matthew Jones, was an invited speaker in the same session..."
↑Chun 2025: "Since October 2023, a number of my detractors have delighted in 'exposing' my supposed 'real name'. The Australian, for example, has attempted this line of attack in four separate articles this month alone. The most recent was in yesterday's print edition."
↑Kline 2026: "Chun, whose legal name is Matthew Jones, has spent years building a public profile..."
↑"Anti Racism and Oppression Resources". Hue. Colour the Conversation (huecolourtheconversation.com). The Sunday Paper is an anti-imperialist print periodical and podcast. The most recent issue "The Pitfalls of Liberalism" includes a piece by one of our co-founders. The Sunday Paper was born during the popular uprisings of May 2021 as an art project and an act of protest. Specifically, it was created in opposition to Zionist-owned Schwartz Media, a company that has for years monopolised 'progressive' media, weaponising its power and influence to suffocate criticism of the Zionist entity.
↑
Hourani, Jeanine (31 December 2021). "Why Palestinians are calling for a Sydney Festival boycott". The New Arab. Archived from the original on 12 September 2026. One example of this is The Sunday Paper; an independent publication that was created in the boycott of an anti-Palestinian media outlet, Schwartz Media. The Sunday Paper centres the voices of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Palestinian people and their allies, working together in solidarity and uncompromising love to resist settler-colonial occupation.
12Story, Hannah (23 April 2026). "Authors leave publisher after kids book scrapped for illustrator's comments". ABC News. Archived from the original on 19 May 2026. In a letter to UQP, published by Lamestream, Abdel-Fattah described the decision not to publish Bila as "shameful and cowardly" and suggested the swift reaction from authors could have been predicted, following the events at AWW and a similar author boycott at Bendigo Writers Festival.... She said the writing community and broader public could "see through the weaponisation of accusations of anti-Semitism to censor and punish voices that denounce and oppose [Israel]".
↑"The Sunday Paper, Issue 3: Resistance". mattchun.com. Writing by Nabil Mustafa / Keiran Stewart-Assheton and Jasper Cohen-Hunter for Black Peoples Union / Tara Alami / Lorna Munro / Sara M. Saleh / Leah House / Hasib Hourani / Mu'in Bseiso / Samih al-Qasim / Louis Allday / Husayn Muruwwah / Prof. Gary Foley / James Tylor / Zeina Kilani. Embroidery by Safa El Samad / Risography by Dennis Grauel / Drawing by Matt Chun / Design by Paul Mylecharane. July 2024. Archived from the original on 2 August 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑"The Sunday Paper, Issue 4: The Pitfalls of Liberalism". mattchun.com. Archived from the original on 13 September 2026. Commissioning editor: Keiran Stewart-Assheton; Writing: Gurrnoong (Jasper Cohen-Hunter); Steve Salaita; Mell Chun; Derek La Salle; Nita and Jesse Okoko; Tara Alami and Yazan Zahzah for Palestinian Feminist Collective; Elsa Tuet-Rosenberg, Shoshana Rosenberg, and Alana Lentin; Sui Zhen; Drawing: Aliaa Betawi; Yugaamgan (Em Randall); Photography: Ala Kheir. Photography, Gudjerron Club, and pull-out poster artwork: James Tylor; Art object: Clement
↑"The Sunday Paper, Issue 4: The Pitfalls of Liberalism". slingshotbooks.com.au. Commissioning editor: Keiran Stewart-Assheton. Writing: Gurrnoong (Jasper Cohen-Hunter); Steve Salaita; Mell Chun; Derek La Salle; Nita and Jesse Okoko; Tara Alami and Yazan Zahzah for Palestinian Feminist Collective; Elsa Tuet-Rosenberg, Shoshana Rosenberg, and Alana Lentin; Sui Zhen. Drawing: Aliaa Betawi; Yugaamgan (Em Randall). Photography: Ala Kheir. Photography, Gudjerron Club, and pull-out poster artwork: James Tylor. Art object: Clement. March 2026. Archived from the original on 13 September 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)