Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Over the past decade in Australia, many institutions have had to face painful and dark truths about the systemic way that child sexual abuse was allowed to take place, unstopped in their midst. We've had to face, to our deep shame, our failure to listen, to believe and to provide justice. We've said sorry to the children we've failed and we've grieved the extraordinary cost of our failures.

For five years, Malka Leifer has been able to avoid the Australian justice system, despite having 74 charges of sexual abuse to answer. Malka Leifer is alleged to have repeatedly abused children while she was supposed to be protecting and teaching them in her role as principal of the Adass Israel girls school in Melbourne. Few people are trusted as much in a family's life as the people who are asked to educate our children.

In August 2014, as a result of extensive police investigations, an arrest warrant was issued for Malka Leifer, who'd fled to Israel a few years earlier when the allegations began to surface. An extradition request was placed with Israel, and Leifer was arrested by Israeli police and put under house arrest. Extradition proceedings began in Israel in 2014. However, they were suspended in 2016 because Leifer's lawyers claimed she was unfit to stand trial due to poor mental health. Since then, there've been numerous psychiatric examinations to determine whether Leifer's actually fit to face extradition proceedings. Many of these examinations have found her mentally competent and well enough to face trial.

A psychiatric panel assessed Leifer late last year to make what was meant to be the final determination of her ability to face extradition proceedings. That panel determined she'd been faking mental illness to avoid extradition. Despite these findings, her lawyers have again stalled proceedings by requesting the Jerusalem District Court grant them time to cross-examine members of the psychiatric panel. For Leifer's lawyers to be obstructing justice by using technicalities to prevent a process of justice occurring is to make a mockery of the justice that both Australia and Israel are committed to.

As a Jewish Australian, I know that Israel has provided a safe haven to many people who have no safe place and no home in which to belong. Malka Leifer is not one of these people. A fair trial must take place. Over 60 court proceedings have been heard, and no serious progress has been made to achieve her extradition. Courts should not be involved in the business of obfuscating and delaying justice but in seeing it realised. No-one seeks for Malka Leifer to be tried without having a chance to answer the allegations, but for the process of justice itself to be denied is unacceptable.

Perhaps another reason why this matter weighs so heavily and is so difficult to speak about is that the denial of justice runs completely contrary to Jewish faith. As Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, has said, Judaism's greatest leap of faith is the belief that the world is ruled by justice. Even in the darkest days of Jewish history, the belief of the Jewish people has been that goodness is the way of life, that humans have dignity and that we must treat people accordingly. Justice must have its time. It's not simply an exercise of ticking a box or finding technical ways around laws. It's about the truth being told and judgement occurring. Malka Leifer must answer the charges against her.

I want to finish my remarks by taking a moment to also acknowledge the victims, who've not yet been able to have their day in court. I want to commend them for their bravery and tenacity. I'm sorry we haven't been able to give them what they rightly deserve at this time and that their bravery hasn't seen the outcomes they should have seen yet. I continue to hope that justice will be served for them and their families, and I call on Israel to extradite Malka Leifer immediately so that justice can be served. Then we will live out the words of Deuteronomy: 'Tzedek, tzedek, tirdoph; justice, justice, shall you pursue.'

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