Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is, in colloquial terms, a no-brainer. For us, the Leader of the House has just talked about being taken by surprise and all these wonderful things that were talked about yesterday. Yesterday was a good moment on this issue, but it was eight months too late. For the last eight months since 7 October, Australians have been clamouring for political leadership. We all saw what happened on 9 October, where we had that appalling, atrocious display of antisemitism on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. What this country needed on that night—at least at a federal level—was the political leadership that was shown yesterday. But 27 million Australians were left looking for that political leadership because it did not come from this Prime Minister.

Talk is cheap. It's very easy to stand up and say nice words. But the Jewish community is looking for real, genuine political leadership. What we saw yesterday was a rightful coming together of the parties of government in this place in its condemnation of the Greens. It is rightful, but it once again was too late. The Greens have been nothing other than causing division in this community, in our national community. They have stoked division on our universities, on our campuses. That's what this bill is all about—this bill moved by my friend the member for Berowra. Not one person in this place could question the integrity of this man. Not one person could question the integrity of this man, who has stood by and had the courage of his convictions to point out the absolutely failing and disgraceful lack of leadership from our university sector and from our leaders of our universities—the vice-chancellors that are paid a king's ransom to oversee the administration of their universities. All they have done is sew discord by their failure to act, their failure to lead and their failure to show moral courage. Each and every single one of those vice-chancellors who have failed to step up and provide genuine moral courage stands condemned in this place.

We need a judicial inquiry in relation to not just the conduct of the vice-chancellors and not just how the Greens have conducted themselves on campuses but how students and, particularly, academics have conducted themselves and the appalling way in which Jewish students and academics have been treated. To suggest, as the government does, that this job could be done by the Human Rights Commission is an absolute disgrace. The Human Rights Commission has utterly failed the Jewish community in this country time and time and time again, and yet these geniuses over here want to put Dracula in charge of the blood bank. It is an absolute joke. I commend the member for Berowra, and I commend this motion.

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