Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Similarly, neither did I.

If we turn to the purpose of this legislation, its stated purpose is to extend the existing offences for urging force or violence and for displaying hate symbols and to introduce new offences for threatening force or violence against targeted groups and their members. I've already stated that this legislation has become necessary, and we are seeking some amendments to make this legislation even stronger in force because of the dreadful attacks that we have seen on Australian Jewish people. They were attacked simply because of their Jewish faith and ancestry, and it is completely unacceptable.

Returning to what seems to have inflamed the situation in Australia, the initial spark of the antisemitic attacks that we are now seeing across our country came with the 7 October terrorist attacks on Israel by the recognised terrorist group Hamas. There can be no equivocation or denial on this. The October 7 attacks were the single greatest loss of Jewish lives on any day since the Holocaust. October 7 was a day of murder, torture, kidnapping and brutal sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas against Jews in Israel. The attacks were deliberately cruel and barbaric. We don't need to repeat a description of the heinous acts in this chamber, but there is no doubt they were designed with the purpose of maximising pain and sorrow amongst Jewish people. They also involved taking over 100 people hostage, many of whom have still not been released, more than a year after the first attacks.

What we saw here in this country was bad actors rejoicing in a day that was marked by the murder, torture, sexual assault and kidnapping of innocent Israelis. I have called out in this chamber members of the left, in the Labor Party as well as the Greens party, who would usually be calling out acts of violence against women. There was no call, particularly by the Australian Greens party, for the hostages to be released. There were calls for a ceasefire, and the reality is that there was a ceasefire. On 6 October 2023, there was a ceasefire. What alternative did Israel have but to go and get back her citizens? If that attack had occurred here in Australia, I would fully expect my government to instruct the military to go and return Australians, whether they be family members or friends or other Australians. These people were innocent civilians who were taken by a terrorist organisation on that day, and it is completely shameful that most members of the Labor Party and all members of the Greens have failed to call that out.

What we have seen, as a result, is a lack of leadership from the very top—from the Prime Minister of our country. Why is this legislation before the House today? It has come about due to the Prime Minister's failure to lead on this issue. From day one, he refused to admit or speak about antisemitism unless he also mentioned Islamophobia and other discrimination at the same time. The attack on the Israeli people on October 7 was nothing but an antisemitic attack. It defies belief that the Prime Minister of this country was unable to call it that. Other leaders throughout the world were able to. They showed strong leadership. What we have seen from this Prime Minister and from most, but not all, members of the government has been complete silence and complete weakness about antisemitism in this country and the antisemitism that occurred on 7 October that gave rise to that. He should have made very clear through his actions from the very beginning that those who sought to spread antisemitic attacks in Australia would feel the full force of the law. He didn't. He could and should have been clear about the scale of the horror inflicted by Hamas and that Australia stands with its long-term friend and ally Israel. The Prime Minister could and should have used our laws and our police forces to clamp down on those who sought to weaponise the Hamas attacks for their own hateful purposes here at home.

I have a friend. His name is Simon, he lives in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and he is Jewish. His four-year-old daughter walks to preschool accompanied by two armed guards. That is not and should not be the Australia of 2025, but that's the reality. Jewish students don't wear their school uniform in public. Jewish students on university campuses have been subject to violent attacks. Other Jewish people have been subject to doxxing simply for being part of a WhatsApp group. This is completely unacceptable. If this were happening to any other group of Australians, the Prime Minister, the foreign minister, the Labor Party and the Greens party would have been calling this out, but they haven't.

When we had, for example, in the Prime Minister's own home state of New South Wales, an angry mob on 9 October standing outside the Opera House and chanting, 'Where are the Jews?' or whatever they were saying, he was silent. We saw Jewish shops being vandalised, Jewish students being harassed and roaming gangs in places like Caulfield in Victoria hunting for Jews. This was in 2023 and 2024. This was not Germany in the 1930s. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. I agree with the member for Wannon when he used those words as well.

At a time when we're responding to an unprecedented wave of antisemitism here in our country and we are seeing armed guards outside Jewish schools, it is completely appropriate that we focus on antisemitism. The Prime Minister did not do that, and his failure to do so was an indication that he did not take the threat of antisemitism seriously. In my electorate of Hughes in southern Sydney and south-west Sydney, I have fewer than 1,000 Jewish Australians. However, the very silent but very large majority of people that I've spoken to in my electorate when I've been out doorknocking, when I've conducted mobile offices and through email say that they are absolutely horrified at the Prime Minister's silence on this issue. They will very shortly get an opportunity to express to this Prime Minister and his government just how unhappy they are. A prime minister that doesn't defend his nation and doesn't stand up for a group of Australians is not worthy of being the Prime Minister.

We do have existing criminal laws that are meant to deal with things like the urging of violence against groups defined by either race or religion. This is in division 80 of the Criminal Code. These laws were not used. Why not? Protests in our streets in which antisemitic displays abounded were permitted to drag on for months and months. Universities were permitted to be used as encampments that served as a hotbed of antisemitic action. Our human rights institutions were not given focus or direction nor were they called to account when they abandoned the Jewish community. Through his actions, Prime Minister Albanese sent a very clear message that, despite what he might say, there will be no real consequences for those who target and attack Jewish Australians. This was a green light for antisemites.

The government that he leads has also abandoned Israel on the international stage. In the wake of 7 October the instinct of the Labor government was not to stand with Israel, which had just been the target of a horrific atrocity—it was to call on Israel to exercise restraint. This was followed by a series of votes in the United Nations in which Australia, under the leadership of this Prime Minister, reversed a longstanding bipartisan position on Israel.

The Foreign Minister Wong went to Israel and yet refused to go and have a look at the scene of the initial massacre. Why would she do that? She was meant to be there as our Foreign Minister, representing us on the international stage. I say that the Foreign Minister is not worthy, through her actions, of continuing to hold that position.

While I commend the changes in this legislation, I still say it has come far too late, and it reflects the fact that the Prime Minister has been asleep at the wheel on this issue of antisemitism. (Time expired)

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