Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

It is, as the member for Hughes has just said, too little too late when it comes to this legislation and the broader issue of dealing with the scourge of rising antisemitism occurring in our country since the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October 2023. Make no mistake: this bill is necessary because of the repeated failures of the Albanese government. The Prime Minister has been stoking tensions over the past 16 months through his weak leadership and failure to act decisively to stamp out antisemitism. He has been missing in action on this very important issue.

This is all about leadership, or the lack thereof. Australians look to their prime minister to set the tone of the national response to any crisis. The Prime Minister should have made clear through his actions from the very beginning that those who sought to spread antisemitic attacks here would feel the full force of the law. He should have been clear from the very beginning about the scale of the horror inflicted by Hamas, and underscored Australia's allegiance to its long-term friend and ally, Israel. He 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. He did not.

At a time when we were seeing an unprecedented rise in antisemitism, the Prime Minister and his ministers failed to acknowledge the presence of antisemitism without concurrently mentioning Islamophobia—always seeking a moral equivalence. Neither have a place in this country. Both are condemned. But acknowledging Jewish Australians' experiences of antisemitism does not diminish the experience of Muslim Australians. The Prime Minister did not address this, and his failure to do so was an indication that he did not take the threat of antisemitism seriously.

We saw ongoing failures to take decisive action against antisemitism in Australia. Antisemitic displays were not prosecuted, protests were not stopped, and universities were permitted to be used as encampments. Worse still, the tone was set incorrectly from October 2023 when police arrested a man carrying an Israeli flag in Sydney during protests supporting Palestine—allegedly for his own safety. Offensive references to Jewish people were made at the same protests, which to this day continue to be debated and forensically examined to find out what was actually said. Existing criminal laws that are meant to deal with things like the urging of violence against groups defined by race or religion in division 80 of the Criminal Code were not used. Hence, antisemitic sentiment was allowed to fester. Through the Prime Minister's actions—or, conversely, inactions—the Prime Minister 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.

Because of this Prime Minister's inaction, we are now experiencing acts of outright terrorism—the firebombing of cars and targeting of homes, childcare centres and synagogues, including the horrific attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in December. Most recent was the finding of a caravan packed with explosives and an alleged antisemitic plot to attack several Jewish targets. In Australia in 2025, who on earth would have thought this could be. This is now a clear campaign of terror and is not something I would ever have imagined happening in our lucky country, a place where, for generations, migrants have come across the seas to find safety, opportunity and a chance to live a better life. This is not the Australia we know and love. Attacks on Jewish Australians are attacks on our way of life—attacks on every Australian. Attacking people because of their Jewish faith or ancestry is un-Australian. Under Labor, the Jewish community now feels under siege and abandoned.

This abandonment traces back not only to the failure of the Prime Minister and his government to take decisive action but also to the diplomatic abandonment of Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. This government has overturned a decades-long bipartisan position on Israel in our foreign policy, as evidenced by voting patterns at the United Nations. On the international stage, Australia appeared to reward Hamas's terrorist attacks. Diplomatic abandonment has been coupled with a weak stance on border security, including the provision of visas to thousands of people from Gaza, a war zone ruled by a listed terrorist organisation, many without proper security checks. People on visas who sympathise with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah should be deported today. Those fleeing Gaza or Lebanon should be turned back if they are terrorist sympathisers. They do not have a place in this country.

This failure of decisive action is a leader in crisis. In the application of existing laws, the diplomatic abandonment of Israel and weak stance on border security all can only be for perceived local political gain. The Albanese government is more concerned with winning votes in Western Sydney and appeasing voters in inner-city electorates than with ensuring the protection of Jewish people in Australia and maintaining our values and way of life. If you might forgive a brief digression, we see the same callous political games played with regional Australians. To save their seats in inner cities from the Greens, Labor is railroading regional communities with a radical rollout of wind turbines, solar panels and 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines for a political target. My point is that this Prime Minister lacks the leadership to govern for all Australians and act in the national interest.

Antisemitism is inconsistent with Australian values and unthinkable in modern Australia. Australia must reject antisemitism as it must reject the persecution of any group on the basis of religion or race. Jewish people have been persecuted persistently over history, and the recent 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 2025 reminds us of the horrors of the Holocaust with deaths of some six million Jews—a circumstance that all agree must never be repeated.

Former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard told a Sky News documentary earlier this year:

Many of the anti-Israel demonstrations have been caused by a distortion of history … It's a misunderstanding about how Israel came into existence. It's a misunderstanding about the nature of the conflict … And because of that, I think particularly young people are developing views about this which are unbalanced and really not informed by the history in any way.

Ms Gillard went on to say, poignantly:

The Holocaust, of course, teaches us where antisemitism leads if it's not confronted. That is the history of Germany before the war. It didn't happen all at once … These things happened step at a time. So given we've seen that history, we're in a position when we see the first few steps to say: 'No. No more.' Let's start combating that now rather than watch this history just play out.

Bearing that in mind, what sort of lifestyle should Jewish Australians and those of any other religious or cultural group expect? Rights and freedoms for all individuals; freedom of thought, worship, speech and association; the rule of law, safety, justice; and equality of opportunity, reward for effort and a fair go—at least, that's what the coalition believes in. Yet Labor's inaction is tearing our social cohesion apart. Antisemitism is like a wound that festers within communities. Without appropriate treatment it grows and causes destruction of the surrounding tissue, eroding community connections, relationships, and values and pitting neighbours against each other.

While people in Mallee, my electorate, might think this is an urban issue, the reality is that I've been made aware of antisemitism in my own electorate. This is an issue not only in inner-city areas, where there are many Jewish people living in close proximity to each other, but also in rural and regional communities. In small rural and regional communities people often know each other and rely heavily on their social networks and connections, making festering antisemitism even more volatile. Jewish people in Mallee tell me they don't feel safe due to open antisemitism in the Australian community, including the display of blatantly antisemitic propaganda in public spaces within my rural and regional electorate. An Italian migrant complained to me recently that his family came to Australia in the 1950s and accepted Australian values, so why can't newer arrivals? The ability to understand and subscribe to Australian values is essential for social cohesion and maintaining our way of life.

I reiterate the concern expressed by Victoria Police about rising antisemitism in Victoria. The Victorian Chief Commissioner recently articulated this:

We've seen a significant rise in antisemitism … It remains our biggest concern.

Commissioner Patton said that, since the October 7 attack, more than 160 antisemitic incidents have been reported in Victoria. Accordingly, an increased police presence is now being deployed in Melbourne. Unfortunately, it does not seem this will extend to the regions.

Evil is always present, gently bubbling beneath the surface, and strong action must be taken to ensure it doesn't start to simmer, let alone boil. To further illustrate the fact that antisemitism is not just an issue in the cities, I highlight an instance of blatant public activity by a white supremacist group in Mallee in 2021. A group of about 30 men were seen performing Nazi salutes and chanting slogans such as 'white power' and 'heil Hitler' while camping and hiking in a national park—the mind boggles.

This bill is intended to help mitigate some of the government's failures. It modifies the existing offences in division 80 of the Criminal Code that should have been used to stop the spark of antisemitism in the first place. The existing offences in division 80 of the Criminal Code make it an offence to urge violence against individuals or groups on the basis of race, religion and the like. They make it an offence to advocate terrorism or genocide. For months, the coalition has been calling for the existing laws to be used. We have been saying that the existing offences should be tested and those preaching antisemitism should be put before a court. Why hasn't this happened?

Regardless, the changes made by these laws as introduced are welcome. I only hope they will be enough to start to stem the tide. Inaction is no longer acceptable. The scourge of antisemitism in this country must be stopped.

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