Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024. This is an issue—the challenge of antisemitism and how we respond to it as a nation—which is of great concern to many, many Australians. It is certainly an issue of very considerable concern in the electorate of Bradfield, which has the second-largest Jewish community of any federal electorate in New South Wales. It has four synagogues and a Jewish school, Masada College. Just last Friday, I was at a service at one of those four synagogues, North Shore Synagogue in Lindfield, at the invitation of Rabbi Lewin. I was joined by the mayor of Ku-ring-gai, Christine Kay; the state member for Davidson, Matt Cross; and the Liberal candidate for Bradfield, Gisele Kapterian. We were there along with other local dignitaries and leaders to express our concern for our local Jewish community and for the Jewish community of Australia. I know our local Jewish community, along with the Jewish community all across Australia, is rightly enormously concerned about the shocking upsurge in antisemitism that we have seen throughout Australia since the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.

Indeed I've attended numerous events in my electorate over the last year and a half in response to the enormous and entirely justifiable and understandable concerns of my Jewish constituents and, I might say, of the broader body of my constituents in Bradfield. In Bradfield, as around Australia, alarm and concern about the outbreak of antisemitism in Australia is certainly felt by Jewish Australians, but it is also felt by Australians of goodwill of all faiths and none, because it is a threat to social cohesion, it is a threat to social order and it is a threat to civilisation and to the values which underpin our modern Australian nation.

In October 2023, shortly after the appalling 7 October terrorist attack, I attended a moving service at Kehillat Masada synagogue in St Ives. Several North Shore synagogues came together at that service; it was physically held at Masada, as I mentioned. A significant number of dignitaries and leaders joined that event. It was an opportunity for the Bradfield Jewish community and the North Shore Jewish community to come together in mutual support and to express their support for the victims of the appalling terrorist attack, their loved ones, their families and indeed all who were rightly concerned about that appalling event.

In June last year, I spoke about antisemitism at a community forum at North Shore Synagogue. In August 2024, there was another event at the North Shore Synagogue with a focus on Jewish teenagers and young people. In November 2024, I spoke about antisemitism at Chabad North Shore, one of our other synagogues in St Ives. I spoke to a group of about 120 people and answered questions for quite a considerable period of time, which is evidence of the enormous degree of concern amongst our Jewish community in Bradfield, as there is enormous concern amongst Jews, their friends and supporters all across Australia. I visited the homes of Jewish constituents in St Ives, where I heard from several families—parents, teenagers and young adult children—about the antisemitism and bullying that those Jewish young people had been experiencing.

I rise, therefore, to speak on this bill with a very considerable interest in the issues it seeks to address and a clear recognition of its importance to social cohesion in our nation but also of its particular importance to the community that I represent in Bradfield. Sadly, we have seen from the present government a lamentable failure to engage in a determined and effective way with the rise of antisemitism. The fact is that Australia is one of the world's great multi-ethnic, multiracial, multicultural, multireligious nations. That is something in which we should all take enormous pride. Our success in this regard is built on core Australian values of mutual tolerance, respect and understanding. The shocking incidents of antisemitism that we have seen across Australia, and their violent manifestations, are entirely at odds with the values of mutual tolerance, respect and understanding which underpin Australia's success as a multi-ethnic, multiracial, multicultural and multireligious nation. These outbreaks of antisemitism are to be condemned for a whole host of reasons. One of the reasons they are to be condemned is because they are wholly at odds with the values which underpin our modern Australian nation. The sad fact is that the appalling terrorist attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 has energised and unleashed Hamas sympathisers in Australia. That is something to be absolutely regretted, condemned, and accurately recognised and described as entirely at odds with Australian values.

It is disappointing that we have not seen a stronger, clearer, more courageous response from the Prime Minister and from the Albanese Labor government. It is mystifying that the Prime Minister and other senior Labor figures find it impossible, evidently, to speak about antisemitism without, in the very same sentence, using the word 'Islamophobia'. Let's be clear: hatred directed at Jews must be condemned. Hatred directed at Muslims must be condemned. But they do not need to be endlessly linked in a rhetorical formula used by self-declared 'progressives' as some kind of designated form of moral equivalence. We need to recognise that there is a particular and serious problem with antisemitism, and we need to have a clear and strong policy response.

That being said, the changes made by the laws that are proposed before the House today are changes that the coalition welcomes and supports. We regret that it has taken so long to get to this point, given that the bill was introduced in the last sitting week in September 2024. We've made efforts to encourage the government to speed it up. It's good that we have this bill before us. There should be no doubt in the minds of anybody engaging in the kind of violent antisemitic conduct that we have seen, sadly, over the last year and a half, that they face serious jail time. The measures in this bill are strong but they are necessary. The scourge of antisemitism is something that we must be resolute in opposing. It is fundamentally at odds with the values which underpin the modern Australian nation, one of the world's great multiracial, multi-ethnic, multicultural and multireligious nations, and that is why strong action is necessary.

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