Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

Eighty-five years ago, the world learned a terrible lesson about what happens when hatred is ignored. In 1938 the streets of Germany and Austria were littered with the broken glass of Jewish businesses, synagogues were burned as fire brigades stood idly by, and the first violent blows of what would become the Holocaust were struck. It was not sudden; the signs had been there for years, but the world had looked away. We vowed it would never happen again, yet here we are.

In recent months, Australians have watched in disbelief as Jewish schools have been graffitied, a synagogue and a childcare centre have been set alight, homes and businesses have been vandalised and antisemitic threats have escalated to outright violence. These are not isolated incidents; they are part of a disturbing pattern, one that history has shown us before.

On 30 January, a Jewish school in Sydney was defaced with antisemitic graffiti. It was the first day of school, and Jewish children had to walk past messages of hatred—a modern echo of Nazi Germany, where Jewish businesses were marked and defaced to warn others to stay away. We all remember the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue late last year. It was a haunting parallel to Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when, in 1938, synagogues across Germany were set alight while authorities turned a blind eye. Just last week, it became known that a caravan packed full of explosives—along with a note to 'kill the Jews' and the address of a nearby synagogue—had been uncovered by police as early as 19 January. On multiple occasions, cars belonging to Jewish Australians have been torched, homes have been marked with threats, and swastikas—symbols of a genocide that should have been left behind in history—have been scrawled across Australian neighbourhoods. These are not just criminal acts. They are premeditated attempts to instil fear—or, worse, to cause severe harm—in a community that has already suffered so much. This crisis hit home—quite literally—this past weekend in Perth. In the quiet suburb of Dalkeith, a family woke to find their front wall defaced with a swastika and vile antisemitic slurs. It was a chilling reminder that this hatred is not at a distance; it is here in our own streets, amongst our own neighbourhoods.

It is an undeniable fact that we are witnessing the normalisation of antisemitic hate in Australia, and, if history has taught us anything, it is that indifference allows evil to flourish. What does it say about our nation when Jewish Australians no longer feel safe in their own homes, in their own schools or in their own places of worship? We also know where this path leads. The lead-up to the Holocaust was not just about violence; it was about the gradual erosion of protections, the normalisation of Jew hatred and the silence of leaders who should have spoken out. First, Jews were blamed for economic downturns. Today we see the resurgence of conspiracy theories about Jewish influence in business and politics. Two weeks ago, at the Queensland University of Technology, an antiracism symposium, an event supposedly dedicated to tolerance, became a platform for overt antisemitism. The event featured a grotesque caricature labelled 'Dutton's Jew' which portrayed Jewish coalition supporters as racist villains. This was not a crude misstep or a bad attempt at satire; it was a calculated effort to stigmatise Jewish Australians who hold certain political views.

Despite incidents like this, excuses remain abundant. We hear arguments that antisemitism is complicated, that graffiti and vandalism are just protests and that hatred towards Jews is somehow different from all other forms of hatred. For decades, Australia stood united in its rejection of antisemitism. Governments of all stripes condemned hatred without hesitation, ensuring our Jewish communities felt secure and protected. Yet today we have seen a concerning shift, one where political opportunism has been allowed to cloud moral clarity.

The Albanese government's inconsistent and at times tepid response to rising antisemitism has only emboldened extremists. When members of the government fail to unequivocally condemn antisemitism, or engage in moral relativism, they send a dangerous message—that this is a debate rather than a clear-cut issue of right and wrong. We saw this when Labor members failed to call out antisemitism in their own ranks. We saw this when the government hesitated to support a full adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. We saw this when Labor chose political gamesmanship over moral leadership, delaying a strong bipartisan motion condemning antisemitic attacks in Australia. This should not be a partisan issue. The rejection of antisemitism should be a cause that unites us, not divides us. The safety of Jewish Australians should never be subject to political calculations. If we are to be serious about combatting this rising wave of hatred, it requires true bipartisanship and a return to principled leadership that puts national unity before political advantage.

Of course, antisemitism does not exist in a vacuum. It is never just a problem for the Jewish community. It is a national problem. When antisemitism rises unchecked, history shows that it is soon followed by wider social decay. Antisemitism thrives in societies where courage is absent, leadership is weak and animosity is indulged. We cannot afford to be weak. We must be clear. The time for vague condemnations has passed. Jewish Australians do not need sympathy; they need action. This means full enforcement of hate crime laws with no excuses; stronger security measures for Jewish institutions, including synagogues, schools and community centres; zero tolerance for antisemitism in our universities, where Jewish students are facing growing hostility; firm political leadership; and refusing to legitimise organisations and figures that glorify antisemitic violence.

Let me also be clear about this: antisemitism in Australia is not only coming from fringe extremists; it is now coming from mainstream voices, from those who should know better, from elected officials who tolerate hatred in their own ranks. It is being excused, rationalised and dismissed by those who refuse to see antisemitism for what it is—a dangerous, insidious cancer that threatens not only the Jewish community but the very fabric of our democracy.

At last month's International Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Perth, Judith Lawrence, the Director of the Holocaust Institute of WA, posed a question that should haunt us all: how was the Holocaust humanly possible? The answer was sobering. The Holocaust was not the product of one moment nor of one man. It was the result of a world that allowed hatred to take root unchecked until it reached its most horrific expression. It started small. Words, propaganda, exclusion, discrimination, violence, extermination—it was gradual until it was sudden. This is the warning history gives us, and today we see those same warning signs all around us. We failed to heed them in the 1930s. We failed again in the 1940s, when nations like our own turned away Jewish refugees fleeing genocide. Let us not fail again. We must act swiftly and without hesitation. The history books will record whether we stood up or whether we stood by. Australia—its government, its leaders, its everyday citizens—must now choose wisely.