ECAJ statement on antisemitic content at Queensland University of Technology symposium.

The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry has expressed outrage at what it describes as an overtly antisemitic image that was displayed at a so-called “comedy event” at Queens­land Uni­ver­sity of Tech­no­logy on Wednesday 22 January 2025. Bizarrely, the display was presented as part of a so-called anti-racism symposium.

The image, con­sist­ing of a cari­ca­ture of a superhero comic figure, was labelled “Dutton’s Jew”. A list of supposed state­ments of belief are attrib­uted to the figure, some of which are grossly racist.

“The image is clearly intended to stig­mat­ise as evil and racist any Jewish person who might support the Coalition”, said ECAJ President Daniel Aghion KC. “It is ironic that such an obvious and dis­grace­ful racist trope has been used at an event that billed itself as an anti-racism symposium.”

“QUT’s lead­er­ship have much to answer for. We warned QUT in advance that this symposium was likely to be abused to promote a hateful and extremist agenda that would include antisemitic discourse. We also put them on notice that such behaviour would give further impetus to the spate of violent antisemitic incidents that have recently shocked and disgusted our country. QUT leaders responded with a com­bin­a­tion of aston­ish­ing ignorance, reckless indif­fer­ence to con­sequence, and the usual vacuous plat­it­udes about freedom of expres­sion.”

“We have forwarded details of the incident to the Chair of the Par­lia­ment­ary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is currently con­duct­ing an Inquiry into Antisemitism at Aus­trali­an uni­ver­sit­ies. We expect the Inquiry to require those respons­ible at QUT for allowing the event to proceed, to attend before the Committee and account for their actions.”

“A steady drip feed of events like these are slowly turning swathes of our uni­ver­sit­ies into pro­pa­ganda factories instead of places of learning. Freedom of expres­sion does not permit freedom to hate others. That is a simple and basic pro­pos­i­tion which the QUT lead­er­ship has failed to grasp. People will be forgiven for wondering how much intel­lec­tu­al depth and maturity they can expect from future QUT graduates and how much a QUT degree will be worth.”