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.

Anti­se­mit­ic con­tent dis­played at Queens­land Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy “anti-racism” sym­po­sium.

“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.”