As the elected rep­res­ent­at­ive body and voice of the of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community, the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry is determ­ined to ensure that our community is engaged in the political process and informed about the policies and views of the main parties con­test­ing the 2016 federal election.

To this end, we asked the Coalition, the Aus­trali­an Labor Party, the Aus­trali­an Greens, the Jacqui Lambie Network and the Nick Xenophon Team to answer specific questions about issues of special concern to the Aus­trali­an Jewish community, including matters relating to our physical security and our freedom to practice our faith, and on Australia-Israel relations and the Israel-Palestini­an conflict.

The complete responses of each party can be accessed via our website, together with a com­par­at­ive Table of key extracts from each party’s answers.

We wish to convey our appre­ci­ation to each of the parties for their co-operation and com­pre­hens­ive responses, which will serve to inform both our community and the broader public ahead of the forth­com­ing election. We encourage everyone to read all of the responses carefully and to make their own assess­ments. The following obser­va­tions are intended to highlight points which we believe will be of par­tic­u­lar interest to members of the Jewish community.

Communal security

At present, on the basis of security assess­ments by law enforce­ment agencies, the Com­mon­wealth Gov­ern­ment provides direct assist­ance to Jewish and other religious schools to meet part of their security costs. No financial assist­ance is provided for other vul­ner­able facil­it­ies including community centres, museums and syn­agogues. In the case of non-school Jewish insti­tu­tions, such costs are met entirely by the Jewish community itself.
Both the Coalition and Labor have now pledged to extend the category of communal facil­it­ies which are eligible for security funding assist­ance.

The Coalition has announced the estab­lish­ment of a $40 million Safer Com­munit­ies Fund, part of which will in part be directed to “community organ­isa­tions that are facing security risks asso­ci­ated with racial or religious intol­er­ance.”

Labor has also acknow­ledged the need to “support necessary improve­ment to security in the wider community” and has announced that it will commit $500,000 to “sig­ni­fic­antly upgrade security at the Beth Weizmann Community Centre in Melbourne.

The Jacqui Lambie Network supports extending security assist­ance to Jewish communal facil­it­ies.

The Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team have both indicated that they would support com­mon­wealth funding for communal facil­it­ies where the merits of doing so have been estab­lished.

Education

The Coalition, Labor and the Greens have all promised to increase funding for inde­pend­ent schools, including Jewish schools.

Labor and the Greens are in favour of full imple­ment­a­tion of the Gonski reforms.

Nick Xenophon and Jacqui Lambie would maintain current levels of funding for inde­pend­ent schools, including Jewish schools.

Racial Vili­fic­a­tion

All parties have stated they do not support repeal or amendment of sections 18C and 18D of the Racial Dis­crim­in­a­tion Act.

Labor and the Greens have affirmed their steadfast support for the Racial Dis­crim­in­a­tion Act and high­lighted their role in opposing previous attempts to repeal or weaken sections 18C and 18D.

Israel

Palestini­an Statehood
The Coalition and Jacqui Lambie Network have expressly rejected recog­ni­tion of a Palestini­an State other than in the context of a nego­ti­ated peace agreement with Israel.
Labor has confirmed that, as resolved at its 2015 National Con­fer­ence, the Party would consider recog­nising a Palestini­an state if the next round of peace nego­ti­ations fails to yield a two-state solution.
Nick Xenophon has reit­er­ated his support for a two-state solution but has not stated whether he supports recog­nising a Palestini­an state other than as a con­sequence of a nego­ti­ated peace agreement.
The Greens recognise a Palestini­an state.

Australia-Israel relations
Every party with the exception of the Greens expli­citly supports greater bilateral relations between Israel and Australia at all levels, including gov­ern­ment, business, cultural, academic and people-to-people. The Greens have stated that any bilateral relations should promote peace, democracy, human rights and other values and that Australia’s rela­tion­ship with Israel should reflect these prin­ciples.

BDS
BDS is not the policy of any political party in Australia.
Nick Xenophon and Jacqui Lambie have both stated that they do not support BDS.
The Greens have affirmed that BDS is not the policy of the Aus­trali­an Greens.
Labor has force­fully repu­di­ated BDS, referring to prior con­sist­ent state­ments to this effect, and has also branded BDS as “harming Palestini­an people eco­nom­ic­ally” and “unhelpful to the Middle East peace process.”
The Coalition states that BDS is a “blatantly antisemitic campaign” and has denounced those who support it “… including uni­ver­sity academics, trade unions, members of the Labor Party, the Greens and Local Gov­ern­ment.”
The Coalition and the Jacqui Lambie Network have also stated that in addition to opposing BDS they are opposed to MPs providing political or other support for indi­vidu­als or organ­isa­tions which promote BDS.

Religious Freedom

Shechita
The Greens have not stated whether they are in favour of main­tain­ing existing laws con­cern­ing religious slaughter of animals in Australia and have called for “greater account­ab­il­ity and trans­par­ency in all Aus­trali­an abattoirs”.
All other parties have confirmed that they are in favour of main­tain­ing existing laws relating to kosher slaughter.

Freedom of Con­science
All parties are in favour of religious ministers retaining the right to decide for them­selves whether they wish to solemnise any marriage.
The Greens support the repeal of religious exemp­tions to anti-dis­crim­in­a­tion laws.

Antisemitism

The Coalition, Labor and the Jacqui Lambie Network accept the Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Alliance (IHRA)-endorsed defin­i­tion of antisemitism, which also recog­nises antisemitism in the context of extreme attacks on the State of Israel, involving for example, Holocaust inversion or the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determ­in­a­tion.
Nick Xenophon and the Greens have issued general con­dem­na­tions of antisemitism without adopting the IHRA-endorsed defin­i­tion.