ECAJ statement on the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee looking at options for examining antisemitism at Australian universities.

The Sen­ate Legal and Con­sti­tu­tion­al Affairs com­mit­tee has now pub­lished its report and has reject­ed the pro­posed judi­cial inquiry wide­ly sup­port­ed by the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and many oth­ers.

The com­mit­tee has instead rec­om­mend­ed that the Attor­ney Gen­er­al refer an inquiry to the Par­lia­men­tary Joint Com­mit­tee on Human Rights.

Like many in the com­mu­ni­ty we are shocked and dis­mayed by this rec­om­men­da­tion, an idea that was nev­er put to the Aus­tralian peo­ple, includ­ing the hun­dreds of peo­ple who made writ­ten sub­mis­sions to the Sen­ate inquiry, and those who gave oral tes­ti­mo­ny to it. They had no oppor­tu­ni­ty to express their views about this idea.

The rec­om­men­da­tion for yet anoth­er par­lia­men­tary inquiry goes against the over­whelm­ing weight of the writ­ten and oral evi­dence that was pre­sent­ed to the recent inquiry, and is con­trary to the find­ings and con­clu­sions expressed in the report itself.

The gov­ern­ment has not lis­tened to the hun­dreds of Jew­ish stu­dents, staff and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who told their sto­ries to the com­mit­tee and urged it to call for a judi­cial inquiry, or under­stood the depth of their con­cern.

An inquiry con­duct­ed by a senior judge would take the pol­i­tics out of the issue, where­as anoth­er par­lia­men­tary inquiry will put the pol­i­tics back in.

It is in the inter­ests of the whole coun­try, not just the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, to get to the whole truth about the nature and extent of anti­semitism at Aus­tralian uni­ver­si­ties.

The Par­lia­men­tary Joint Com­mit­tee on Human Rights sim­ply does not have the remit or the com­pul­sive pow­er to deal with the issue more broad­ly.

The pres­ence of a Greens and for­mer Greens sen­a­tor will also raise trust issues and may deter Jew­ish stu­dents and staff mem­bers from com­ing for­ward a sec­ond time.

We will con­tin­ue to press the gov­ern­ment to estab­lish a full judi­cial inquiry and to advo­cate for much need­ed change to address anti­semitism at our uni­ver­si­ties.