Australia’s peak national Jewish organ­isa­tion has welcomed the grant of an addi­tion­al $22 million for Jewish community security in the 2026 Federal Budget.

“The extra funds will greatly assist our community in meeting the massively-increased security expendit­ure which Jewish community organ­isa­tions have been obliged to incur to address unpre­ced­en­ted threat levels”, said Daniel Aghion KC, the President of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ), which will be the recipient of the grant and the conduit for alloc­at­ing the funds to Jewish communal organ­isa­tions.

“The addi­tion­al funding will be made available to the ECAJ over the next three years and will be in addition to the three-year $102 million in security funding that was already announced in December.”

“The loss of so many lives on December 14 and the trauma inflicted on the community fun­da­ment­ally altered our security envir­on­ment. At this stage, the level, duration, and intensity of security services that will be required by the Jewish community over the coming years cannot be quan­ti­fied with certainty.

“However, a total of $124 million in security funding over three years will undoubtedly go a long way, and we thank the gov­ern­ment for acceding to our request and acting on our need.”

“Of course, we would prefer to live in an Australia where we did not need this sort of assist­ance. The over­whelm­ing sentiment in the Jewish community is that we would prefer to live without antisemitism and without the security funding it has neces­sit­ated.

“Based on the truly dis­tress­ing evidence which has emerged from the Royal Com­mis­sion into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, it is clear that antisemitism needs to be attacked on a broad front by both gov­ern­ment and major sectors of our society. Only then will it be possible to live in an Australia where there are no targeted com­munit­ies and security funding programs can be a thing of the past”.