Address by Senator James Paterson (Liberal, Victoria) to the ECAJ Annual General Meeting on 24 November 2024.

Transcript

Thank you very much for the invi­ta­tion to be here today.

To Peter and Alex and so many oth­er lead­ers of the com­mu­ni­ty in the room – thank you for your courage and strength over the last year.

I want to start with an apol­o­gy.

What the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty has been asked to endure over the last year is sim­ply not good enough. No com­mu­ni­ty deserves this and espe­cial­ly not the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, who have enriched every facet of life in Aus­tralia.

The ram­pant anti-semi­tism on our streets, in our schools and uni­ver­si­ties, and online is a stain on our great coun­try. And it has left the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty feel­ing less safe and less wel­come than at any time in liv­ing mem­o­ry.

I am deeply trou­bled by the num­ber of Jews who have told me they are con­tem­plat­ing mov­ing to Israel because they think they may feel safer in a coun­try under attack from three ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions and a geno­ci­dal nation state than they do in Mel­bourne or Syd­ney.

But I under­stand it.

Because at times over the last year I have not recog­nised our coun­try. The dis­tress­ing events in Wool­lahra in Syd­ney on Wednes­day night are just the most recent and most dis­turb­ing among many the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty has suf­fered.

Promi­nent Aus­tralians, includ­ing elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, have said the most breath­tak­ing­ly igno­rant and objec­tion­able things.

Take the NSW Greens MP Jen­ny Leong. Her crude and grotesque use of the anti-semit­ic trope about Jews and ten­ta­cles attract­ed under­stand­able revul­sion. But even more reveal­ing and insid­i­ous was her accu­sa­tion that Jews “infil­trate” com­mu­ni­ty groups and tac­ti­cal­ly join anti-racism and oth­er polit­i­cal cam­paigns as part of an under­hand attempt to increase their pow­er.

This was not a slip up. It was not a mis­take. It was a win­dow into how the Greens view the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, and the prej­u­dice they are will­ing to tol­er­ate. And this is an MP who has in her social media bios “remem­ber, don’t be racist” – per­haps as a reminder to her­self.

If any oth­er politi­cian made com­ments like this about any oth­er reli­gious or eth­nic com­mu­ni­ty it would right­ly be career end­ing. But not in the Greens, at least for vil­i­fy­ing the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

While not on the same lev­el, here in Vic­to­ria an inde­pen­dent MP who claims to rep­re­sent the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty called for a cease­fire in Decem­ber last year because of the con­se­quences of Israel’s actions for the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia.

This is warped and dan­ger­ous log­ic. No Jew in Mel­bourne should be held respon­si­ble for the deci­sions of any gov­ern­ment of Israel. And no oth­er com­mu­ni­ty would be held to that stan­dard by a fed­er­al mem­ber of par­lia­ment.

Has any­one ever called for a cease­fire in Ukraine because of the impact on the Russ­ian dias­po­ra in Aus­tralia? Of course not. We would all agree it would be absurd and unfair to hold a Russ­ian Aus­tralian respon­si­ble for the crimes of Vladimir Putin.

It is even more absurd to hold a Jew­ish Aus­tralian respon­si­ble for the dif­fi­cult choic­es Israel must make in a defen­sive war against a list­ed ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion after the worst mas­sacre of Jews since the Holo­caust. And yet that is exact­ly what has hap­pened in our coun­try over the last year.

We have even seen protests out­side a Syn­a­gogue not far from here dur­ing a Shab­bat ser­vice. It was so men­ac­ing the Shul had to be evac­u­at­ed on Police orders because of their con­cern for the safe­ty of its occu­pants.

I nev­er thought we would see scenes like this in Aus­tralia.

Nor would I have ever thought any Aus­tralian would think it is ok to waive the flag of a list­ed ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion on the streets of our major cities, let alone that they would do so week in week out for over a year with­out any con­se­quences.

That pro­tes­tors would not just mourn the deaths of ter­ror­ist lead­ers, but pub­licly pro­claim their loy­al­ty to them.

That a mob would over­take our icon­ic inter­na­tion­al land­mark, the Syd­ney Opera House, to ter­ri­fy the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

That our uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus­es would be occu­pied for weeks on end by extrem­ists who would also threat­en and men­ace Jew­ish stu­dents.

That our Jew­ish schools would be defaced with vile anti-semit­ic slurs.

That there would be seri­ous secu­ri­ty threats to Jew­ish child­care cen­tres and aged care homes neces­si­tat­ing around the clock secu­ri­ty.

That offices of fed­er­al mem­bers of par­lia­ment would be rou­tine­ly van­dalised with the sym­bols of list­ed ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions and even fire­bombed.

That the tar­get­ing sym­bol of the mil­i­tant wing of a list­ed ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion would be hung from the front of Par­lia­ment House and that the per­pe­tra­tors would receive a slap on the wrist.

That our war memo­ri­als would be defaced with hate­ful slo­gans about a dis­tant con­flict – and that some politi­cians would defend and excuse it.

That social media activists would con­struct fam­i­ly trees of Jew­ish phil­an­thropists to explain why boy­cotting their grand­kids busi­ness­es was the moral thing to do.

That arts and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions would pub­licly adver­tise they don’t take mon­ey from the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

That pri­vate infor­ma­tion of Jew­ish pro­fes­sion­als and artists would be pub­lished online in a cal­cu­lat­ed attempt to intim­i­date.

And when polit­i­cal lead­ers final­ly spoke out against it, I would nev­er have guessed how much equiv­o­ca­tion, false equiv­a­lence and pre­var­i­ca­tion we would see. We’ve seen hand-wring­ing in the face of an unprece­dent­ed anti-semi­tism cri­sis. The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty is the only com­mu­ni­ty whose vil­i­fi­ca­tion can nev­er be con­demned in iso­la­tion. It always has to be brack­et­ed with denun­ci­a­tions of racism against oth­er com­mu­ni­ties – regard­less of whether it has recent­ly occurred.

There is no oth­er form of racism we treat like this. If there is an instance of racism against Indige­nous Aus­tralians, for exam­ple, no polit­i­cal leader says “I con­demn anti-Indige­nous racism and anti-Asian racism.” All forms of racism should be called out when it occurs.

No one’s expe­ri­ence of racism needs to be bal­anced against racism faced by oth­er com­mu­ni­ties. It is not a con­test. Con­demn­ing racism against the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty takes noth­ing from any oth­er com­mu­ni­ty. And yet too often, that’s exact­ly the mes­sage weak polit­i­cal lead­ers have sent.

This false equiv­a­lence has been par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous because while all racism is equal­ly moral­ly wrong, it is not equal­ly preva­lent. As sta­tis­tics from Vic­to­ria Police and evi­dence from the Direc­tor Gen­er­al of ASIO have demon­strat­ed, anti-semi­tism has been far more pro­lif­ic than any oth­er form of hatred. That is a dis­turb­ing fact no leader should over­look, no mat­ter the polit­i­cal dis­com­fort it might cause.

Nor should we pre­tend that thin­ly veiled attacks on Zion­ists are any­thing oth­er than attacks on the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

When extrem­ists on the streets say “Zion­ists are not wel­come here” we know what they real­ly mean. I guess it is the­o­ret­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble to be an Anti-Zion­ist with­out being an Anti-Semi­te. But I am yet to meet this myth­i­cal per­son who wants to wipe the only Jew­ish state off the map and con­demn the Jews of Israel to dhim­mi­tude or worse, but who bears absolute­ly no ill-will in their hearts towards Jew­ish peo­ple.

I recent­ly vis­it­ed the Mel­bourne Holo­caust Muse­um. Two things moved me pro­found­ly. The first was the exhi­bi­tion of Kristall­nacht. It is a time in his­to­ry we teach young peo­ple about in the hope it is nev­er again repeat­ed. Yet in Ams­ter­dam this month we’ve wit­nessed scenes dis­turbing­ly rem­i­nis­cent of that dark time.

And we would be naïve if we think Aus­tralia is immune. We are not.

The sec­ond was exhi­bi­tions about right­eous gen­tiles who helped save Jews dur­ing the Holo­caust. I remem­ber learn­ing about them as a stu­dent, and think­ing it would nev­er be nec­es­sary for non-Jews to show that kind of courage again. While I think we are thank­ful­ly still a long way away from the 1930s, non-Jew­ish friends of the com­mu­ni­ty have nev­er been called upon since then like we are today.

And we must step up to the chal­lenge.

Of course, the extrem­ism unleashed in our coun­try since 7 Octo­ber is not only a prob­lem for the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. It is a prob­lem for all of us. Because pro­lif­ic anti-semi­tism is a warn­ing sign of a sick soci­ety. Through­out his­to­ry when­ev­er anti-semi­tism has reared its ugly head, trou­ble has fol­lowed. While anti-semi­tes might start with Jews, they will nev­er end there. By their actions these extrem­ists have revealed them­selves not just to be ene­mies of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, but civilised peo­ple every­where. You deserve bet­ter, and Aus­tralians expect bet­ter.

The trag­ic truth is that it didn’t have to be this way. We could have had a very dif­fer­ent year if, as a coun­try, we took a dif­fer­ent approach to the explo­sion of extrem­ism in our com­mu­ni­ty since 7 Octo­ber. We could have had ral­lies for peace with­out praise for ter­ror­ism. We could have had empa­thy for the heart­break­ing loss of inno­cent life with­out vil­i­fi­ca­tion. If, instead of weak­ness and impo­tence, we had strength and clar­i­ty.

A Coali­tion gov­ern­ment led by Peter Dut­ton would have han­dled this very dif­fer­ent­ly. And if we form gov­ern­ment at the next elec­tion, tack­ling the anti-semi­tism and extrem­ism cri­sis will be a top pri­or­i­ty. Because we recog­nise this as moral­ly abhor­rent and a threat to our nation­al secu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty.

So, what will we do?

First­ly, and most impor­tant­ly, we will show lead­er­ship.

There’s great moral pow­er and author­i­ty in the office of Prime Min­is­ter. It is past time it was used. No Aus­tralian will be in any doubt where the Prime Min­is­ter stands on anti-semi­tism if Peter Dut­ton occu­pies that office. There will be no hes­i­ta­tion, equiv­o­ca­tion or ambiva­lence when it comes to con­fronting extrem­ism.

Sec­ond, enforce the law.

Extrem­ists have been embold­ened in our coun­try since 7 Octo­ber because they do not fear the con­se­quences of their actions. Why would they? The law has been repeat­ed­ly and bla­tant­ly vio­lat­ed when it comes to incite­ment to vio­lence, sup­port for list­ed ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions, online harass­ment, hate sym­bols and much more. And yet today we can count on one hand the peo­ple charged but not con­vict­ed for any of these crimes.

Third, strength­en the law.

Our incite­ment pro­vi­sions are not fit for pur­pose. Doxxing has still not been crim­i­nalised. And if it proves too hard to pros­e­cute some­one for dis­play­ing a sym­bol of a list­ed ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion, that law will have to be fixed.

Fourth, use the pow­ers already avail­able to gov­ern­ment.

It is a priv­i­lege to live in Aus­tralia. No guest in our coun­try who vio­lates the char­ac­ter pro­vi­sions of the Migra­tion Act will be allowed to stay. No form of sup­port for ter­ror­ism – rhetor­i­cal or oth­er­wise – will be tol­er­at­ed. Their visas will be can­celled with­out hes­i­ta­tion or remorse.

Fifth, don’t make the prob­lems worse.

No one will be brought into our coun­try from a war­zone con­trolled by a ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion with­out prop­er checks. No hate preach­er or extrem­ist organ­i­sa­tion will be giv­en tax­pay­ers mon­ey for social cohe­sion. No UN body guilty of employ­ing ter­ror­ists will be sub­sidised by the Aus­tralian tax­pay­er.

Sixth, we will address the rot in our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions.

We will not allow anti-semi­tism to fes­ter on cam­pus unchecked. We will not allow our tax­pay­er fund­ed arts and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions to be hijacked. We will make clear we expect accu­rate and impar­tial report­ing from our pub­licly fund­ed broad­cast­ers.

Final­ly, we will always stand with Israel.

Because it is the right thing to do. And because let­ting extrem­ists dic­tate our for­eign pol­i­cy through polit­i­cal intim­i­da­tion is not in our nation­al inter­est. We will not – and I can’t believe I need to say this – ban for­mer Israeli min­is­ters from cen­trist gov­ern­ments from vis­it­ing Aus­tralia. Nor would we – and again I can’t believe this needs to be said – arrest the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed head of a friend­ly gov­ern­ment for the crime of defend­ing his coun­try. We will nev­er aban­don our ally in inter­na­tion­al forums like the Unit­ed Nations. We will nev­er con­cede impor­tant prin­ci­ples like the right to self-defence. We will nev­er reward ter­ror­ism by giv­ing in to their demands.

We will do this not only for the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, but for our coun­try.

Because a coun­try that is not safe for Jews is not safe for any­one.

And for as long as I am in pub­lic life, and what­ev­er posi­tion I hold, I will work every day until we fix this.

Thank you.