Op-Ed
Published in the Herald Sun, 10 December 2024
The firebombing of the Adass Israel shul is more than an abhorrent act of anti-Semitism.
It is the culmination of 14 months of weakness by the Albanese government, which has not had the moral courage to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to Australia’s anti-Semitism crisis.
This includes on university campuses, where anti-Semitic hate and incitement has run rampant since October 7 last year, fuelled by a failure of leadership from the Prime Minister, his hapless Education Minister Jason Clare and some vice-chancellors.
Every Australian has a right to be safe in our country.
That includes Jewish Australians – students studying on campus, young children walking to school, traders running their businesses and families congregating at their local synagogue.
As announced yesterday, a Dutton Coalition government will take the strongest action to tackle anti-Semitism, confront extremism and make our country safe again for people of all faiths.
Our $32.5m security package for Jewish schools and synagogues will fund armed guards because this is sadly necessary, in contrast to Labor’s decision to restrict funding to unarmed guards only.
The Albanese government even failed to listen to its own Special Envoy to Combat AntiSemitism Jillian Segal, who backed the Coalition’s call for a judicial inquiry into campus anti-Semitism. Our universities have become a hotbed of hate.
It is shocking the government refused to act against the encampments and unlawful occupation of buildings, which caused chaos at the University of Melbourne, or the extremist members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who infiltrated the University of Sydney.
We know Labor has no interest in fixing campus anti-Semitism.
It commissioned a woefully inadequate university racism study, which won’t hand down its final report until after the federal election, and the report of a parliamentary inquiry has been pushed back to March 31 next year.
In the last sitting week of parliament, Labor even rejected our proposal for an anti-Semitism expert to work with the new university student ombudsman.
Under Peter Dutton’s leadership, the Coalition is determined to do whatever it takes to restore safety and cohesion to our community and to our country.