Labor to move quickly on special envoy's plan to combat antisemitism

The Guardian

09-07-2025

The federal government will move quickly to adopt new recommendations from the special envoy to combat antisemitism, with a suite of measures expected to include education and online safety in response to the arson attack at a Melbourne synagogue.
Jillian Segal is expected to appear alongside Anthony Albanese at an event on Thursday to present recommendations urging the government to take stronger action against abuse toward Jewish Australians.
A package of suggestions, developed by Segal in consultation with Jewish community organisations, is likely to include issues around online abuse and better education for children around the modern face of antisemitism, going beyond historical lessons about the Holocaust.
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The government may not commit to implementing all of Segal's advice, but some Labor sources believe some suggestions – which were being finalised and circulated on Wednesday – may be adopted quickly. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the government was working on a major response.
'We've got an important piece of work coming, but I don't want to pre-empt that,' he said on Wednesday.
'Obviously we are incredibly concerned about antisemitism in our society, and some of these recent attacks are disgusting.'
Albanese said on Tuesday that he would have 'more to say … in coming days' on his government's response to the fire set at the East Melbourne synagogue last Friday. He pushed back on calls for a national cabinet meeting, saying the government had met requests from the Jewish community 'expeditiously'.
Some Jewish community leaders have been eager for the government to commit to a more comprehensive package of structural changes, such as to education and policing, rather than simply putting more funds into security and CCTV. The Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, visited the Melbourne synagogue on Tuesday and said she believed police authorities should meet to discuss a more coordinated response.
Writing in the Guardian, the Labor MP Josh Burns, a member of the Jewish community, said: 'The government that I am a part of needs to be open to doing more, but we can't legislate away bigotry and hatred.
'It is not up to those outside the Jewish community to tell us what is and isn't antisemitism, or to define what makes us feel unsafe.'
Spokespeople for Segal and Albanese declined to comment ahead of the release of the envoy's advice. But sources inside Labor and the Jewish community said they expected at least some of Segal's recommendations would be influenced by a 15-point plan set out by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) in February.
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That plan, which was endorsed in full by the former opposition leader Peter Dutton earlier this year, and again by Ley on Tuesday, includes a call for the federal government to declare antisemitism a national emergency.
That would involve establishing a joint counter-terror taskforce; uniform policing guidelines and training on antisemitism; greater focus in the national education curriculum and a public awareness campaign; a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at universities; banning student encampments and cracking down on campus protests.
Some more complicated proposals from the ECAJ's list include revoking the charity status and funding of charities if they promote racism or antisemitism, amending the Migration Act to provide for antisemitic conduct to be grounds for visa refusal, conditioning government grants to festivals and artists on their not promoting racism, and regulating social media algorithms.
Jewish community and government sources said they did not expect all those proposals would be put forward, or accepted by the commonwealth. Government sources said they were open to ideas, but that while some of the ECAJ proposals could be adopted, not all of them would be feasible.
The education minister, Jason Clare, has already signalled he was open to updating school curriculums. Several Labor sources, and one leading Jewish community group, said they were keen to see schools teach about modern issues of antisemitism, not just focus on the Holocaust.
The ECAJ co-chief executive, Alex Ryvchin, said he was eager to see the government's response.