|
January 23, 2025
One of the nation’s most prominent business leaders has urged Australians to use the national day to rediscover civility and our larrikin sense of humour, with Western Sydney chancellor Jennifer Westacott saying the nation is losing its ability to engage in a contest of ideas.
As anti-Australia Day and anti-Israel activists were set to unite at the weekend and try to hijack January 26 celebrations, Professor Westacott said Australians were getting to a point where they could not debate without being “shot down or labelled”, arguing that this transformation “threatens our way of life”.
Professor Westacott said Australia Day was the occasion to take collective action to “prevent this (anti-Semitic) hatred from spreading further” as the nation reflected on what it meant to be Australian.
“Our country seems to have lost the plot on being civil. We seem to have lost our sense of humour and our larrikin streak,” Professor Westacott writes in The Australian on Friday.
“We seem to have lost the capacity to have a laugh at ourselves and never take ourselves too seriously, which has always been something I have adored about Australia.”
Her warnings come as pro-Palestinian activists prepare to join forces with Invasion Day protesters in cities around the country to oppose the national day, with as many as 30,000 demonstrators estimated to march through Melbourne on Sunday.
Businesses and organisers of the Australian Open have been warned about potential disruption in the city’s CBD, with a pro-Australia Day rally also planned to take place outside the tennis tournament at Melbourne Park.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan urged activists seeking to stir trouble on Australia Day, which protesters oppose because it celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, to steer clear of the grand slam, labelling it “disgusting”.
“To target the Australian Open would be a disgusting act,” she said. “That would really break the patience of the public.”
With the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz following the national day, the Albanese government has come under fire from the Jewish community for sending Penny Wong to represent Australia at the event in Poland.
A petition arguing that the Foreign Minister was not the “right person to represent us” at the sombre anniversary had gained almost 8500 signatory, amid accusations Labor has allowed anti-Jewish sentiment to flourish in Australia and social cohesion to dissolve.
“Throughout her tenure, she has not shown the level of understanding, empathy or compassion that our community expects and deserves, especially during these troubling times where anti-Semitism is on the rise in Australia,” the petition says.
“This evident lack of sensitivity undermines her capability to duly represent our interests and preserve the dignity of the occasion.”
As social tensions continue to flare over January 26 and the Middle East conflict, Professor Westacott reflected on the spread of anti-Semitism at universities after pro-Palestinian encampments infiltrated campuses across the country last year.
She said universities must be at the “forefront” and take actions to combat anti-Semitism, arguing that the sector must never “give legitimacy to anti-Semitism”.
“We must be places of enlightenment, knowledge, social and economic progress, social cohesion, and tolerance, not places of division and hatred,” Professor Westacott writes.
“Universities have to return to their role as institutions that promote better societies.
“But universities can only do so much – it is time for all of us to stand up and guard against our society passively and incrementally acquiescing to this terrible force.”
The nation has been gripped by a spate of anti-Semitic arson and graffiti attacks targeting a childcare centre, synagogues and private homes, which prompted Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw to reveal he was “looking into” whether the crimes were being funded overseas.
Police suspect payments for some perpetrators of recent attacks may have been facilitated by organised crime gangs based in Australia, with the rise in violence likely to be homegrown. It is believed to be unlikely any payments have come from an actor on behalf of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah or a domestic terror group, although this is not being ruled out.
The move was slammed by the Coalition for striking fear into the heart of the Jewish community while providing little information to the public about the scope of the threat.
Former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo has criticised Labor for removing the AFP from the portfolio he once oversaw, arguing that a more co-ordinated approach was needed to combat a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
Mr Pezzullo said the crisis called for a “type of multi-agency campaign” similar to Operation Sovereign Borders, with a “single line of command and accountability, reporting to the minister for home affairs”.
“Machinery of government matters, especially when it comes to dealing with crises. This is a crisis,” Mr Pezzullo said.
“The Minister for Home Affairs is responsible for social cohesion and public safety at the commonwealth level. He needs to be given all of the tools that were previously available, before the machinery changes of 2022.”
The political furore over social cohesion escalated on Wednesday when Anthony Albanese’s hand-picked Islamophobia envoy, Aftab Malik, accused the Coalition of downplaying Islamophobia.
Mr Malik said the threat to Australian Muslims cannot be ignored because “we haven’t seen mosques torched or cars vandalised”, citing the 932 reports of Islamophobia since the October 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said while it was true that targeting Muslim Australians was just as “morally abhorrent as targeting a Jewish Australians”, he rejected the claim that the level of Islamophobia was on par with anti-Semitism currently. “And if it ever is the case that they’re targeting Muslim Australians in that same way, I’ll be the first and the loudest to call it out and to demand a strong response to it.
“For an Albanese government political appointee to try and downplay the seriousness of the anti-Semitic domestic terrorism crisis we have, I think is a travesty,” he told 2GB radio.
“And I think Tony Burke, the Minister for Home Affairs, should explain whether he agrees with the hand-picked Islamophobia commissioner that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are equally serious problems in our country right now.”
