January 20, 2024
October 7 compensation wait 'perplexing'
Jewish leaders have raised major concerns over the Albanese government's "perplexing" delay in designating Hamas's October 7 horrors an overseas terrorist attack.
More than 100 days on, Australian Jews who lost loved ones when Hamas burst into Israel killing 1200 people are still not eligible for compensation through the Victim of Terrorism Overseas Payment under the Social Security Act due to the government's failure to classify the attack.
The government has previously formally designated more than 50 overseas terrorist acts, opening up compensation for Australians with family members killed in attacks such as September 11, the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris.
The special payment, which was established by Labor in 2012, enables Australian residents to access assistance payments of up to $75,000 if they are harmed or a close family member is killed as a result of an overseas terrorist attack.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, who noted that Anthony Albanese and his ministers had consistently referred to the attacks as terrorism, said the government's delay was "perplexing and difficult to comprehend".
"Hamas is a designated terrorist organisation. We can only hope any hold-up in the designation is bureaucratic because if these attacks were not terror, nothing is," he told the Saturday Herald Sun.
Zionism Victoria executive director Zeddy Lawrence also raised questions about the delay, saying "if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck".
"In the case of 7th October, though, there's no 'probably' about it," he said.
"If it looks like a terrorist attack, sounds like a terrorist attack and is carried out by a designated terrorist group then the brutal massacre of 1200 people . is without question a terrorist attack.
"And in not designating it as such, one has to wonder why the government is ducking the issue." The leaders' calls were backed by the Coalition, opposition spokesman James Paterson calling the delay a "shocking failure".
"And it's frankly very difficult to understand what is taking so long," he told Sky News on Friday. "This attack on the 7th of October happened more than three months ago.
"There are Australian families of those who lost their lives on 7th of October, in one case, three generations of a family on a single day who have still not been compensated, who can't access this scheme and are struggling to put their lives back together without the support that they're entitled to as Australian citizens." Senior minister Jason Clare on Friday said he expected that Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neill "was looking at that".
"But I wouldn't accept the argument that we're not providing support to Australians that are affected by what's happening on the other side of the world, we are," he told Sunrise on Friday. "More than $50m worth of support." It comes as Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who visited the Middle East this week, pledged an additional $21.5m in humanitarian assistance to Gaza and Palestinian refugee initiatives.
Senator Wong warned a meeting of Palestinian Authority officials that the funding boost must not be misused by terrorists following past reports of Hamas accessing funds from charities.
