Antinuclear

Call on Labor Government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Philip White Adelaide FoE Notes June 7, 2026, https://adelaidefoe.org/call-on-labor-government-to-sign-and-ratify-the-treaty-on-the-tpnw/

In March, Friends of the Earth Adelaide sent a letter to Prime Minister Albanese calling for the government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

At the end of May we followed up with a letter to several other (mostly South Australian) Labor politicians. We are hoping to bring pressure on the government in the lead up to the ALP National Conference. The Conference will be held from 23rd to 25th July 2026.

We wrote to Defence Minister Richard Marles, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong, Environment Minister Murray Watt, Senator Karen Grogan, Senator Don Farrell, Health Minister Mark Butler, Steve Georganas MP, Tony Zappia MP, Claire Clutterham MP, Senator Charlotte Walker and Senator Marielle Smith.

It has long been ALP policy to sign and ratify the TPNW, but, even though it has been in power since 2022, it is yet to do so.

We encourage our supporters to write before the ALP National Conference to politicians (and any other delegates that you know) requesting them to support the TPNW.

List of Senators – https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Senators/Senators_photos?party=287

List of Members of the House of Representatives – https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members/Members_Photos?party=287

Refer also to the website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)- https://icanw.org.au/

Philip White, Convenor

June 11, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Greens warn nuclear submarines deal risks war with China as Albanese says Aukus ‘full-steam ahead’

David Shoebridge says Australia could become embroiled in a US war with China if purchase of Virginia-class attack submarines proceeds

Dan Jervis-Bardy, 7 June 26, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/07/greens-warn-nuclear-submarines-deal-risks-war-with-china-as-albanese-says-aukus-full-steam-ahead

Anthony Albanese has reiterated that Aukus is “full-steam ahead” after the Greens renewed calls to cancel the nuclear-powered submarines deal, which the minor party warned could draw Australia into a potential US war with China.

Debate over the security pact has resurfaced after the announcement that Australia would buy secondhand Virginia-class submarines from the US, rather than a mix of old and new vessels.

The Greens have seized on the development to re-prosecute the case for the government to abandon the multi-decade, $368bn agreement.

Appearing on ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, the Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said the focus of Australia’s military assets should be on defending the nation’s borders.

He suggested that could be done with conventional submarines and other weapons, rejecting the need for capabilities designed to operate “thousands of thousands of kilometres from our shore” – such as the nuclear-powered vessels.

Shoebridge said buying the Virginia-class submarines would make Australia an “interoperable” part of the US military, drawing the country into a potential conflict with China.

“Nuclear submarines are pretty much a disaster on every front,” he said.

“Why are we inviting ourselves to a US war with China by buying this weapons platforms and making our defence an interoperable part of the US?”

Shoebridge said the greatest strategic threat facing the country was not China’s military buildup or disruptions to key shipping lanes.

Rather, it was the risk of Canberra losing its sovereignty to Washington, as he said occurred with the revised deal to send three secondhand submarines to Australia.

The government this week insisted it was always its preference to buy so-called “in-service” Virginia-class submarines from the US, saving money on acquisition, maintenance and training costs.

Shoebridge said there was a still a window of opportunity for Australia to dump Aukus and buy conventionally armed submarines from countries such as Japan, South Korea or Sweden without leaving a capability cap after the retirement of the Collins-class vessels.

He claimed the US was the world’s least-reliable supplier of submarines given the slow rate of production from its shipyards.

Shoebridge’s suggestion that Australia could acquire a different class of submarine appears to jar with the Greens’ own defence policy, which proposes to axe “unstrategic projects” including the Collins-class program.

Albanese brushed off Shoebridge’s criticisms when asked about them later on Sunday, declaring Aukus was “full-steam ahead”.

“We won’t be taking advice on defence from the Greens political party with respect,” the prime minister said at a press conference in Caloundra on the Queensland Sunshine Coast.

“What we’ll be doing is providing Australia with the defence assets that we need. Our alliance with the US is an important one but we promote peace and security in our region and the relationship with China is a very constructive one.”

The Aukus agreement – which also includes the UK – is expected to be on the agenda when the defence minister, Richard Marles, and the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, hold talks with their British counterparts next week.

Marles and Wong are scheduled to meet with the UK defence secretary, John Healey, and the UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper on Wednesday as part of a round of talks in Britain and Europe.

The Australian ministers will also sit down with their German counterparts for the first meeting of its kind since 2021.

Wong will also meet the French foreign affairs minister in Paris and Marles will hold talks with his Finnish counterpart during the trip.

“While geographically distant, Australia and Europe’s interests are increasingly interconnected which is why we must focus our partnerships on reinforcing collective deterrence,” Marles said.

“In complex and uncertain times, the United Kingdom remains a critical partner for Australia and we continue to strengthen and modernise our partnership including through the Aukus partnership.”

June 9, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Investigating the Foolish: The AUKUS Public Inquiry is Announced

The inquiry proposes to answer a number of salient if self-evident questions. Will Australia, for instance, ever receive the sought and undeservedly celebrated submarines? Where and how will the toxic medium to high-level nuclear waste be stored?  How many actual jobs will be created in Australia, and at what opportunity cost?

7 June 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/investigating-the-foolish-the-aukus-public-inquiry-is-announced/

Of the three countries involved in AUKUS, that most draining, useless and even pernicious of security pacts, Australia has been the only country indifferent, even scoffing, about the need for an inquiry into its merits. Unsurprisingly, both the US and UK inquiries have found much to merit the project – Australian taxpayer money has sluiced and soothed the submarine industrial base of both countries – but have also expressed concern about their respective production rates of nuclear-powered submarines.

While the first pillar of the agreement promises, with mighty emptiness, that the Royal Australia Navy will receive three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), with the possible opportunity to acquire a further two, the prospect of their timely arrival looks increasingly doubtful. The recent developments at the Shangri-La Dialogue held in Singapore that these will be hand-me-downs from the US Navy already suggests the lack of regard Australian personnel and their slavish representatives are held in. Add to this a joint as yet undesigned UK-Australian SSN design that will use US technology, the chances that a fleet of these expensive hulks finding their way into the hands of Australian sailors looks damnably remote.

With the Canberra mandarins and political governors insisting that no official inquiry be conducted into AUKUS, it has fallen to those keen on a public inquiry to take up the mantle. The crowd-founded AUKUS Public Inquiry, coordinated by the Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF), will be led by a number of commissioners, spearheaded by former federal environment minister and frontman for Midnight Oil Peter Garrett. Former MPs, retired military and naval officers (these include former chief of the Australian Defence Force Chris Barrie), strategists and academics, human rights lawyers and union leaders promise to feature in this inquiry into the unpardonably foolish.

In remarks made on launching the inquiry, Garret declared that AUKUS “was the most significant, and by far the most costly decision made in secret by an Australian government, tying us to two other sovereign governments, and taking out an extraordinary amount of taxpayers’ money on a proposition which has got a lot of distinct and very difficult complexities and potential problems lying up ahead.”

The inquiry proposes to answer a number of salient if self-evident questions. Will Australia, for instance, ever receive the sought and undeservedly celebrated submarines? Where and how will the toxic medium to high-level nuclear waste be stored? (Australia lacks a single facility suitable for that task.) How many actual jobs will be created in Australia, and at what opportunity cost? (The conservative estimate of AU$368 billion is a ruinous one when considering what other parts of the federal budget will suffer as a result.) Why does Australia find itself in a situation where it will potentially join a war with the United States against China, its largest trading partner? The two last questions go to the central soundness (or lack of it) regarding AUKUS: whether sovereignty will be jeopardised (a moot point: it already has been), and whether the pact will turn the country into a nuclear target.

Other subsidiary matters will also fall within the purview of the inquiry. Transferring nuclear technology in this manner not only sets a precedent of destabilising value but raises concerns about nuclear non-proliferation treaty commitments and the environmental costs arising from developing nuclear storage facilities. Governments in Australia have repeatedly failed to consult and engage local communities about such projects, which have usually stymied in failed negotiations and costly litigation. How the martial dictates of AUKUS risks corrupting the tertiary sector in terms of research and university institutions is also a worry, given the tentacular nature of the military-industrial-university complex seen in such countries as the United States. Money hungry university vice chancellors and their morally flabby inner circles can always be trusted to make their institutions and countries less secure if the price is right. Then comes that most relevant of considerations: “Were credible and less costly alternatives to AUKUS properly assessed before the decision was made in secret?”

Civil society groups have welcomed this long-awaited effort. “The AUKUS agreement was conceived in secret and continues to be shrouded in secrecy,” observed Rtd Army Major Cameron Leckie, spokesperson for the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN). “Australians deserve the truth about what they are paying for, what they are getting, and what risks this agreement carries for our sovereignty and security.”

In parliament, independent MP Allegra Spender raised a “Matter of Public Importance” demanding that the government “be transparent about the risks to the delivery of AUKUS and how Australia’s national and security interests will be protected especially in light of recent changes to contract terms.” There were also “emerging gaps in capability” arising from the Collins-class Life-of-Type Extension program, intended to supposedly drag out the deployment of boats beyond their retirement. Other parliamentarians, all independents, including Sophie Scamps, Dai Le, Zali Steggall, Nicolette Boele, Kate Chaney and Monique Ryan, also expressed similar reservations about AUKUS. Pithily, Ryan, who represents the Melbourne federal seat of Kooyong, called the crowdfunded independent inquiry into AUKUS “a national embarrassment” for the government: “it’s only a matter of time before we find ourselves crowdfunding for the submarines themselves.”

Even more heartily, there are rumblings of disquiet within the Australian Labor government about the pact. Former cabinet minister Ed Husic, whose career as a frontbencher was scrapped, if only temporarily, by the factional fanaticism of his own party, is demanding a fresh caucus vote on the agreement. “We are not going to get the deal that was promised,” Husic told Sky News. He suspected a straitjacketed deal were the submarines ever to arrive. “You know, you can almost imagine [the Americans] saying, ‘We give you these, you will do this with them’. And so there’s an active sovereignty question there.”

While his efforts to raise the issue on June 2 were dismissed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy with the usual nonsense that AUKUS was more than just a submarine agreement, the number of dissenters are growing. May their numbers burgeon sooner rather than later.

June 9, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Joe Hockey says he is nervous about AUKUS – and wants Albanese to cold-call Trump

Matthew Knott, May 26, 2026, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/joe-hockey-says-he-is-nervous-about-aukus-and-wants-albanese-to-cold-call-trump-20260526-p600oa.html

Former ambassador to Washington Joe Hockey says he is worried about the possibility the United States will not supply nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as promised under the AUKUS pact because of faltering American production rates.

The former treasurer also urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to make a habit of cold-calling US President Donald Trump to improve their relationship and influence his thinking on world affairs.

Under the AUKUS plan, the US is supposed to sell three Virginia-class attack submarines to Australia, starting from 2032.

But senior US navy officials have warned that US shipyards must start pumping out significantly more submarines to have any spare for Australia, raising the possibility of the defence force being left with a capability gap.

Hockey, who served as Australia’s top diplomat in Washington from 2016 to 2020, told the National Press Club that “for the first time, I’m a little nervous about the Virginias, and that’s after a few conversations on the Hill”.

The US, he said, “just has not got the production of the Virginia up to speed”.

Hockey’s remarks are notable because he runs a Washington-based lobbying firm that represents major defence companies and he has been a passionate champion of AUKUS.

His remarks differ from Richard Marles, Defence Minister, who told this masthead last week that there was “zero possibility” of AUKUS coming unstuck.

Asked whether there was a growing danger the sale of Virginia-class submarines could be delayed or pared back, Hockey said: “I think the risk has increased, and we need again to have a full court press on the ground in Washington.”

He said that “we’ve got to prove that we’re ready for the Virginias here and display the physical capability to house them and to support their presence here, not to give the Americans any hook not to deliver”.

Hockey did not join calls for Australia to develop a “plan B” for AUKUS, saying it was not like Albanese could “go down to Bunnings” and buy a fleet of alternative submarines.

Hockey singled out US Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg as a powerful official that Australia needed to court to ensure Trump’s vow that AUKUS is going “full steam ahead” is followed through.

“We’ve got to get political buy-in, more political buy-in, so that the people who are actually making the decisions on US procurement are keeping us at the top of the list,” he said.

Urging Australia to seek closer integration into US supply chains, Hockey said there was “no problem at a military-to-military or bureaucracy-to-bureaucracy level, it’s just a question of whether they can actually build the Virginias fast enough”.

Trump’s former acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, agreed with Hockey that it would be “really, really, really difficult” for the US to build enough submarines to provide any to Australia, despite strong bipartisan support for AUKUS in Washington.

“There’s going to be technical difficulties building that many submarines,” he said.

The US Navy’s chief of naval operations, Daryl Caudle, said last year: “The only way we’ll ever make good on the AUKUS agreement is that we get to the 2.3 [build rate], and it is my goal to make good on that.”

The US is currently producing around 1.2 boats a year, meaning production will need to increase significantly to hit the 2.3 build rate figure.

Hockey said US allies were “really missing” a figure like the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who developed a close relationship with Trump in his first term and spoke to him regularly on the phone.

Hockey lamented that among world leaders, “there’s no one that picks up the phone, they’re afraid almost to pick up the phone to the president [and] have a conversation.

“I mean, he answers phone calls from random journalists around the world, and it’s not hard to get his cell number, and he answers it,” he said.

“I’d encourage the prime minister to ring him occasionally. I mean, what have you got to lose? Australian prime ministers have been confidants of US presidents more than people realise, and I think the president of the United States is missing that back channel of advice.”

It has become something of a running joke among American journalists about how easy it is to obtain Trump’s phone number and call him for stories.

Albanese last year said he had Trump’s phone number after he remarked during an election debate that he’s “not sure that he has a mobile phone” and that texting a fellow world leader is “not the way it works”.

June 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

“Don’t mention the genocide”

27 May 2026 AIMN Editorial , https://theaimn.net/dont-mention-the-genocide/

Australia needs to shake off the oppressive chains of the Zionist Israeli lobby. Social cohesion and Australian’s faith in their parliament has been trashed in the mad scramble to appease the Zionist Israeli lobby. The perverse and cowardly leadership by Australia’s political class is blatant, disgusting, particularly unAustralian, an affront to common decency, and an attack on humanity itself. Being  unequivocally against Zionist Israel’s genocide is what was needed. Instead, Australia got obfuscation and complicity that is tearing at the heart of Australians egalitarian moral compass. The rush to push through Parliament the new antisemitism laws – with minimal scrutiny and major rule of law flaws like vague definitions, retrospective reach and expanded executive powers – risks undermining our rights, due process, and democratic accountability. These laws are proving that bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.

Noting that in 2025 the Federal Court made the line explicit: Criticism of Israel or Zionism is not antisemitism. One targets a state and an ideology. The other targets a people. Conflating them is legally wrong and constitutionally dangerous, and as such our politicians have let us down.

The independence of the Australian democratic system must now be in question. Australia and the West will pay a high price for Zionist Israel’s war on liberty (not USS Liberty), justice, and humanity itself.

Zionist interference and manipulation of Australian politicians and media is out of control. When the Zionist Israeli lobby is more powerful than the Australian peoples’ democratic rights then something has gone radically wrong. The proof of this overbearing influence is laid out in the examples of Labor leader Anthony Albanese not allowing debate on the genocide in Gaza at the Labor national conference, the removal of Fatima Payman from Labor by Albanese for standing up for Palestinians and Labor values, the cancelling of Pulitzer prize winning journalist Chris Hedges from the National Press Club, the cancelling of the visa for internationally recognised podcaster Candice Owens by Tony Burke, the unlawful sacking of Antoinette Lattouf from the ABC and the fiasco of the forever tarnished Adelaide Writers Festival exacerbated by the Labor premier’s interference. These are just a few examples of our politicians (and media) acting as lapdogs to the Zionist Israeli lobby. Australia, it would seem, is becoming part of Greater Israel.

How has it come to this, that antisemitism is now a far more heinously egregious affront to common human decency than the blatantly obvious orchestrated and systemic genocidal apartheid of a disempowered nation and the mass slaughter of that nations most innocent: the children? Australian politicians should note that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing (as the saying goes).

The antisemitism envoy’s demands/report was criticised, pilloried and lampooned before the events in Bondi. Now they are flagged to be law and Australian’s freedoms and values are negated while a specious royal commission that will not attempt to address the “cause and effect” elephant in the room, a genocidal humanitarian disaster perpetrated by an apartheid regime, will go ahead to appease those with objectionable motives, unscrupulous morals and hidden agendas. Who really have been the victims of the Bondi shootings when the truth is now hate speech and is criminalised by our government?

Why are those protesting for peace blamed by the NSW premier for the events in Bondi? Australians are better than those who seek to divide and control us, like Chris Minns.

Hate speech is being used by our politicians when the NSW premier says that mosques are “factories of hate” and the PM says that Palestinian children are “taught to hate” but not a word mentioned about the hate being perpetrated upon the Palestinian people.

It is evident that Australia – like the US – has been infiltrated by traitorous unChristian paid Zionist Israeli goose stepping foot soldiers masquerading as patriotic Australian politicians who trash international laws and conventions while enabling war criminals.

Brave young Australians made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our collective freedoms and values. Now a foreign regime has the ability to deny and nullity those freedoms and values. Why?

Ask yourself why this specific group were targeted?

Why was the ex-IDF security so ineffective?

Like the October 7 attack on Zionist Israel, and like the 1994 false flag bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London by Mossad, there are a lot of questions about the events that occurred at Bondi that need to be answered.

In actuality it has been a pyrrhic victory for Zionist lobbyists, although with that in mind surely now the question must be have Australians democratic rights become the sixteenth victim of the Bondi shootings?

May 29, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

The Sound of Silence: Australia’s Complicity in the Face of Evidence

In January 2026, the government ignored a request to prepare an arrest warrant for Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who toured Australia at the government’s invitation in early February, despite a UN Commission of Inquiry finding that Herzog incited genocide when he blamed “an entire nation” for the October 7 attack.

26 May 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, The Sound of Silence: Australia’s Complicity in the Face of Evidence – The Australian Independent Media Network

The Evidence That Cannot Be Ignored

On 22 May 2026, a coalition of human rights organisations – Amnesty International Australia, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), and the Australia Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) – submitted a formal dossier to Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland.

The submission contained a 140-page dossier prepared by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, detailing extensive allegations of genocide and war crimes against Israeli government and military figures including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.

The organisations urged the AFP to investigate “any Australian dual nationals alleged to have participated in hostilities in Gaza or related conduct potentially giving rise to offences under Australian law.”

Amnesty International’s Mohamed Duar was blunt: “Any Australian who has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide must be held to account and face justice.”

The government has not responded.

The silence is deafening.

The Arms Trade: Business as Usual

While the government refuses to investigate alleged war criminals on Australian soil, it continues to facilitate the weapons that make those crimes possible.

Australia’s defence export regime has faced repeated scrutiny over its approvals for arms exports to Israel. Under the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, the government is required to deny export permits where there is a “clear risk” that the goods might be used to commit “serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

Yet permits continue to be approved. The government refuses to release detailed figures, citing commercial confidentiality. What we know comes from leaked documents and investigative reporting – including evidence that Australian-made components have found their way into Israeli military systems used in Gaza.

The pattern is consistent with global trends. Serbia’s arms exports to Israel surged from approximately €1.4 million in 2023 to tens of millions annually in 2025. NATO member Albania signed a secret contract worth hundreds of millions of euros with Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence company under investigation for allegedly bribing alliance officials, with the agreement’s costs and terms kept from the Albanian parliament.Australia is not alone. But Australia is not off the hook.

The question is simple: Is Australia arming a state accused of genocide?

The government will not answer.

The Visa Paradox: War Criminals Welcome, Humanitarians Barred

The contradiction could not be starker.

On one hand, Australia has denied visas to Palestinian refugees and humanitarian workers seeking safety. In March 2026, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke granted visas to a troupe of female IDF soldiers taking a “recovery trip” to Melbourne. Israeli dual nationals who have served in the IDF – including those who documented their service “near the Gaza/Egypt border” – have entered and left Australia unchecked.

On the other hand, Australia has denied entry to Israeli political figures associated with anti-Palestinian rhetoric. Former minister Ayelet Shaked and MK Simcha Rothman were refused visas. The government has imposed sanctions on far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, including travel bans.

But here is the problem: The government has not applied the same standard to Israeli dual nationals who may have committed war crimes.

Authorities in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, and Sri Lanka have ordered investigations into allegations of war crimes by their citizens or Israeli soldiers on their soil. Australia has done nothing.

In January 2026, the government ignored a request to prepare an arrest warrant for Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who toured Australia at the government’s invitation in early February, despite a UN Commission of Inquiry finding that Herzog incited genocide when he blamed “an entire nation” for the October 7 attack.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has introduced visa cancellation criteria based on “a test of character, not necessarily a test of criminality” and “inciting discord.” By his own criteria, Herzog fails the test. The government did not apply it.

Why does one standard apply to Israeli politicians and another to Israeli soldiers?

The government will not answer.

The Flotilla: Humiliation on Video

On 21 May 2026, footage emerged of Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting detained activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla – an international effort to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza and deliver aid.

The video showed Ben-Gvir waving an Israeli flag in front of bound activists kneeling face down in a tent. One woman was forced to the ground by masked officers after shouting “Free, free Palestine.”

Among the 430 detained activists were 11 Australians. They reported being denied food and water for days. One activist, Zack Schofield, stated:

“Many of us haven’t eaten for days. We were denied water for two days. I have friends that were shocked with tasers, stun guns for extended periods of time just on entry to prison.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned Ben-Gvir’s actions as “shocking and unacceptable.” The government called in the Israeli ambassador. Wong directed DFAT to make representations.

But here is the problem: Condemnation is not consequence.

Greens Senator Nick McKim called for “the strongest possible response from our prime minister and our foreign minister… a far, far stronger response than they’ve delivered to date.”

None has come.

The activists were released and deported to Turkey. The Israeli minister who humiliated them faces no sanction from Australia beyond words.

When does condemnation become complicity?

The government will not answer.

The Royal Commission Contradiction

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese repeatedly rejected calls for a royal commission into antisemitism, arguing that royal commissions “achieve nothing” and become “divisive.”

In December 2025, following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, the government rejected calls for a royal commission, with Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke arguing that a royal commission would “re-platform some of the worst statements and worst voices.” The government instead commissioned former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson to review the security ecosystem.

Yet when it comes to domestic violence, which killed 64 Australian women in 2024 alone, the same Prime Minister has also rejected royal commissions, stating that they “take too long” and “don’t deliver the urgent change needed.”

The inconsistency is instructive.

Royal commissions are a tool. The government deploys them when it wishes – as it did for aged care, disability, the robodebt scheme, and the management of police informants. It withholds them when the political cost of action exceeds the cost of inaction.

On antisemitism, the government has chosen a path of symbolic measures: an education taskforce, a “university report card,” funding for Monash University to expand training in “recognising antisemitism.” These are not nothing. But they are not accountability.

The Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, recommended the withholding of funding from universities found to have facilitated antisemitism. The government has not implemented this recommendation.

Why is antisemitism treated differently from other forms of hate?

The government will not answer.

The Envoy and the Universities

The appointment of a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, a position with no equivalent for Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, or anti-Arab hate – raises its own questions.

The Envoy’s remit includes monitoring “adoption of an appropriate definition of antisemitism” across universities. The “appropriate definition” is widely understood to be the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition, which includes as examples of antisemitism “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” and “applying double standards to Israel.”

Critics argue that this definition conflates criticism of Israeli government policy with antisemitism, effectively chilling legitimate political speech. Universities have been warned that funding may be withheld if they fail to adopt the definition and act against violations .

Whatever one thinks of the IHRA definition, the underlying question is: Why does the government believe it has the authority to dictate which definitions Australian universities must adopt?

Universities are independent institutions. Academic freedom is a core value of liberal democracy. The government’s approach – financial penalties for non-compliance – represents a significant intrusion into university governance.

The government has not applied this standard to any other form of discrimination or hate speech.

Why is antisemitism being treated as a special case requiring special powers?

The government will not answer.

The Zionist Fraction: Who Speaks for Whom?

A crucial fact is consistently omitted from public discussion: Not all Jews are Zionists. Not all Zionists are Jews. And the Zionist position does not represent the entirety of Jewish opinion in Australia or anywhere else.

According to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, approximately 117,000 Jewish people live in Australia (about 0.4% of the population). There is no reliable data on what percentage actively support the Israeli government’s policies in Gaza, support a two-state solution, oppose Zionism altogether, or simply wish to be left out of the debate entirely.

Yet the government, in its public statements and policy responses, consistently conflates “antisemitism” with “criticism of Israel.” The Special Envoy’s mandate explicitly adopts a definition of antisemitism that includes certain forms of Israel criticism as examples of anti-Jewish hate.

This conflation serves a political purpose: it delegitimises legitimate debate about Israeli government policy, international law, and human rights. It equates questioning the actions of a foreign government with hating Jewish people. It collapses a complex spectrum of opinion into a binary: with us or against us.

Who decided that the Zionist position speaks for all Jews? And on what authority?

The government will not answer.

The Humanitarians vs. The State of Israel

The mistreatment of the Samud flotilla activists – 11 Australian citizens detained at gunpoint in international waters, denied food and water, humiliated by a government minister on video – raises the most fundamental question of all: What is the Australian government prepared to do to protect its citizens from a foreign power?

The answer, so far, is: not much.

Condemnation. Diplomatic representations. A phone call. A statement.

No sanctions. No travel bans. No freezing of defence exports. No arrest warrants for Israeli officials who may have committed crimes against Australian citizens.

Compare this to the government’s response to other human rights violations. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Australia imposed sanctions, sent military aid, and expelled diplomats. When China detained Australian citizens, the government made public protests and pursued diplomatic channels.

When Israel detains Australian citizens at gunpoint and a government minister humiliates them on video, Australia condemns… and moves on.

Why is Israel treated differently from other nations?

The government will not answer.

The Empirical Record

The government’s silence is not an absence of information. It is a choice made in the presence of overwhelming evidence.

On arms exports: The government refuses to disclose approvals for military exports to Israel, citing commercial confidentiality. It will not confirm or deny whether Australian-made components have been used in weapons deployed in Gaza.

On war crimes investigations: The government has not responded to the 22 May 2026 submission from human rights organisations. It has not confirmed whether the AFP is investigating any Australian dual nationals who served in the IDF. It has not explained why Israel’s President was granted a visa and a red-carpet welcome despite a UN finding of incitement to genocide.

On the flotilla: The government condemned Ben-Gvir’s actions but has not imposed sanctions beyond those already in place. It has not explained why Australian citizens were left to the mercy of a foreign power for days.

On royal commissions: The government has rejected a royal commission into antisemitism while implementing selective measures against universities. It has not explained why antisemitism deserves a Special Envoy and a “university report card” while other forms of hate do not.

On the definition of antisemitism: The government has adopted a definition that conflates Israel criticism with anti-Jewish hate, without consulting the full spectrum of Jewish opinion in Australia. It has not explained its authority to dictate definitions to independent universities.

The Question the Government Will Not Answer

The pattern is consistent. The silence is deliberate. And the question is unavoidable:

• Why does the Albanese government treat the State of Israel differently from every other nation
• Not tougher – differently.
• Weaker sanctions. Fewer consequences. More silence. More diplomacy. More measured statements. More nothing.
• The government will say it is committed to a two-state solution. It will say it supports Israel’s right to exist. It will say it condemns antisemitism. These are not answers. These are evasions.
• The question is not about Israel’s right to exist. It is about Australia’s obligation to uphold international law, protect its citizens, and apply the same standards to all nations equally.

The government will not answer. Because the answer would require it to admit what is becoming increasingly clear to anyone who is paying attention:

• Australia has abandoned its principles for the sake of an alliance.
• Not a military alliance. Australia has no mutual defence treaty with Israel.

An ideological alliance. With the Zionist project. With a foreign government’s definition of antisemitism. With the conflation of criticism with hate.

And in so doing, Australia has abandoned its own citizens: the humanitarians, the academics, the journalists, the ordinary people who ask only that the law be applied equally and that silence not be mistaken for neutrality.

Conclusion

The evidence is on the table. The dossier has been submitted. The activists have been humiliated. The arms continue to flow. The visas continue to be granted, but to soldiers, not to survivors.

And the government continues to be silent.

Not because it does not know, but because it chooses not to act.

Silence is not neutrality, Andrew. You taught me that. Silence is a choice. And in the face of genocide – in the face of war crimes, in the face of Australian citizens detained at gunpoint, in the face of a government minister taunting bound prisoners on video – silence is complicity.

The Albanese government will not answer the questions we have raised.

But that does not mean the questions go away.

They remain. On the table. In the dossier. In the eyes of the activists who were denied water for two days. In the hearts of the Palestinians who cannot get a visa while IDF soldiers come to Melbourne on holiday.

The questions remain.

And one day, they will demand an answer.

May 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Israel Is Running Australia and No One Is Talking About It.

One Path Network, 7 May 26

Nick Hanna is a Sydney-based criminal defence lawyer, investigative journalist, and director of The Last Sky, a documentary on Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. He has acted in some of Australia’s most significant civil liberties cases and is currently representing protesters and activists caught up in the legal crackdown that followed the Bondi terror attack.
In this conversation, Nick breaks down the New South Wales law that gave police the power to ban all protests across greater Sydney and explains how a successful constitutional challenge overturned it. He details what legal options are now available to the dozens of people who were beaten and pepper-sprayed at the Isaac Herzog protest, and why the Major Events Act may complicate their claims.

Nick explains the Queensland government’s criminalisation of phrases like “from the river to the sea,” the constitutional challenge currently underway, and what it means for activists and ordinary people across the country. He also reveals why the Australian Federal Police has conducted raids over tweets and memes while making zero arrests of the 600-plus Australian dual nationals documented as having served in the IDF during the Gaza genocide.
The conversation turns to Ben Roberts-Smith, who was recently criminally charged with five counts of war crime murder following his failed defamation case. Nick argues his prosecution exposes a glaring double standard: an Australian soldier sent to Afghanistan by his own government is facing trial, while Australians who voluntarily joined a foreign military conducting a genocide face no investigation whatsoever.

May 23, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

The Great Australian Distraction

Laws were passed without proper consultation and without equivalent protections for Muslim, Palestinian or Arab Australians. Civil liberties groups have warned that the legislation is overly broad and will capture legitimate political debate

14 May 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, 

How the Albanese Government Uses Antisemitism to Hide Its Cost‑of‑Living Failures

Only days ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood before the nation and declared that his government was “focused every day on helping with the cost of living.” In the same breath, his ministers announced a new parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, expanded the powers of the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, and rushed through hate‑speech laws that criminalise pro‑Palestinian slogans.

The contrast could not be starker. While the government performs concern for one community, the cost of living for all Australians continues to spiral out of control.

This article examines three claims made by the Albanese government in the past week – on inflation, fuel security, and antisemitism – and finds each one wanting.

I. Inflation: The Numbers Don’t Lie

On 3 May 2026, the Prime Minister tweeted:

“One year since the election, we’ve been focused every day on helping with the cost of living.”

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) tells a different story. Headline inflation surged to 4.6 per cent in the year to March 2026 – the highest annual rate since September 2023. The March quarter alone saw inflation jump 1.1 per cent, driven almost entirely by fuel and food.

In the past fortnight alone, Melbourne families have felt the squeeze:

• 
  Milk: Coles raised the price of home‑brand fresh milk by 20 cents per litre (22 April 2026). A three‑litre bottle that cost $4.65 now costs $5.15.
• Petrol: Unleaded petrol is projected to peak at $2.46 per litre in late May. Diesel could exceed $4.00 per litre in coming months, according to the National Australia Bank.
• Rent: House rents in Melbourne rose by 1.3% in April alone. The annual cost of renting a typical house is now $30,160.

The Prime Minister says he is “focused”. The numbers say otherwise.

II. Fuel Security: Too Little, Too Late

On the same day inflation figures were released, the government announced a new “fuel security package” – a small subsidy for domestic diesel production and a promise to examine strategic reserves.

The announcement was window‑dressing. Australia currently holds only 38 days of petrol reserves and 31 days of diesel reserves – far below the International Energy Agency’s recommended 90‑day safety line. Ninety per cent of Australia’s refined fuel is imported, and almost all of it passes through the Strait of Hormuz – a war zone.

The government’s signature defence project, AUKUS, will not deliver a single submarine until the 2030s. By then, the fuel crisis will have come and gone.

The fuel excise cut that provided temporary relief at the bowser is scheduled to expire on 30 June 2026. When it does, petrol will jump by another 26 cents per litre. The government has no plan to extend it. It has no plan to rebuild refineries. It has no plan to secure Australia’s energy independence.

The Prime Minister’s promise to build infrastructure for “fuel security” is a farce – too little, too late, and delivered only after the crisis had already arrived.

III. Antisemitism: A Weapon, Not a Shield

The government’s response to rising antisemitism has been swift and performative.

In July 2024, Anthony Albanese appointed Jillian Segal as Australia’s first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. Her recommendations have been sweeping: all universities must adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism (which conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews); funding should be cut to institutions that do not comply; pro‑Palestinian rallies should be moved out of city centres.

Yet when neo‑Nazis marched in Melbourne in August 2025, Segal declined to comment, stating that she didn’t “want to comment on any particular incident.” Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” has proved more comfortable hunting anti‑Zionist speech than actual neo‑Nazis.

Meanwhile, Queensland banned the phrases “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada”. A man has already been arrested for reciting five words in protest.

Laws were passed without proper consultation and without equivalent protections for Muslim, Palestinian or Arab Australians. Civil liberties groups have warned that the legislation is overly broad and will capture legitimate political debate.

The government is not protecting Jews. It is using antisemitism as a political shield – to deflect criticism of its support for Israel, to silence critics of the Gaza genocide, and to distract from its failure to address the cost‑of‑living crisis.

IV. The Opportunity Cost

Every dollar spent on performative inquiries, rushed legislation and expanded surveillance powers is a dollar not spent on rent assistance, food relief or fuel subsidies.

The government has chosen:

• A $368 billion submarine project (AUKUS) over public housing.
• An antisemitism commission over a genuine cost‑of‑living inquiry.

These are not forced choices. They are political choices. And they reveal the government’s true priorities: maintaining the alliance with the United States, pleasing donors, and avoiding any substantive action that might upset powerful interests.

V. What the Prime Minister Will Not Say

Anthony Albanese will not tell you that the antisemitism inquiry is designed to produce outcomes that are already predetermined – more surveillance, more speech restrictions, more funding for pro‑Israel lobby groups.

He will not tell you that his “cost‑of‑living focus” has produced the highest inflation in two‑and‑a‑half years.

Because to tell you those truths would be to admit that he has failed.

VI. What We Can Do

We cannot wait for the government to act. We must act ourselves.

• 
  Support independent media. The Patrician’s Watch, The AIMN and other independent outlets are not beholden to donors or lobbyists. We report the truth because we have nothing to gain from concealing it.
• Build community resilience. Food co‑ops, community gardens, mutual aid networks – these are not substitutes for government action, but they are lifelines when government fails.
• Demand better. Write to your MP. Attend protests. Share this article. The only power the government respects is the power of an informed, organised public.

Conclusion

The Albanese government is not focused on the cost of living. It is focused on distraction. Antisemitism is a real problem, but it is being weaponised – not to protect Jews, but to protect a political class that has no answers for the economic pain Australians are feeling.

Housing is not a priority. Food affordability is not a priority.

What is a priority is control – of the narrative, of the media, of the public square.

We are not fooled. We see the contradiction. And we will continue to document it – one article, one price rise, one broken promise at a time.

May 16, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Toxic fantasy nuked; one year on from the Federal election 

, https://www.acf.org.au/news/toxic-fantasy-nuked-one-year-on-from-the-federal-election

Exactly one year ago Australians braved the how to vote cards, ate or avoided democracy sausages and used a pencil to help write the next part of the Australian story.

In the months leading up to the 2025 federal election, papers, airwaves and social media platforms were full of talk about nuclear. 

Then Opposition Leader Peter Dutton dubbed the 2025 federal election ‘a referendum on nuclear power’. It was the biggest policy difference between the two major political parties. The Coalition promised to build multiple nuclear reactors at seven sites across Australia while Labor, the Green and most independents opposed this nuclear plan and strongly supported renewables. 

Nuclear proponents spent large, promised much and did their best to sidestep scrutiny over cost, timing, water, waste and more. 

Environment groups joined with trade unions, public health experts, First Nation representatives and community members from regions targeted for reactors to make the case for a renewable energy future, free from nuclear risk and delays. 

The message was clear: Nuclear is too risky, too expensive and too slow. 

And at the end of months of talk, talkback, information stalls, protests and public forums, Australia voted. 

And voted unequivocally no to nuclear.

The Coalition had its worst defeat since the formation of the Liberal Party in 1944, and nuclear champion Peter Dutton became the first sitting federal Opposition Leader in Australian history to lose their own seat at a general election. Seven News political editor Mark Riley described the Coalition result as ‘catastrophic’, adding “the party that chose nuclear energy as its policy has exploded in a nuclear bomb set on them by the voters tonight.”

Voters saw the Coalition’s nuclear fantasy for what it was: a toxic furphy designed only to prolong the life of coal and gas. They made a conscious and clear decision to reject nuclear power and provide our politicians with a clear mandate to get on with harnessing Australia’s abundant renewable energy resources to power our country. 

Renewables already meet around half of Australia’s electricity needs, and this figure is growing every day. 

Responsible renewables mean lasting regional jobs, low carbon and proven power.  

Renewables also mean energy independence and energy security. Ships in the Strait of Hormuz might stop, but the wind and sun do not. 

One year ago, Australians had a clear energy choice – and right across the nation we made a clear energy decision – our energy future is renewable, not radioactive.

May 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Royal commission report doesn’t help us start making sense of Bondi terror attack

The Conversation, Keiran Hardy, Associate Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University, April 30, 2026 Justice Virginia Bell has handed the governor-general her interim findings from the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded immediately by promising to implement all its recommendations.

The interim report recommends specific changes to counter-terrorism policy – and a speedy resolution to the lagging gun buyback scheme.

These sorts of changes may help. But they don’t begin to answer deeper questions about how a terror attack on that scale could occur in Australia. The commission is yet to examine how underlying conditions might have fuelled the attack, and what else governments, their agencies and we as a society must do to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

What does the interim report recommend?

The interim report contains 14 recommendations, five of them confidential.

Of the nine public recommendations, nearly all focus on counter-terrorism policy and the ways government agencies operate. For example, recommendations three through six focus on the Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee: a high-level coordination body made up of senior members of government.

The interim report recommends the committee be included in the Australian government’s Crisis Management Framework. The committee should brief National Cabinet at least annually.

Recommendation seven says ministers on the National Security Committee of cabinet should participate in a counter-terrorism exercise within nine months of each federal election.

These changes will not stop a terrorist from committing another attack. And most Australians could be forgiven for having never heard of these committees.

There’s also no reason why this all couldn’t have been investigated, possibly more quickly, by the original, departmental inquiry announced by Albanese. This was to be led by former head of ASIO, Dennis Richardson.

Richardson recently resigned from the royal commission, saying he felt like an overpaid research officer. He was also worried the process would take too long to deliver concrete recommendations on policing and intelligence…………………………………………………………………..

What can we expect next?

Public hearings for the royal commission will begin next week. In the first round, people with lived experience of antisemitism are expected to give evidence.

After that, it remains to be seen where the inquiry will direct its focus.

Its terms of reference are extremely broad, covering antisemitism, social cohesion, training for law enforcement, border control and immigration, radicalisation, specific circumstances surrounding the attack, and anything else that might be “reasonably incidental” or relevant.

It has so far received more than 3,500 submissions. The commission must report back by December 14 this year, before the one-year anniversary of the attack.

To report meaningfully on all these topics on such a pressured timeline will be a monumental task. Some focus may be necessary, but there will be valid differences of opinion as to whether this inquiry is primarily about antisemitism, social cohesion, counter-terrorism, radicalisation, the Bondi attack, or all of the above.

At the moment, it is about all these things, which may ultimately undermine what it is able to contribute on any one.

Bell clearly knows the scale of the task. She has warned that “examining the ways in which we might strengthen social cohesion in Australia could well be the work of years, not months”.

For now, there is little in the interim report for Australians to start making sense of last year’s terror and tragedy in Bondi. https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-report-doesnt-help-us-start-making-sense-of-bondi-terror-attack-281859?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%201%202026%20-%203756238464&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%201%202026%20-%203756238464+CID_8e5ae0e85bb178c16e80a5a039f5de96&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Royal%20commission%20report%20doesnt%20help%20us%20start%20making%20sense%20of%20Bondi%20terror%20attack

May 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Antisemitism Royal Commission dilemma: not all Jews think the same

None of this is to excuse ‘real’ antisemitism. If the latest Pew  Research Center survey, just released in the last few days in the USA, is anything to go by, 60% of US adults have an unfavourable view of Israel.

by Jeffrey Loewenstein | Apr 27, 2026 | 

With the Antisemitism Royal Commission due to publish its interim report this week, a reckoning between Judaism and Israel is long overdue. Jewish community leader Jeffrey Loewenstein with the story.

Let it be said, unequivocally, antisemitism per se, as indeed any form of vilification or bigotry, is to be abhorred and has no place in a civilised community.

The vexed question of antisemitism, and what that actually means and encompasses – let alone how to combat it – will be front and centre of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social  Cohesion’s deliberations and, one assumes, findings.

The so-called majority of the Jewish community for whom the likes of the ECAJ, the Zionist  Federation, AIJAC and the NCJW seek to speak, have shown themselves as either unequivocally positive mouthpieces supporting Israel’s actions – be it the invasion of Gaza, the killing and maiming of its people, starving Gazans, demolishing Gazan infrastructure, denying medical supplies and equipment entering Gaza, the lawlessness, the so-called settlers in the West  Bank, etc.,

“or simply staying silent, no matter how egregious Israel’s actions have been.“

To say that it demonstrates an indifference to the suffering of the Gazans or the Palestinians in the West Bank is putting it mildly. It certainly demonstrates a lack of humanity and an absence of a moral compass.

And this from a people who claim to abide by the Ten Commandments and the edict of Rabbi Hillel, “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow.” That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).

Israel’s ‘success’

The man in the street who probably considers Israel as a ‘successful’ smart country, a leader in technology and medicine, with a ‘smart’ Mossad security service, watching the nightly news bulletin with its stark images of the wanton killing and maiming of Gazans by the Israelis and children starving – and now the ongoing onslaught being undertaken by the Israelis in Lebanon –  is going to be left angered and wondering how it is Israel – or is it simply the Jews – are allowing all of this to happen.

Add to that seeing Jews in Australia regularly parading with Israeli flags draped around their shoulders and waving small Israeli flags is almost certainly going to lead the average person to accept what Israeli PM Netanyahu has been saying for years – that Israel, and he, speak for and represent all Jews in the world.

“As for this writer, certainly not!“

Even our political leaders are confused. One Federal Minister justified the entry into Australia of Israeli President Herzog on the grounds that the Jewish community sought comfort post Bondi from “their national leader”. Again, not true for many.

A royal dilemma

The Royal Commissioner is going to be confronted with some stark facts. For starters, how the majority of Jews view Israel and support it.An example relating to those tragically slain in Bondi: video footage and photos of the Bondi Chabad rabbi post October 7, handing over monies in the West Bank in support of the settlers and posing with a rifle and rocket.

The ready conflating of being anti-Israel and what is said to be antisemitism is nowhere better seen than in the ECAJ Report on antisemitism in Australia, citing as part of its statistics how, allegedly, antisemitism has risen in Australia post October 7 by something such as a daubing on a wall “Free  Palestine”.

The Special Envoy on antisemitism, Jillian Segal, would have us believe that the weekly protest marches, and even the eventful march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (under the Banner, March for Humanity), engendered antisemitism.

Antisemitic or anti-Israel?

There have been many attempts to conflate being anti-Israel with being antisemitic, including pushing the IHRA “definition” of antisemitism.

Aside from many learned Jewish scholars challenging the definition, many Jews, critical of Israel, would be “caught” as being anti-Semitic. Members of the Australian Jewish community are now publicly (even on ABC Radio National) resorting to calling those Jews who speak out about Israel’s actions as being “anti-Jewish”.

Interestingly, a research report, ‘The Journeys and Destinations of Young Jewish Anti-Zionists’, out of the USA a couple of months ago, concluded, inter alia, that many said to be anti-Zionist were deeply knowledgeable about Jewish practice and history, with some having attended Jewish day schools and some serving as rabbis.

There is no reason to think that those findings in the USA would not equally apply in Australia.

It has hardly been surprising that people have been venting their anger at Israel’s actions. The weekly demonstrations for more than 2 ½ years are clear evidence of that.

“The Royal Commissioner and the majority of Jews in Australia are going to have to grapple with anti-Israel sentiment.“

And in both political parties, majorities of adults under the age of 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively, and six-in-ten have a very or somewhat unfavourable view of Israel. It is likely a survey in Australia would parallel the US one.

The Royal Commissioner will be hard-pressed to come up with definitive findings as her mandate requires. For their part, there are going to be many Jews unable to explain why there has been this so-called antisemitism as distinct from things best described as simple anti-Israeli / anti-Zionist sentiment.

One very obvious question, and the critical one which is the elephant in  the room no one seems to want to ask is,

“why is it that this so-called and alleged antisemitism has risen since 7 October?“

Jeffrey Loewenstein

Jeffrey Loewenstein LL.B was a member of the Victorian Bar and a one-time Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission and member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria.

May 4, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

The Enforcement. The lobby that bought Australian democracy

by Andrew Brown | Apr 29, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/the-enforcement-the-lobby-that-bought-australian-democracy/

Australia’s sovereignty is routinely violated by Israel. Our institutions utterly subject to foreign interference.  Andrew Brown presents the devastating case for a royal commission into Zionist influence in Australia.

Yesterday we laid out the machinery of the most serious foreign influence operation ever conducted on Australian soil: the quasi-diplomatic network operating from inside Australian institutions, the 500-plus politicians and journalists conditioned in Tel Aviv at a foreign government’s expense, the foreign minister instructed by a donor network to recant established international law, the attorney-general who adopted Israeli legal talking points as official Australian government language, the $164 million in security infrastructure extracted from Australian taxpayers for a community of 120,000 people, and the government-appointed envoy drawn from the lobby itself whose job is to put Israeli government policy beyond the reach of Australian public criticism.

Today we examine the enforcement arm. What this operation does to individuals, institutions, and the fundamental democratic rights of ordinary Australians who exercise their right to disagree. And what it did, for more than a decade, with Australian sovereignty itself.

Begin with the act of sovereign violation so grave that it should have ended the bilateral relationship and produced a permanent rupture in Australian foreign policy.

It did neither. Mossad, the Israeli state intelligence agency, operated a spy cell based in Sydney for more than a decade. Under ASIO’s nose. Using Australian infrastructure. Recruiting from Australian universities.

In 2010, Mossad operatives carrying forged Australian passports entered Dubai, a country with which Australia maintained cordial diplomatic relations, and assassinated Palestinian leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh. An Israeli diplomat in Canberra, Amir Laty, was expelled over his connection to the cell.

“The Australian government attempted to keep his expulsion secret to avoid embarrassing Israel.”

Ben Zygier, an Australian citizen known as Prisoner X, worked for Mossad, spied on fellow students at Monash University, and used his Australian passport to conduct espionage operations across Arab and Muslim countries. He died in an Israeli prison.

A New Zealand Mossad cell was separately caught attempting to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports. The Australian official who summarised the government’s operative posture did so anonymously, because to say it on the record would have been politically unsurvivable.

He was quoted by journalist Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald on 26 February 2010. Israel, he said, had calculated that even if caught forging Australian passports to carry out targeted assassinations,

“Canberra would not retaliate. It wouldn’t matter who sat in the prime minister’s chair.”

The Israelis, this official said, know they’ve got us by the balls, partly because of the Israel lobby. State-sanctioned murder using forged Australian documents.

A foreign intelligence service operating on Australian soil for over a decade. An expelled diplomat whose removal the government tried to hide.

And the judgement of an Australian national security official that none of it would produce consequences because the lobby had made consequences impossible. If China had done one tenth of this, Australia would have severed diplomatic relations and jailed everyone it could reach.

“Israel did all of it and received a quiet request not to do it again.”

State premiers captured

In the domestic political arena, three state premiers have served as the lobby’s most recent and most openly authoritarian instruments.

Peter Malinauskas personally intervened to cancel a Palestinian author from Adelaide Writers’ Week. The festival director resigned.

“The event collapsed.”

A state premier, acting on behalf of the interests of a foreign government, destroyed a celebrated literary event and ended a festival director’s role in the process.

David Crisafulli’s Queensland government made two phrases associated with Palestinian solidarity punishable by up to two years imprisonment. An eighteen-year-old Australian was charged for the act of wearing a shirt. Twenty people were arrested at a peaceful protest for the act of chanting.

Chris Minns rushed legislation through the NSW parliament on Christmas Eve 2025, in a deliberate legislative ambush, handing the police commissioner power to ban all protest marches across entire areas of Sydney for up to three months following a declared terror incident.

A unanimous bench of the NSW Court of Appeal struck it down as an unconstitutional burden on the implied freedom of political communication.

“Three premiers. Three states. One foreign government’s interests.”

Zero words of criticism from the Prime Minister of Australia. The suppression of political speech and peaceful assembly on behalf of a foreign power, conducted by state governments and met with federal silence. In what functioning democracy does this not constitute a crisis of the highest order?

Crushing ‘difficult’ people

Now watch what the enforcement machinery does to individuals. Grace Tame was the 2021 Australian of the Year. A survivor of institutional child sexual abuse who built a national platform of such moral clarity that the entire political establishment had learned to treat her as beyond reproach. She began speaking about Palestine.

She attended protests. She shared Human Rights Watch reports documenting starvation in Gaza. In February 2026 she attended a rally in Sydney protesting the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog and led the crowd in a chant.

What followed was not a spontaneous public backlash. 

“It was a coordinated campaign of economic and reputational destruction,”

executed with the speed and precision that only a well-resourced, well-organised, and permanently mobilised network can produce.

Nike cut her sponsorship within days.

Her speaking engagements disappeared from her calendar. By March 2026 she told a conference in Hobart that it was her last engagement for the year. It was March. Twenty-five thousand Australians signed a petition demanding her Australian of the Year award be stripped from her.

Coalition members of parliament stood in the national legislature and called her a terrorist sympathiser.

And Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, when directly asked to describe Grace Tame, produced a single word: difficult.

“Difficult.”

The survivor who forced child sexual abuse onto the national agenda at enormous personal cost. Difficult. The woman who said that Palestinian civilians, like all civilians, had a right not to be bombed, starved, or shot. Difficult.

The Prime Minister of Australia reached for the oldest and most reliable instrument of dismissal in the political class’s toolkit: the word that powerful men have always used for women who refuse to stay within the lines drawn for them by the people who write the cheques.

The lobby made no public statement. It did not need to. Nike had already cut the sponsorship. The speaking circuit had already closed. The petition had already collected its signatures.

The MPs had already used the word terrorist in Hansard. The work had been done without the lobby needing to appear in the story at all.

“That is what mature, embedded institutional power looks like.”

It does not need to act visibly. It has already arranged for everyone else to act on its behalf.

The reach extends into the newsrooms and it has been there for decades. Veteran ABC journalist John Lyons documented it in his 2021 book Dateline Jerusalem, writing that in forty years of journalism he had never encountered a lobby as formidable, well-funded, or relentlessly effective as the pro-Israel lobby in Australia, and that material the lobby succeeded in suppressing here was routinely published in Israel without consequence or controversy.

Best funded foreign influence operation in Australia

Bob Carr called Lyons’ account the definitive record of the most concerted and best-funded foreign influence operation in Australia.

Every journalist who has worked on this subject in the Australian press knows what Lyons and Carr documented, because they have experienced it themselves: organised complaints to management, coordinated pressure on executives, personal vilification campaigns, threats to advertiser relationships

The lobby does not need to own Australian media. It only needs editors and proprietors to understand the cost of genuine independence, and to calculate that the cost exceeds the benefit. In most Australian newsrooms, they have made that calculation and arrived at compliance.

The case of Antoinette Lattouf demonstrated the consequences for those who don’t. She was removed from ABC air in December 2023 for sharing a Human Rights Watch report documenting Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

The Federal Court subsequently found the ABC had breached the Fair Work Act by terminating her engagement on the basis that she held a political opinion opposing the Israeli military campaign.

The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that a WhatsApp group calling itself Lawyers for Israel had lobbied ABC management directly and specifically for her removal.

Australia’s public broadcaster, funded by Australian taxpayers and constitutionally obligated to editorial independence,

“removed a journalist from air at the instruction of a foreign-aligned lobby group operating by messaging app”

That is not an editorial error. That is the surrender of a public institution to private foreign-aligned coercion. And the ABC’s board and management have never been required to account for it.

If it were China?

Apply the same facts to China. Not as analogy. As a direct accountability test. If Chinese-linked organisations were the single largest private funders of overseas trips to federal MPs, ASIO would have declared it a national security emergency.

If a Chinese intelligence agency had based a spy cell in Sydney for over a decade using forged Australian passports to conduct state-sanctioned assassinations abroad, it would constitute the gravest breach of Australian sovereignty in the country’s peacetime history and the bilateral relationship would not survive it.

If a Chinese-aligned lobby had pressured the ABC to remove a journalist critical of Chinese government policy, the story would have dominated national coverage for months and produced a parliamentary inquiry within weeks.

If a serving foreign minister had declared China’s struggles are our struggles, their values are our values from an award ceremony podium, her resignation would have been demanded before she left the building. If the attorney-general had told a Senate hearing that calling Tibet an occupied territory was too pejorative to use in official Australian discourse, he would not have returned to the chamber.

If three state premiers had introduced legislation to criminalise speech critical of Chinese government policy, or to give police the power to ban all marches in city zones for months at a time, the word used across every editorial in this country would have been the same:

“treason.”

We do not need to speculate.

We have watched the Chinese comparison play out in real time at a fraction of this scale and the consequences were terminal. Sam Dastyari expressed views aligned with Chinese positions after accepting connected donations. No secrets passed. No law was broken. His career was finished.

Andrew Robb left the ministry overseeing Darwin Port and signed a $2.25 million consulting contract with the Chinese company that had just received a 99-year lease on it.

The scandal produced years of national coverage and ultimately the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme: legislation designed specifically to track and constrain the purchase of access to Australian political institutions by foreign-aligned interests. ASIO names foreign interference, the public shorthand for China, as a top-tier national security threat in every annual assessment it publishes.

Except for Israel

The entire architecture of Australian national security is built on a single premise held to be non-negotiable: that a foreign government purchasing influence inside Australian democratic institutions is an existential threat to sovereignty that must be identified, resisted, and where possible prosecuted.

The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme has never produced a public disclosure about AIJAC. The ASIO annual threat assessment has never named the Israeli lobby.

The parliamentary inquiries that ended Dastyari’s career and produced years of national debate have no equivalent examining the 500 politicians and journalists conditioned at Israeli government expense, the donor networks that instructed a foreign minister to recant international law, the Mossad spy cell that operated from Sydney for a decade using forged Australian documents, the foreign-government-funded quasi-diplomatic agencies embedded across Australian institutions, the lobby that pressured the national broadcaster to remove a journalist by WhatsApp, or the three premiers who suppressed political speech and peaceful assembly on behalf of a foreign government’s interests.

The apparatus constructed to protect Australian sovereignty from foreign purchase has one explicit, unwritten, never-debated, never-voted-upon exemption.

“Every senior person in Canberra knows what it is.“

They have calculated, morning after morning for thirty years, that acknowledging it is more dangerous to their careers than enabling it. That calculation is itself the evidence.

That is not a principled distinction between China and Israel. That is a purchased one. The receipt is in the parliamentary interests register. It is in Hansard. It is in Federal Court judgments.

It is in the published memoirs of a foreign minister who was told to be straightened out. It is in the Sydney Morning Herald report quoting a senior Australian national security official saying Israel has us by the balls because of the lobby.

The evidence does not need to be assembled. It has been sitting in plain sight for thirty years, in public documents, in published books, in court records and parliamentary transcripts.

A national emergency

The question is not whether it exists. The question is why a country with functioning democratic institutions and a free press has never once treated it as the national emergency it plainly is.

The evidence assembled across these two articles does not call for more journalism. It calls for a Royal Commission.

“A Royal Commission into Israeli foreign influence across all levels of Australian government.“

The terms of reference write themselves from the public record alone. The AIJAC trip program: who was taken, what they were shown, what positions they held on return, and what decisions they subsequently made on matters of direct relevance to Israeli government interests.

The donor networks: their documented intersection with foreign policy outcomes from the Gareth Evans threats of 1992 to the Bob Carr instruction of 2013.

The roles of the ECAJ, the ZFA, and the state Boards of Deputies as quasi-diplomatic agencies for a foreign government, in their own published words in their own publications.

The $164 million in security expenditure: the political process that produced it, why it was never subject to comparative public assessment against the security needs of other communities, and the decision-making chain that accelerated it after Bondi.

The Mossad operations: the decade-long spy cell based in Sydney, the assassination using forged Australian passports, the expelled diplomat whose removal the government tried to suppress, and the complete and deliberate absence of any proportionate response.

The instruction to Bob Carr: who issued it, under whose authority, whether it constituted improper interference in the sovereign conduct of Australian foreign policy, and who else received similar instructions and complied without ever recording it.

The three state premiers: who coordinated their legislative responses, what communications passed between them and lobby organisations, and whether those communications constitute evidence of foreign-government-aligned interference in state legislative processes.

The ABC: the chain of communications between Lawyers for Israel and ABC management in the Lattouf matter, who authorised the removal, and whether the ABC’s board was aware.

Jillian Segal powers

The Segal appointment: the process by which an active advocate for a foreign government’s interests was appointed to a quasi-regulatory role with the

“power to recommend the defunding of Australian cultural, academic, and media institutions.“

We held a Royal Commission into trade union governance. We held one into the banking sector. We are right now holding one into antisemitism, announced within weeks of a single event, with findings due within twelve months, and interim findings this week.

The question of whether a foreign government has, over thirty years, systematically purchased the compliance of Australian democratic institutions, usurped the conduct of Australian foreign policy, operated a state intelligence network on Australian soil using forged Australian documents to conduct murder abroad, corrupted the editorial independence of the national public broadcaster, and constructed a domestic legal and regulatory apparatus to protect its own conduct from Australian public scrutiny, is

“a question that dwarfs every Royal Commission this country has ever convened.”

If the answer is no, the inquiry will say so and the lobby will be vindicated. If the answer is yes, and the public record already indicates what the answer is, then every Australian citizen has been the victim of a fraud conducted against their democracy by a foreign power and its local agents, for thirty years, with the full knowledge and active participation of the people they elected to protect them.

Stated plainly

Something must be stated plainly before this piece closes. I have never held antisemitic views and I never will. My godparents were Jewish Hungarian Holocaust survivors.

My godfather went on to become a prominent and respected figure in both the Australian business world and the Jewish community. He was a founder of the Hakoah Club. I grew up with a precise and personal understanding of what antisemitism is, what it costs, and where it ends.

“This series is not a critique of Jewish Australians.“

It is a critique of something wholly different: the coercive scale of a foreign influence operation conducted on behalf of the Israeli government, by Australian citizens acting as its agents, against the democratic institutions of their own country.

Antisemitism weaponised

The lobby’s reflexive branding of any examination of its own institutional power as racial hatred of Jewish people is not a defence. It is the operational core of a suppression mechanism.

It has worked because it was designed to work and because too many people who knew exactly what it was decided that

“the personal cost of calling it out exceeded the democratic cost of ignoring it.“

That calculation has now produced the country documented in these two articles. Decide for yourself whether you can live with it.

For Netanyahu, crimes against humanity

On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Australia is a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Canada said it would arrest him. France said it would arrest him. The Netherlands said it would arrest him. Albanese has said nothing of legal consequence.

He has not named what is happening in Gaza with the word the ICC has already used and the evidence demands. He has not imposed sanctions. He has not withdrawn the ambassador.

He has produced statements of such deliberate, crafted, lawyered vagueness that they constitute not diplomacy but performance: calibrated to suggest concern while guaranteeing inaction, designed not to communicate a position but to preserve the fiction of having one, while the donor network that purchased that silence continues to operate across every level of Australian government without scrutiny, without accountability, and

“without a single journalist in the parliamentary press gallery willing to stand up and call it what it is.”

That is not the restraint of a statesman navigating genuine complexity. That is the immobility of a man who knows the price of his position down to the last dollar, knows who set it, knows what the invoice covers, and has decided every morning for years that paying it is less dangerous than the alternative.

He is not alone.

He is the current representative of a thirty-year institutional posture shared by both major parties, dozens of ministers, three premiers, a national broadcaster, and a press gallery that has collectively decided the story is not worth the grief.

“Every one of them is wrong.“

And every Australian who still believes this country’s democratic institutions belong to its citizens, and not to the agents of a foreign power, should be demanding to know why.

Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown is a Sydney businessman in the health products sector, former Deputy Mayor of Mosman and Palestine peace activist

May 3, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Antisemitism and Israel: A challenge to the Australian narrative (Part 1)

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has delivered the 21-page report, ‘Torture and genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’, dated 19 February 2026. Albanese’s team outline the depths of depravity and inhumanity to which the Israeli regime has now sunk in its attempted destruction of the Palestinian people.

By Evan Jones | 27 April 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/antisemitism-and-israel-a-challenge-to-the-australian-narrative,20974

A provocative Royal Commission submission by Dr Evan Jones argues that Australia’s antisemitism debate cannot be separated from Israel, Zionism and their political influence.

Submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion

Part 1

General

This submission can be reduced to one word — Israel.

There you have the answer to your inquiry. Dismantle apartheid Israel and see so-called “antisemitism” disappear overnight, save for a small ineradicable but prosecutable fringe

There is really no reason for this Royal Commission at all, as the problem is self-evident. The Commission will not solve the problem that it was formally established to resolve because its agenda is diversionary. Indeed, it will compound the problem because it will, in all probability (as it is seemingly intended to do), reinforce the influence of the Australian Zionist lobby and thus the ongoing impunity of Israel.

The problem arises from the conflation of two forces.

One: Israel is a nation founded on terrorism and wilfully sustained on deep-seated racism.

We know that nation-states are perennially born of violence, expropriation and repression (Australia as a case study), but Israel is a pronounced variation on a common colonialist theme. Israel was born of naked terrorism against an entire (non-Jewish) indigenous population. It was explicitly created and has been sustained as a racist apartheid state. Its borders have never been determined, envisaging ongoing expansion (lebensraum) — “from the river to the sea” (and beyond).

Palestinian Israelis (descendants of those whom the Zionist terrorist gangs failed to expel) are second-class citizens. Palestinian non-Israelis, under Occupation and under martial law, are denied the most basic human rights. Gaza has been a concentration camp since Sharon supposedly “disengaged” from Gaza in 2005.

The sadistic murder of Gazans since October 2023 is reminiscent of the Germans’ feverish pursuit of Jews and Bolsheviks after Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. Israel has long undermined United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) personnel and facilities, which attempt to instil a modicum of humanity into a population long starving from Israeli blockages. Israel endorses carnage by fanatical settlers on West Bank Palestinians, murdering and destroying Palestinian livelihoods at will — for which they enjoy absolute immunity.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) murder children with pleasure. Children are imprisoned indefinitely for throwing stones. Adult prisoners are tortured and murdered. Israel wilfully murders foreign dignitaries (most recently, the Iranian National Security Council chief Ali Larijani, reputed “moderate” and skilled negotiator), which highlights that mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu has put to words what has been the manifesto of all Israeli leadership: there will never be a Palestinian state (September 2025).

Long-term ethnic cleansing has now turned to genocide, ongoing in defiance of the formal “ceasefire”. Israel destroys essential infrastructure, murders aid workers and journalists — because it can. The journalist murder count is now further “totting up” in southern Lebanon.

Representative — this month (March 2026) marks the 23rd anniversary of the crushing of American Rachel Corrie by an Israeli bulldozer.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has delivered the 21-page report, ‘Torture and genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’, dated 19 February 2026. Albanese’s team outline the depths of depravity and inhumanity to which the Israeli regime has now sunk in its attempted destruction of the Palestinian people.

Some excerpts:

Torture has always been a central feature of Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians. Yet, since October 2023, Israel has employed it on a scale that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent.

Torture is not confined to cells and interrogation rooms. Through the cumulative impact of mass displacement, siege, denial of aid and food, unrestrained military and settler violence and pervasive surveillance and terror, the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has become a space of collective punishment, where the destruction of the conditions of life turns genocidal violence into a tool of collective torture with long-term mental and physical consequences for the occupied population.

During its Mandate in Palestine, Britain used torture as one of the counterinsurgency tactics honed in Ireland and later imparted to Zionist militias; such practices, a colonial legacy, were then absorbed into the Israeli security apparatus before and after 1948 as a tool of repression and a preventive measure against Palestinian resistance. From early State-building and through decades of occupation, Israel has practised and condoned coercive violence as a structural component of its apparatus of domination.

An ecosystem of discriminatory legal frameworks and abusive operational practices has metastasized, encompassing Israeli military detention sites and prisons.

Since October 2023, torture in detention has, been used on an unprecedented scale as punitive collective vengeance — a clear feature of genocide. All Palestinians have been treated collectively as “terrorists” and “security threats”.

For her luminous competence, commitment and courage, Albanese was subject to comprehensive oppressive sanctions by the unhinged U.S. Trump Administration in July 2025.

Israel defies all international institutions and laws that proscribe the abuse of state power. Israel’s lobbying and propaganda regime (hasbara) is probably the most extensive of any state in history. Israeli authorities lie about the state’s forces’ actions without remorse.

The Israeli state is a parasite, receiving over US$300 billion (AU$418.7 billion) in aid from U.S. governments since 1950 (a great deal of which flows back to U.S. weapons manufacturers), supplemented by an estimated US$2 billion (AU$2.8 billion) per annum in donations from overseas Jewish “charities”, propped up at the country taxpayers’ expense. In particular, the Jewish National Fund directs funds to obliterating indigenous history in historic Palestine.

In short, the state of Israel is a pariah state, a barbaric regime, an abomination.

Two: All self-described “official” Jewish representative organisations in Australia support and lobby for Israel unreservedly. It is a full-time occupation. 

Such “representative” organisations oppose basic human rights for Palestinians under Israeli control. They socialise their children into “a love of Israel” in Jewish “faith” schools. Some of their children are currently enrolled with the IDF to kill Palestinians.

Such organisations lobby Australian governments to support Israel, inhibiting Australian governments from adopting a principled stance towards Israeli criminality. They harass media management and editorial, thus gaining privileged access to and biased coverage from media outlets that the public relies on for supposedly unbiased information and opinion. Their ridiculous defences of Israel (op-eds, letters, buying off journalists) are published with great regularity. Anti-Zionist Australian Jews (vide Louise Adler and so on) and their organisations (the recently formed Jewish Council of Australia) are pilloried, indeed “excommunicated”.

In essence, Australian Jewish “representative” organisations act as a fifth column for a foreign state against Australian national interests – naturally antagonistic to ‘social cohesion’.

One and two in combination.

The Australian Jewish community, by virtue of its “official” representatives, courageous dissenters excepted, is complicit in Israeli genocide. And not just passively but actively. There has been no mea culpa on the part of executives of the key Jewish organisations (such as ECAJ, ZFA, AIJAC). Nobody in the Jewish community that underpins these organisations has sought to overturn the leadership of these key organisations in order to reorient their agenda and priorities.

In short, Israel and the “official” Australian Jewish community are joined at the hip.

It is not unrealistic to infer that the Bondi attack (and multiple incidents simply labelled “antisemitic”) is blowback for Israel’s character and actions and its local support network. The Israeli machine thus puts the security of global Jewry at risk (indeed, its own Jewish population) and doesn’t care.

A Zionist foot soldier is published in The Sydney Morning Herald (22 March), in denial regarding the intimate connection:

‘While David Leser’s article (SMH & Melbourne Age, 20 March [2026]) raises some thought-provoking points, it falls into the trap of attributing antisemitism in Australia to the actions of the Israeli Government. No other national or ethnic group in Australia is held to account for the actions of governments in countries overseas. So why is it considered reasonable for Jews in Australia to be relentlessly discriminated against for the actions of the Netanyahu Government?’

After the Bondi Beach murders, Israeli flags were well represented among the flower collections and mourners. Israel is apparently seen as the mother ship, the source of solace for those suffering, yet it is the ultimate cause of that suffering.

This bizarre anomaly is enhanced when the Zionist Federation of Australia (as befits its name) initiated the idea of inviting the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, to Australia, subsequently legitimised and authorised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and dragging the Governor-General into the sordid process.

Another foot soldier grasps the connection but declines to understand the implications (SMH, 9 January 2026):

‘President Herzog is the legitimate head of state of the internationally recognised democratic state of Israel, rightfully invited to commiserate with Australians after the appalling terrorist atrocity at Bondi, in which predominantly Jewish people were murdered and injured.’

One notes in passing that Israel is not a democracy but an ethnocracy — no amount of affirmation is going to change the lie and the blind spot in the letter writer’s eye. To repeat, Israel is apparently seen as the mother ship, the source of solace for those suffering, yet it is the ultimate cause of that suffering. ‘Rightfully invited’ — really?

Herzog is not a passive head of state but an active participant in Israeli barbarism. Herzog comes to Australia, spends a token moment with victim families and survivors, declines to visit the fire-bombed Orthodox (non-Zionist) Adass Israel synagogue (“for reasons of security”) and spends the bulk of his time playing Israeli politician (‘not the time for a two-state solution’, meets with ASIO and so on).  

The implication is ugly. Those murdered at Bondi are being instrumentalised (as with Netanyahu’s treatment of Hamas’ Israeli hostages) in the defence of the state of Israel and its current genocidal agenda. Appalling, no?

May 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Antisemitism and Israel: A challenge to the Australian narrative (Part 2)

By Evan Jones | 27 April 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/antisemitism-and-israel-a-challenge-to-the-australian-narrative,20974

Part 2

The Commission’s Terms of Reference

‘AND the determination of the Australian Government to respond to the attack, and the factors leading up to the attack, as a matter of urgency by addressing antisemitism within the Australian community, including since 7 October 2023.’

Investigating the factors leading up to the attack could and should have been the responsibility of the mooted and more suited Richardson review. A royal commission is not the most appropriate vehicle towards this end.

Any investigation regarding “antisemitism” in Australia has to put Israel front and centre. The “official” Jewish community, AKA the Zionist lobby, naturally wants to exclude it.

The appalling Segal Report contains no substantive reference to Israel (my dissection here and here), thus being not merely worthless but disingenuous (vide Gwenaël Velge’s summary of the counter-Segal Greenslade and Briskman report, Not in Our Name: Jewish Australians Speak Out) and dangerous. Ditto the absence of any substantive reference to Israel in the most recent annual report (December 2025) of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (sic) (dissected here).

‘AND that the Australian Government has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.’

This submitter is frankly gobsmacked to find that this fraudulent “definition” has been officially adopted. The definition has been widely criticised, including by one of its originators, Kenneth Stern. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition is essentially about demonising criticism of Israel. Any proposed definition of antisemitism that attempts to delineate the terms on which one is allowed to criticise Israel without censure is automatically illegitimate.

The adoption of the IHRA definition nullifies any legitimacy that the paraphernalia of a royal commission might have and destroys any prospect of an honest analysis and a substantive functional prognosis. This adoption of the IHRA definition gives the impression that the Royal Commission, even inadvertently, will serve as yet another front for the pro-Israel lobby.

With the Royal Commission proceeding based on the IHRA definition, it can only turn into an inquisition. It can have nothing intelligent or ethical to offer about real antisemitism and can have nothing to offer in terms of genuinely dealing with it. It will be remembered as a squandering of the significant money that funds it and for the farcical theatre that is its essence.

‘AND recognising that strengthening the national consensus in support of democracy, freedom and the rule of law (social cohesion) provides the strongest defence against antisemitism and other forms of religious and ideologically motivated extremism.’

This sentence reads like it was written by AI. Who wrote this rubbish? One cannot have social cohesion as long as a particular Australian community coheres and operates actively as a fifth column in support of a foreign rogue state and influences Australian politics, both foreign and domestic, and media towards that end.

AND that hearing from the Jewish Australian community will be important to informing the recommendations of your inquiry and recognising concerns relating to educational and cultural institutions, and other sections of Australian society.’

Which ‘Jewish Australian community’? Is this obscurantism a product of naivete or of cynical contempt? Is the pro-Israel lobby running this show? Will anti-Zionist Jews and their organisations be consulted? Will anti-Zionist non-Jewish organisations (which have Jewish membership), such as the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, be consulted?

‘…and recognising concerns relating to educational and cultural institutions…’ Meaning? Which and whose concerns? Is this an oblique reference to forthcoming censorship, sackings, institutional defunding and hasbara implants as foreshadowed in the Segal Report?

To the Honourable Virginia Bell AC

We do… appoint you to be a Commission of inquiry, and require and authorise you to inquire into the following matters:

(a) tackling antisemitism by:…

This section is at the heart of the Commission’s Terms of Reference misdirection. Misdiagnosed symptoms are highlighted rather than causes.

The authorities need to cut the umbilical cord between the Australian Jewish community (including demolishing the pernicious influence of its Zionist leadership) and the criminal state of Israel.

In particular, (a)(iv) deserves comment. The ‘mental health and wellbeing of Jewish Australians’? No doubt the Commission hearings will consider the mental health of anti-Zionist Australian Jews who experience the mental anguish of seeing Jewish Israelis acting like Nazis (and supposedly in the name of global Jewry), but who also suffer the obloquy of abuse by the Australian Zionist Jewish establishment for their ethical stance.

As for the mental health of Australian Zionist Jews, tied inexplicably to a racially supremacist Israel, it is a psychopathology and to their own account — save that their aberrant mental state has the Palestinians (and now the Iranians and, once again, the Lebanese) as its ongoing victims.

Zionist Jewish University students, fresh from their “faith” schools with their “love of Israel” and now nurtured in the bosom of the Zionist Australasian Union of Jewish Students, find their “sensitivities” affected by campus protests against Israeli genocide. So as not to upset these sensitive souls, inured to the genocide of lesser ethnicities, campus protests have to be shut down.

If the Commission is concerned with shoring up the ‘mental health and wellbeing of [Zionist] Jewish Australians’, it is not an agenda that any Australian imbued with ethical sympathies (which includes anti-Zionist Jewish Australians) could have any tolerance for.

‘(b) making any recommendations to assist law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies…’

Is this code for inhibiting access to refugee status of people escaping Israeli onslaughts and who naturally take a dim view of Israel’s modus operandi?

‘(c) examine the circumstances surrounding the antisemitic Bondi terrorist attack…’

This was supposed to be the focus of the Richardson review, but that was merged inappropriately into the Royal Commission’s framework. Now Richardson has retired, recognising the Commission’s structured dysfunctionality. The most important subject for investigation is now without a suitable home and personnel to proceed.

‘(d) make any other recommendations… that would contribute to strengthening social cohesion…’

The means to strengthening social cohesion is to dismantle the pro-Israel lobby in Australia and for the Albanese Government to develop and sustain a principled foreign policy. By contrast, the Terms of Reference of this Commission appear to direct the Commission’s operations to enhance that lobby’s influence and to ignore and to implicitly condone the Government’s cowardice.

Methinks that the Royal Commission’s slip is showing. One gets the strong impression that one is in for more than farce. Rather, the Australian public is in for an authoritarian state run in the interests of an Australian Zionist mafia, with which the current Australian Labor Government is already in cahoots (and the Liberal Opposition even more craven).

May 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment