Antinuclear

Australia’s culture of complicity

When we look at the visit of the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, we see the complicity in full view. Herzog is like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, both have no moral backbone.

The executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia surmised what most independent observers have surmised:

“Herzog represents a state currently facing proceedings before the International Court of Justice for alleged breaches of the Genocide Convention. His public statements have been cited as evidence of incitement to genocide. He supports the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and has made racist statements about Palestinians and Arabs, including depicting a Muslim man in the crosshairs of a gunsight during an election campaign.”

By Kim Sawyer |Independent Australia, 19 February 2026, Dr Kim Sawyer is a retired Associate Professor, University of Melbourne.

WHEN I APPEARED before the first Senate Committee on Whistleblowing in 1994, I spoke of the problem of accomplices.

There was the auditor who prefaced their audit,“Under the direction of senior management,” but only after they were given evidence of  fraud; the auditors who covered up a university enrolling staff to cover shortfalls in enrolments; the regulators who turned a blind eye to financial mismanagement. I came to learn the meaning of complicity.

The 1995 Senate inquiry into 16 unresolved whistleblowing cases was a testament to complicity. There were 16 recommendations; none of them were ever enabled, and it has been the same for most Senate inquiries. The 2001 Senate inquiry into universities recommended the establishment of a universities’ ombudsman but it never happened. Inquiry after inquiry, universities, banks, gambling, lobbying, ASIC, no recommendations are ever followed through.  Politicians so addicted to window dressing that they do not understand their complicity.

Whistleblowing legislation is an example. The government purports to be a supporter of whistleblowing protection, yet it is all spin. There have been no prosecutions for retaliation against whistleblowers, instead whistleblowers have been prosecuted. I have long advocated for a False Claims Act, the most powerful whistleblowing act anywhere. When I spoke to the former Attorney General Mark Dreyfus at a 2008 hearing of the House Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee about a False Claims Act, he responded that it was too early for Australia. It was 18 years ago and it’s probably too early still…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

When we look at the visit of the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, we see the complicity in full view. Herzog is like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, both have no moral backbone.

The executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia surmised what most independent observers have surmised:

“Herzog represents a state currently facing proceedings before the International Court of Justice for alleged breaches of the Genocide Convention. His public statements have been cited as evidence of incitement to genocide. He supports the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and has made racist statements about Palestinians and Arabs, including depicting a Muslim man in the crosshairs of a gunsight during an election campaign.”

Herzog is not popular in Israel. A poll published in July last year found 57 per cent of Israelis dissatisfied with Herzog’s performance, compared with 30 per cent who were satisfied. Given that he is a ceremonial head of state and given that Israel is involved in a war, the poll represents a verdict on his complicity.

Unlike the former President Reuven Rivlin, Isaac Herzog has not challenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Nation-State Law that weakened the judiciary and allowed Netanyahu to defer charges of corruption.

Herzog’s greatest complicity relates to Gaza. On 7 October, 2023, Hamas killed 1,139 people and took 240 hostages. Since 7 October, 2023, 71,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 20,000 children; 170,000 Palestinians have been injured, many with life-threatening injuries. Surely that constitutes genocide. Surely that requires condemnation.

…………………..The government that has been complicit in the retaliation against whistleblowers and complicit in the victimisation of the victims of scams is now complicit with what has occurred in Gaza. We should never be complicit with genocide.

Perhaps Albanese should watch Awni Eldous on YouTube to get a refresher course on humanity.

February 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Exposing the DISTURBING ISRAELI Lobby inside Australia | Ex-Foreign Minister Bob Carr

In this exclusive interview, former Australian Foreign Minister, the Hon. Bob Carr reveals the deep underlying influence of the Israeli lobby in Australian politics – and how it has long shaped Canberra’s stance on Israel–Palestine.

Once a co-founder of the Labor Friends of Israel with Bob Hawke in 1977, Carr has undergone a dramatic transformation – from being hailed in Tel Aviv as an “honourable gentile” to now becoming one of the loudest critics of Israel’s brutality in Gaza.

February 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Herzog’s Visit to Australia: Just Who Is Being Comforted, and at What Cost?

12 February 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Ricky Pann, https://theaimn.net/herzogs-visit-to-australia-just-who-is-being-comforted-and-at-what-cost/

Chris Minns, symbolism, policing, and the narrowing of dissent

The five-day visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Australia in February 2026 was framed by the federal government as a gesture of compassion. A “moment of profound significance,” we were told, intended to comfort a Jewish community still reeling from the Bondi Beach massacre. Yet as Sydney’s CBD was placed under extraordinary police powers under the authority of NSW Premier Chris Minns, and peaceful dissent was progressively marginalised, a harder question emerged. Who exactly was being comforted, and who was being disciplined?

This essay is not about Jewish Australians, nor is it an attack on Jewish identity, culture, or faith. It is about power. Specifically, it examines the political influence of pro-Zionist lobbying networks, their intersection with far-right activism, and the way criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza has been recoded as antisemitism in order to narrow the space for lawful protest and political dissent in Australia.

The radicalization confronting this country is not racial or religious. It is ideological.

Symbolism, Selectively Applied

Symbolism, Selectively Applied

Political authority in modern Australia is increasingly exercised through symbolism. In October 2023, the Premier Chris Minns NSW Labor Government authorized the projection of the Israeli flag onto the Sydney Opera House, a unilateral display of solidarity following the outbreak of war in Gaza. No equivalent space was afforded to Palestinian grief, despite mounting civilian casualties and credible allegations of war crimes.

Less than two years later, when hundreds of thousands of Australians sought to march peacefully across the Harbour Bridge in the “March for Humanity” to protest the starvation and bombardment of Gaza, NSW Premier Chris Minns attempted to block the demonstration entirely. The stated reasons were “logistics” and “public safety,” yet the inconsistency was glaring. The same government that had no difficulty illuminating national icons for one side of a foreign conflict suddenly discovered insurmountable risk when confronted with mass civic dissent.

This contradiction matters because Minns’ own federal party had already moved to recognize the State of Palestine in early 2025, a move grounded in international law and bipartisan precedent. His resistance to the march therefore cannot be explained by party policy. It must be understood as political pressure from lobbying networks that historically provide the largest sponsorship of non-government funded international trips for federal parliamentarians.

Electoral Mandates and Managed Fear

Minns’ 2023 election was powered by Muslim and multicultural Western Sydney electorates. These communities did not merely vote Labor. They organized, volunteered, and mobilized. By 2026, those same voters found their protests discouraged, surveilled, and in some cases forcibly dispersed under expanded “Major Event” police powers.

The Premier moved from campaigning on inclusion to presiding over the criminalization of dissent. Symbolically, he shifted from promising a “fresh start for all of NSW” to publicly accepting praise from Isaac Herzog as a “friend of Israel,” even as Palestinian Australians were told their grief must remain silent.

Why?

Dissent Recast as Disloyalty

That question sharpened further when the police response and official rhetoric began to frame protesters as “anti-Australian.” The remark was not incidental; it signaled a reframing of peaceful assembly as national disloyalty.

Anti-Australian is not marching with placards. Anti-Australian is pepper-spraying, manhandling, and arresting ordinary citizens exercising democratic rights. Among those dispersed and detained at Town Hall and Bondi were young people affiliated with the Labor movement itself. The irony is difficult to ignore: a government elected by grassroots mobilization now presiding over the physical suppression of its own political base.

When dissent is redefined as threat, the social contract fractures. Protest becomes suspicion. Citizenship becomes conditional.

The Infrastructure of Influence

The answer lies not in religion, but in networks. Central to this landscape is Jillian Segal, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism appointed by Prime Minister Antony Albanese. Appointing any lobbyist as a special envoy is a dangerous move for social cohesion, especially one with strong links to a right wing government that operates with its military, intelligence agencies, the military industrial complex and propaganda machine hand in glove.

While the role is framed as protective, its credibility has been undermined by Australian Electoral Commission data showing her household, via the Henroth Discretionary Trust, as a significant donor to Advance Australia. Advance Australia led the campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, arguing that constitutional recognition would grant disproportionate influence to a single minority. Yet the same ideological ecosystem now demands exceptional legal protections that redefine criticism of a foreign state as racial hatred. In doing so, it collapses the distinction between antisemitism and opposition to Zionism or Israeli military policy.

This is not a contradiction. It is a strategy.

By expanding definitions of antisemitism to include phrases, political speech critical of Israel, these actors create a legal and cultural environment in which Palestinian Australian identity itself becomes suspect.5 Protest becomes threat. Dissent becomes hate. Assembly becomes extremism.

Fear as a Political Tool

Former Foreign Minister and Labor Premier of NSW  Bob Carr has described the pro-Israel lobby in Australia as a “well-funded foreign influence operation.” Its power does not rest solely on donations, though the Henroth Trust alone provided $280,000 to the Liberal Party in 2024-25, but on fear. Fear of reputational destruction. Fear of being branded weak on security. Fear of becoming the next viral political target of confected rage.

Public rebukes from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including claims that Australian policy “fueled” the Bondi attack, functioned as signals. The message was clear: deviation will be punished. For a state premier, the threat of an organized backlash from internationally connected lobbying networks appears to have outweighed the expressed will of his voters, the principles of his party caucus, and the basic democratic right to protest.

The Theatre of Tragedy

The Bondi Beach attack must be named for what it was: outright terrorism driven by radicalized ideology. It is a national trauma. Australians are grieving. Jewish Australians are grieving. Muslim Australians are grieving. This pain is real and shared.

To use that tragedy as diplomatic cover for Herzog’s visit is not an act of healing. It is socially inflammatory populist theatre. It is exploitation pornography, weaponizing grief to silence dissent and to morally coerce the public into picking a side while laws are quietly rewritten in the background. Politicians call for social cohesion while banning words, narrowing protest rights, and empowering police to detain, search, and suppress political opponents. They invoke unity while demanding ideological compliance.

Is this cohesion, or is it theatre?

Surveillance and the Authoritarian Horizon

That question becomes more urgent in light of the federal government’s expanding relationship with Palantir, the data analysis firm whose platforms underpin United States immigration enforcement (ICE) and provide battlefield intelligence to the Israeli military.

Australia has now granted this company “protected-level” access to sensitive national data following its Nov 2025 assessment. The question is no longer theoretical. How long before these tools are turned inward? How long before citizens who challenge laws championed by foreign-aligned lobbyists find themselves catalogued, profiled, and neutralized in the name of security?

True social cohesion is not achieved through surveillance, intimidation, or moral blackmail. It is built through consistency, restraint, and the protection of civil liberties. When governments abandon those principles, they do not preserve democracy. They hollow it out. And no amount of symbolic lighting can conceal that erosion.

Author’s Note

I am pro-Jewish. I am pro-Arab. I am unequivocally opposed to antisemitism, Islamophobia, and political violence in all forms. I draw a clear distinction between race, religion, and ideology. In an age of populism and misinformation, where mainstream and social media demand that we pick a side, I refuse to do so. As a centrist, I reject the false binary that equates moral clarity with tribal allegiance. Democracies fail not when citizens disagree, but when dissent itself is recast as disloyalty. I have resigned from the Labor party as it no longer hears my voice or  represents my values

February 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Bondi’s Blood, Herzog’s Shield: How Australia’s Grief was Hijacked for Geopolitics

The invitation of Isaac Herzog to Australia was not an act of solidarity. It was an act of political calculation; a cynical attempt to fold the grief of Bondi’s victims into a diplomatic script that served the government’s interests, not theirs.

The emergence of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), a progressive body representing a significant segment of the Jewish community, disrupted the government’s assumptions. The JCA warned that using Jewish grief as a diplomatic backdrop risked entrenching the dangerous conflation between Jewish identity and the Israeli state, a conflation that has already fuelled antisemitism around the world. Their warning went unheeded.

10 February 2026 David Tyler, https://theaimn.net/bondis-blood-herzogs-shield-how-australias-grief-was-hijacked-for-geopolitics/

The Massacre as a Mirror

The Bondi massacre was not an aberration. It was a reflection, a brutal, unfiltered image of the fractures in Australia’s legal frameworks, the cynicism of its political class, and the ease with which communal grief can be repurposed for geopolitical theatre. On 14 December 2025, Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, killing fifteen people and wounding over forty. It was the deadliest mass shooting since Port Arthur, the worst antisemitic attack in Australian history, and a tragedy that exposed not one or two failures, but a cascade of systemic neglect.

This violence did not emerge from a vacuum. It was the latest eruption in a long, unbroken line of homegrown brutality. The 1928 Coniston massacre, where state-sanctioned militias slaughtered Indigenous Australians under the guise of frontier justice. The 1978 Hilton bombing, which shattered the illusion of domestic immunity. The 2019 Christchurch killings, where an Australian radical exported terror across the Tasman. Each of these events was nurtured in the cracks of our own institutions, yet each was swiftly repackaged as something else: a foreign threat, a diplomatic opportunity, or a moment to reassert the myth of Australian exceptionalism.

The Albanese government’s response to Bondi followed this script to the letter. Within weeks, Israeli President Isaac Herzog was invited to stand at the centre of Australia’s mourning, a man whose own words and actions have been cited in allegations of incitement to genocide by the International Court of Justice. The message was clear: in the face of domestic horror, Australia would default to the familiar playbook of alliance politics, even if it meant suspending its own commitments to international law and the right to dissent.

Policy Failure #1: The Firearms Regime’s Fatal Loopholes

The weapons used at Bondi were all legally acquired. Straight-pull rifles, designed to mimic the rapidity of banned pump-action firearms while slipping through the 1996 National Firearms Agreement’s (NFA) mechanism-based categories, sat comfortably in the least restrictive licensing tiers. This was not an accident. It was the inevitable result of a firearms regime that has been systematically weakened by lobbying, political inertia, and a cultural reluctance to confront the reality of gun violence in Australia.

The NFA was never the ironclad solution it was sold as. From the outset, it was a compromise; a patchwork of state-level regulations stitched together under the pressure of public outrage after Port Arthur. Over the years, the seams have frayed. Successive governments, both Labor and Coalition, have bowed to the gun lobby’s demands, carving out exemptions for farmers, sport shooters, and collectors. The result? A licensing system so riddled with loopholes that a man investigated by ASIO for ISIS-linked associations could arm himself with lethal rapid-fire weapons without raising a single red flag.

The National Cabinet’s post-massacre reforms, announced with the usual fanfare of “never again,” arrived only after the familiar ritual of hindsight. But the real question is not whether these reforms will work; it’s why they weren’t implemented decades ago. The answer lies in the quiet, persistent influence of groups like the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia (SSAA), which has spent years lobbying against even the most modest restrictions. The SSAA’s success is a testament to the power of organised interests over public safety; a dynamic that has played out in everything from climate policy to industrial relations.

If Australia is serious about preventing another Bondi, it must confront this reality head-on. That means closing the loopholes in the NFA, ending the revolving door between gun lobbyists and political advisors, and treating firearms regulation as a matter of national security; not a bargaining chip for rural votes.

Policy Failure #2: Intelligence – Blind Spots and Misplaced Priorities

ASIO had investigated Naveed Akram for ISIS-linked associations. Yet, somehow, the licensing system never flagged the Akram household. This was not a failure of intelligence gathering. It was a failure of intelligence prioritisation; one that reflects a broader pattern in Australia’s approach to counterterrorism.

Since 9/11, Australia’s security apparatus has been obsessed with the spectre of foreign terrorism. Billions of dollars have been poured into surveillance, border security, and counter-radicalisation programs, all aimed at keeping the “external threat” at bay. Yet, time and again, the real danger comes from within. The Christchurch killer was an Australian. The Bondi killers were Australian. The Hilton bombers were Australian. In each case, the warning signs were ignored or dismissed until it was too late.

The problem is not a lack of resources. It’s a lack of focus. ASIO’s mandate is vast, encompassing everything from cybersecurity to foreign interference. But when it comes to monitoring domestic extremism, particularly the kind that doesn’t fit the “Islamist terrorist” stereotype, the agency has repeatedly dropped the ball. The Lindt Café siege, the Melbourne Bourke Street attack, and now Bondi: all cases where individuals known to authorities slipped through the cracks.

This is not just a bureaucratic failing. It’s a cultural one. Australia’s security establishment remains fixated on the idea of terrorism as an imported phenomenon, something that can be kept out with enough border controls and surveillance. The result is a blind spot the size of a continent; one that allows homegrown radicals to arm themselves, plan their attacks, and strike with devastating effect.

If we are to learn anything from Bondi, it must be this: the greatest threat to Australia’s security is not some shadowy foreign network. It’s the failures of our own systems; the gaps in our laws, the biases in our intelligence agencies, and the political cowardice that prevents us from addressing them.

Policy Failure #3: The Geopolitical Exploitation of Grief

The invitation of Isaac Herzog to Australia was not an act of solidarity. It was an act of political calculation; a cynical attempt to fold the grief of Bondi’s victims into a diplomatic script that served the government’s interests, not theirs.

Above all, Herzog’s presence in Australia is fraught with legal and moral contradictions. The International Court of Justice has found the allegation of genocide against Israel “plausible” and ordered the state to prevent genocidal acts. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded in 2024 that Herzog himself engaged in “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” citing his statement that “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” These are not fringe allegations. They are serious, internationally recognised findings, and they attach to the man Australia chose to place at the centre of its national mourning.

The political logic behind the invitation is clear. After the deadliest antisemitic attack in the country’s history, the Albanese government sought to reassure a frightened Jewish community while maintaining alignment with the United States. In moments of crisis, governments default to familiar interlocutors. The problem is that, in this case, the familiar interlocutor was a figure facing credible allegations of war crimes.

The emergence of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), a progressive body representing a significant segment of the Jewish community, disrupted the government’s assumptions. The JCA warned that using Jewish grief as a diplomatic backdrop risked entrenching the dangerous conflation between Jewish identity and the Israeli state, a conflation that has already fuelled antisemitism around the world. Their warning went unheeded.

Instead, the government doubled down. Herzog’s visit was declared a “major event” under the NSW Major Events Act 2009, granting police extraordinary powers; warrantless searches, exclusion zones, and the ability to restrict public assemblies for months. Three thousand officers were deployed, with snipers stationed on rooftops. Sydney was transformed into a security theatre, where the right to protest was suspended to shield a foreign head of state from public criticism.

The scale of dissent was far larger than mainstream broadcasters acknowledge. While the ABC described “hundreds” of protesters in Melbourne, independent footage and on-the-ground reporting suggested the turnout was in the thousands. In Sydney, thousands gathered at Town Hall, only to be met with capsicum spray and arrests when they attempted to march. The message was unmistakable: in the name of “solidarity,” the Australian state was willing to suspend the democratic rights of its own citizens.

The Deeper Contradiction: Gaza and the Rule of Law

The irony of this crackdown was not lost on those who noted the stark contrast with Australia’s response to the ongoing violence in Gaza. Despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreed to in October 2025, the killing has not stopped. Since that agreement, over 500 Palestinians have been killed, and hundreds more have been retrieved from the rubble. The death toll now exceeds 72,000. Herzog, as the titular head of the Israeli state, presides over a government that continues to restrict life-saving aid even as it claims to participate in a truce.

Australia’s signature on the Genocide Convention carries a positive duty to prevent genocide and to refrain from complicity. This obligation is non-derogable. It cannot be set aside, even in times of crisis. Yet, by centring Herzog in its response to Bondi, the Australian government did precisely that. It offered a form of diplomatic indemnification to a leader facing credible allegations of incitement, while simultaneously suppressing domestic dissent in his name.

This is not solidarity. It is complicity. And it raises a fundamental question: if Australia is willing to suspend its commitment to international law in the name of “comforting” one community, what does that say about its commitment to justice for all?

A Path Forward: Truth, Accountability, and Policy

The lessons of Bondi are not just about what went wrong. They are about what must change.

Firearms Reform: Close the loopholes in the NFA. Ban straight-pull rifles and any other weapons designed to circumvent the spirit of the law. End the influence of the gun lobby in political decision-making.

Intelligence Overhaul: Reorient ASIO’s priorities to focus on domestic extremism, regardless of ideology. Invest in community-based counter-radicalisation programs that address the root causes of violence, rather than just the symptoms.

Diplomatic Integrity: Australia’s foreign policy must be consistent with its legal obligations. Inviting leaders accused of war crimes to stand as symbols of national mourning is not just hypocritical; it is a violation of our duties under international law.

Protest Rights: The Major Events Act and other laws used to suppress dissent during Herzog’s visit must be repealed or radically reformed. The right to protest is not a privilege to be revoked at the government’s convenience. It is the bedrock of democracy.

Bondi’s grief does not need a geopolitical interpreter. It needs truth, accountability, and a government capable of upholding the law, even when-and especially when- it is uncomfortable. The real tribute to the victims of Bondi is not a photo op with a foreign leader. It is a commitment to ensuring that the failures that enabled their deaths are never repeated.

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES

February 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Australia: HRF, Jewish Council and ANIC Demand Arrest or Entry Ban of Israeli President

January 30th 2026, https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/posts/australia-hrf-jewish-council-and-anic-demand-arrest-or-entry-ban-of-israeli-president

In a historic joint action, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), the Jewish Council of Australia, and the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), have lodged a formal legal complaint to have Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrested or barred from entering Australia. The groups, represented by renowned barrister Robert Richter KC, allege that Herzog has incited genocide and aided and abetted war crimes, rendering him unfit to enter the country under Australian law.

The 30-page submission, sent yesterday to Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), warns that the President’s visit is “highly inflammatory”. 

The groups are calling on the AFP to initiate a criminal investigation of Herzog under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

The urgent request details a “sustained pattern of incitement and hate speech” by the President, specifically citing:

• The “Entire Nation” Declaration: Herzog’s October 2023 statement that there are no “uninvolved” civilians in Gaza, which the groups argue stripped 2.3 million people of their protected status under international humanitarian law and urged the IDF to treat the entire population as a military target.
• Famine Denial: Herzog’s August 2025 claims that images of starving Gazan children were “staged”—a statement made while famine was setting in and which the brief describes as a “conscious effort to obscure war crimes”.
• Endorsement of Military Operations Involving War Crimes: A December 2023 visit to the Nahal Oz military base where Herzog reportedly “encouraged” troops 48 hours before the “wanton destruction” and “flattening” of the Palestinian town of Khuza’a.

The submission rejects any claim that Herzog has diplomatic immunity, citing the Nuremberg Principles and international law to argue that heads of state have no shield against charges of genocide or war crimes. The groups warn that if the government fails to act, it would signal “acquiescence to genocidal rhetoric”.

“If the Prime Minister of Israel is not permitted to visit Australia, the President should not be allowed to act as his surrogate,” the complaint states, referencing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, Hind Rajab Foundation:

“When a head of state publicly denies civilian protection, dismisses famine, and encourages military operations marked by widespread civilian harm and destruction, those acts carry legal consequences everywhere. No country — including Australia — should become a safe haven for individuals credibly accused of inciting genocide or aiding and abetting war crimes. Australia has a duty to uphold the rule of law and protect its communities from such threats.”

Ohad Kozminsky, Executive Member, Jewish Council of Australia:

“President Herzog represents a state found to be committing genocide in Gaza. His presence in Australia would identify this state with Australian Jews, which risks exacerbating social division and endangering Australian Jewish communities. We stand firmly against all forms of racism, and President Herzog’s statements attributing collective guilt to an entire people are a textbook manifestation of anti-Palestinian racism and Israel’s ongoing campaign of dehumanisation.”

Bilal Rauf, Senior Advisor, Australian National Imams Council (ANIC):
“In recent times, Australia’s social cohesion has been under threat.  Now more than ever, it is incumbent upon all of us, particularly our political leaders, to seek to protect our social cohesion as a country and society and ensure that individuals who may inflame the situation by their very presence, are not permitted into our country. The proposed visit by the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a highly controversial foreign head of state accused of serious international crimes, risks inflaming social tensions, undermining Australia’s hate-speech protections, and placing Australian communities at risk. ANIC calls on the Government, which has hurriedly passed laws in the name of social cohesion, to refuse or cancel any visa held by President Herzog. In pursuing this, among other outcomes, ANIC joins with the Jewish Council of Australia and the Hind Rajab Foundation, in pursuing the complaint.” 

February 4, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

As Trump Threatens Weekend Strike on Iran, Albanese Pretends Pine Gap Isn’t Complicit

1 February 2026 David Tyler AIM Extra

Albanese’s Iran Illusion: How Australia Sleepwalks into Someone Else’s War

While our federal government waffles on about rules based order, Iran is rewriting the rules of modern warfare. Trump is threatening regime-change. The Strait of Hormuz has become a kill box where $13 billion aircraft carriers play sitting duck to lethal, glorified speedboats, where cyberattacks double as deterrence, and where Australia, ever the loyal deputy, pretends it’s all someone else’s problem. Labor’s silence isn’t prudence. It’s complicity in a US strategy that’s already unravelling, and we’ve got the scars to prove it.

Trump already bombed Iran once. In June 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer saw seven B-2 stealth bombers drop bunker-busters on three nuclear facilities while Pine Gap provided the targeting data. Iran’s face-saving response, a telegraphed missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, fooled no one. But it burned through 25% of America’s total THAAD interceptor stockpiles, missiles the US produces at a rate of roughly one per month. Now Trump’s threatening round two, this time with explicit regime-change goals, and Albanese still won’t acknowledge that Australia’s uncritical alignment has painted a target on our own facilities.

The real damage? Washington’s isolation campaign isn’t weakening Tehran. It’s shoving Iran into Beijing and Moscow’s arms, locking in an anti-Western axis that thrives on American blunders, while teaching every threshold nuclear state that compliance buys nothing but bombs. Why won’t Labor admit the scale of the mess? Because doing so would mean confessing its own role in a policy already fraying at the seams.

Iran’s Budget Warfare: Turning American Strength into Liability

Iran isn’t trying to match the US ship for ship. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has crafted a playbook that turns American firepower into dead weight: coastal swarms, cyber harassment, proxy deterrence. The goal isn’t winning a war. It’s making escalation so unpredictable, expensive, and politically toxic that the US thinks twice before starting one.

In the cramped waters of the Strait, even Iran’s modest fleet of fast-attack craft becomes a force multiplier. The IRGC doesn’t need a knockout punch, just enough chaos to trap US commanders in a no-win scenario. Push ahead and risk humiliation. Retreat and signal weakness. Dither in the middle while morale drains away. So far, the Pentagon has mostly chosen door number three, proving you can outspend your opponent by billions and still lose the initiative to speedboats and audacity.

The Strait of Hormuz: Where Geography Beats Firepower

The USS Abraham Lincoln isn’t just another, elderly ship in the Strait. It’s a floating monument to American overreach, now redeployed for what Trump calls an “armada larger than Venezuela,” the latest regime-change operation on his scorecard. Iran’s swarm tactics don’t need to sink a nuclear-powered carrier to succeed. They just need to make every transit a gamble, every patrol a potential disaster.

The IRGC’s speedboats may look like dinghies, but in these confined waters where 20% of the world’s oil flows, they’re a constant reminder: geography, not firepower, decides who blinks first. Tehran isn’t trying to win a shootout. It’s turning the Strait into a quagmire where the US loses whether it escalates or backs down, and every crisis burns through irreplaceable defensive systems while China takes notes.

Cyber Jihad: How Iran Turned Hacking into Deterrence

Iran may not match Russia or China’s cyber prowess, but it doesn’t need to. Its campaigns against US, Israeli, and Gulf targets aren’t about knockout blows. They’re about raising costs, sowing doubt, ensuring any strike on Iranian soil comes with a digital counterpunch. From disrupting Saudi oil facilities to probing Israeli water systems, Tehran’s message is simple: hit us, and we hit back, not just with missiles, but with chaos in your backyard.

At home, the regime has weaponised the internet itself, using imported surveillance tech and homegrown censorship to crush dissent. Since January 8, Iran’s internet connectivity has been throttled to 1% of normal levels, a digital blackout designed to hide what appears to be one of the bloodiest crackdowns in modern Iranian history. It’s crude, effective, and one more layer of deterrence the Pentagon now factors into every war plan.

The Massacres Under the Blackout: What Trump’s “Humanitarian” Intervention Ignores

Here’s what Trump won’t mention when he frames the next strike as protecting Iranian protesters: his administration is planning regime change in a country already reeling from mass killings. Since late December, Iran has experienced its largest uprising since 1979, sparked by currency collapse and spreading nationwide. The regime’s response has been catastrophic…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Pine Gap Paradox: Australia’s Uncritical Complicity

Australia isn’t a neutral observer. Through Pine Gap, we provided the intelligence backbone enabling the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, operations now drawing genocide allegations at the ICJ given the broader context of US-Israeli coordination. That makes us complicit, and Tehran has noticed.

Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia was explicit in his warning: if the US strikes again, “the scope of war will certainly extend across the entire region… From the Zionist regime to countries that host American military bases, all will be within range of our missiles and drones.” That’s not bluster. That’s a direct threat to Australian facilities, delivered after we’d already enabled one round of strikes.

The Herzog visit crystallises Labor’s paralysis. Albanese frames it as “solidarity” with Jewish Australians, but the timing, amid ICJ hearings, domestic protests, and credible reports of an “imminent” second US strike aimed at regime change, screams political theatre. Hosting an Israeli president while Pine Gap’s data flows unrestricted into contested operations isn’t tone-deaf. It’s a neon sign for Iranian retaliation: cyberattacks, grey-zone harassment, or worse.

Yet Albanese won’t acknowledge the risks, because doing so would mean admitting our uncritical alignment with Washington has made us a target. So we get silence, deflection, empty platitudes about “shared values,” while senior US military officials tell Middle Eastern allies that Trump may strike Iran “as soon as this weekend.”

Greg Moriarty, our ambassador in Washington, saw this coming. His warnings about blowback from sanctions and military-first strategies should be shaping the debate. Instead, they’ve been sidelined, because realism doesn’t win elections, and admitting the Pine Gap Paradox would require honesty this government doesn’t possess.

The Nuclear Cascade: What Comes After Trump Bombs Iran Again

If Trump follows through, the consequences extend far beyond the Middle East. Every regional power watching this crisis is recalculating. Saudi Arabia has made no secret of its nuclear ambitions, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman publicly declaring the kingdom would pursue weapons if Iran did. Riyadh’s deepening defence cooperation with nuclear-armed Pakistan isn’t coincidence. It’s a hedge against American unreliability and regional instability……………………….

Crossroads: The Choice Albanese Won’t Make

Australia still has options, but the window is closing fast. We can deepen our operational integration with the US, provide targeting for regime-change strikes, and hope Iran decides we’re more trouble than we’re worth. Or we can use our position inside the American security ecosystem to argue for de-escalation, regional guarantees, diplomacy over another roll of the dice with irreplaceable defensive systems and global proliferation architecture.

The second path means telling a distracted superpower our support has limits, that we won’t sign a blank cheque for a strategy multiplying our exposure while delivering only drift. It means acknowledging publicly that Pine Gap’s role in the June strikes has already made Australia complicit, and that a second round aimed at regime change crosses a line we should never have approached.

But if Albanese won’t level with the public about the stakes, we risk sleepwalking into a conflict shaped by other people’s decisions, on other people’s timelines, with Australian facilities providing the targeting data that helps trigger a regional war and global nuclear cascade.

Drop Site News reports the strike could come “as soon as this weekend.” Common Dreams notes 56% of Americans already believe Trump has gone too far with military interventions. Even many Iranian protesters warn the US will exploit their struggle rather than support it. The pieces are in place for a catastrophic escalation, one that makes the June strikes look like a warning shot.

The question isn’t whether Australia can afford to speak plainly about these risks. It’s whether we can afford not to, and whether Albanese has the courage to admit that our “shared values” with Washington don’t extend to enabling regime-change operations that will make us targets while accelerating nuclear proliferation across the Middle East.

The silence from Canberra isn’t prudence. It’s complicity. And if Trump pulls the trigger this weekend, Albanese’s refusal to acknowledge our role will look less like diplomacy and more like dereliction.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES, https://theaimn.net/as-trump-threatens-weekend-strike-on-iran-albanese-pretends-pine-gap-isnt-complicit/

February 2, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

United Israel Appeal. Charity channels tax free donations direct to IDF soldiers

by Stephanie Tran | Jan 28, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/united-israel-appeal-channels-tax-free-donations-direct-to-idf-soldiers/

Since 2013, more than $400 million in tax-deductible donations have flowed through an Australian charity, including direct to IDF soldiers. Stephanie Tran reports.

United Israel Appeal (UIA) Australia has remitted $376m to Israel since 2013 via its global partner Keren Hayesod, according to ACNC financial disclosures.

In 2024 alone, UIA Australia received $50.9m in tax-deductible donations and sponsorships.

Financial statements from Keren Hayesod, the Israel-based body that receives and distributes UIA funds, show it received AU$323m in global donations in 2024, with 98.5% originating overseas.

On that basis, Australian fundraising accounted for roughly 13% of Keren Hayesod’s worldwide donation base last year.

UIA Australia first received tax deductible status in January 1998. However, ACNC financial disclosures only go back to 2013. The amount of tax deductible donations made to UIA over its lifetime is likely significantly higher than the figure calculated in this article.

In a press release announcing the decision, then-treasurer Peter Costello stated that “in recognition of the valuable humanitarian service undertaken by [United Israel Appeal], the Government has decided to specifically list it as an international affairs recipient. Legislation to give effect to the Government’s decision will be introduced as soon as practicable.”

“Every dollar aligned with Israel’s national priorities”

At the UIA Victoria AGM in November 2025, UIA leadership were explicit about the organisation’s role in Israel. David Slade, president of UIA Victoria, told members:

“We are the only organisation in Australia raising funds for Israel that holds a seat at every table of decision-making authority mandated to rebuild the country from the north to the south.”

“We are proud that every dollar we distribute is aligned with Israel’s national priorities.”

Julian Black, outgoing federal treasurer of UIA, reported that $39.2m had been sent to Israel nationally, including $14.4m from Victoria, in the 2025 campaign period to mid-November.

UIA Australia describes its central mission as supporting aliyah, “ascent”, referring to Jewish immigration to Israel, and strengthening Israeli society. They state that they “raise funds within Australia and transfer them directly to Keren Hayesod-UIA.”

Keren Hayesod, founded in 1920, describes itself as the “preeminent worldwide fundraising arm for the people of Israel,” operating in dozens of countries. UIA Australia functions as its Australian partner, channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations to the fund.

At the 2025 AGM, Slade said:

“This is not theory. It’s delivery. It’s national in scale, national in scope. It aligns with Israel’s priorities and is executed by our global partners.”

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Since 2013, more than $400 million in tax-deductible donations have flowed through an Australian charity, including direct to IDF soldiers. Stephanie Tran reports.

United Israel Appeal (UIA) Australia has remitted $376m to Israel since 2013 via its global partner Keren Hayesod, according to ACNC financial disclosures.

In 2024 alone, UIA Australia received $50.9m in tax-deductible donations and sponsorships.

Financial statements from Keren Hayesod, the Israel-based body that receives and distributes UIA funds, show it received AU$323m in global donations in 2024, with 98.5% originating overseas.

On that basis, Australian fundraising accounted for roughly 13% of Keren Hayesod’s worldwide donation base last year.

Source: ACNC

UIA Australia first received tax deductible status in January 1998. However, ACNC financial disclosures only go back to 2013. The amount of tax deductible donations made to UIA over its lifetime is likely significantly higher than the figure calculated in this article.

In a press release announcing the decision, then-treasurer Peter Costello stated that “in recognition of the valuable humanitarian service undertaken by [United Israel Appeal], the Government has decided to specifically list it as an international affairs recipient. Legislation to give effect to the Government’s decision will be introduced as soon as practicable.”

“Every dollar aligned with Israel’s national priorities”

At the UIA Victoria AGM in November 2025, UIA leadership were explicit about the organisation’s role in Israel. David Slade, president of UIA Victoria, told members:

“We are the only organisation in Australia raising funds for Israel that holds a seat at every table of decision-making authority mandated to rebuild the country from the north to the south.”

We are proud that every dollar we distribute is aligned with Israel’s national priorities.

Julian Black, outgoing federal treasurer of UIA, reported that $39.2m had been sent to Israel nationally, including $14.4m from Victoria, in the 2025 campaign period to mid-November.

UIA Australia describes its central mission as supporting aliyah, “ascent”, referring to Jewish immigration to Israel, and strengthening Israeli society. They state that they “raise funds within Australia and transfer them directly to Keren Hayesod-UIA.”

Keren Hayesod, founded in 1920, describes itself as the “preeminent worldwide fundraising arm for the people of Israel,” operating in dozens of countries. UIA Australia functions as its Australian partner, channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations to the fund.

At the 2025 AGM, Slade said:

“This is not theory. It’s delivery. It’s national in scale, national in scope. It aligns with Israel’s priorities and is executed by our global partners.”

Support for “lone immigrant soldiers”

Among the programs UIA promotes in Australia is assistance for “lone immigrant soldiers”, individuals who migrate to Israel and serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) without immediate family support in the country.

Through the “Wings Program”, UIA partners with the Jewish Agency for Israel to provide grants and assistance to immigrant IDF soldiers. UIA states that they supported 2,200 lone immigrant soldiers in 2024.

According to a report compiled by the Knesset, in August 2024, there were 6,731 lone soldiers serving in the IDF.

Overseas funding networks and settlement links

In 2022, Pastor Larry Huch raised $8 million for Keren Hayesod through his ministry to help “settlements take over produce farms in the West Bank”.

“One of the main Bible prophecies is helping Jews return to the nation of Israel, so we started working with Keren Hayesod with projects such as making aliyah. We help settlements take over produce farms in the West Bank, which is Judea and Samaria,” Hutch said.

According to an analysis by Canadian human rights organisation Just Peace Advocates, public filings by UIA Canada show that funds linked to the broader Keren Hayesod network have supported organisations assisting IDF veterans and institutions located in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

At the same AGM, Slade disclosed that his own son is currently serving in the IDF as a lone soldier, describing himself as “a lifelong Zionist”.

UIA also funds the Net@ program, which provides technology education for youth. Promotional materials for the program state that graduates are “strong candidates for elite IDF units”.

[excellent charts here on original]

Comparable program-level detail is not disclosed in Australian ACNC filings, which aggregate remittances to Keren Hayesod. UIA Australia did not respond to questions regarding whether they have oversight of which initiatives are supported by the funds they provide to Keren Kayesod and whether they engage in due diligence practices to ensure that these programs comply with ACNC External Conduct Standards and DGR conditions.

A charity operating in a genocide

UIA’s fundraising expansion has occurred during the Gaza genocide and escalating violence across the occupied Palestinian territories.

A January 2026 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found that Israeli laws, policies and practices have created “asphyxiating” conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The report stated that there has been an “unprecedented deterioration of the human rights situation” since October 2023, as Israeli government “further expanded the use of unlawful force, arbitrary detention and torture, repression of civil society and undue restrictions on media freedoms, severe movement restrictions, settlement expansion and related violations in the occupied West Bank”.

In his National Press Club address, Chris Sidoti, a commissioner on the UN Commission of Inquiry on Palestine and Israel, stated that in light of the Commission’s finding that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza,

“anyone who has served in any arm of the Israeli military in Gaza should be treated as a suspect.“

UIA CEO Yair Miller previously told MWM that “the United Israel Appeal is fully compliant with Australian law”. They did not respond to a follow-up request for comment regarding the matters discussed in this article.

January 30, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

“We kill enemies”: Spy firm Palantir secures top Australian security clearance.

by Stephanie Tran | Jan 19, 2026

Cybersecurity company Palantir has received a high-level Australian government security assessment despite concerns about its surveillance and complicity in the Gaza genocide. Stephanie Tran reports.

In November 2025, Palantir Technologies was assessed as meeting the protected level under the Australian Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP). This protection is a key requirement for companies seeking to handle sensitive government information.

The assessment enables a broader range of Australian government agencies and commercial organisations to use Palantir’s Foundry and artificial intelligence platform, AIP.

In a statement, Palantir said the assessment was conducted by an independent third-party assessor in line with requirements set by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), and demonstrated its ability to meet “stringent national security and privacy standards”.

The company described Australia as an “important market”, saying the clearance would open “new opportunities” across the public and private sectors.

Mass surveillance without accountability

Palantir has been mired in controversy internationally over how its data analysis and AI tools are deployed by government and military clients, with experts warning that the company’s technology enables mass surveillance and data collection with limited accountability.

An ASD spokesperson stated that IRAP status should “not be interpreted as government approval or endorsement of a company’s broader conduct or use of data.“

“IRAP assessments are third-party commercial arrangements between IRAP assessors (or companies offering ‘IRAP assessment’ services) and assessed entities,” an ASD spokesperson said. “ASD does not sign off or approve IRAP assessments.”

Lobbying push amid political pressure

Palantir’s expanded access to Australian government work comes amid growing political scrutiny. According to reporting by Capital Brief, in July 2025, the company hired lobbying firm CMAX Advisory, after the Greens called for an immediate freeze on government contracts with the company.

“I want to talk to you about Palantir and its expanding footprint in Australia. TLDR: You should be worried. This US surveillance tech company has secured multiple Defence contracts worth over $11 million. We need transparency about what data they’re accessing & why”. — David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) July 7, 2025

CMAX Advisory was founded by Christian Taubenschlag, a former chief of staff to Labor defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon, who is a special counsel at the lobby firm. CMAX Advisory represents a number of major defence contractors, including EOS and Raytheon.

Gaza, ICE and Coles

Palantir has faced sustained criticism globally over how its software is used by government clients.

In April 2025, CEO Alex Karp dismissed accusations that Palantir’s technology had been used to target and kill Palestinians in Gaza, saying those killed were “mostly terrorists”.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Palantir has “provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making”.

In the United States, Palantir has long worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). An investigation by 404 Media revealed that the company was developing a tool that generates detailed dossiers on potential deportation targets, maps their locations and assigns “confidence scores” to their likely whereabouts.

The company has also attracted attention in Australia for its work with private sector clients, including Coles, where they were hired to cut costs and “optimise” the company’s workforce.

“We kill enemies”

Karp has been blunt about Palantir’s mission. Speaking to shareholders and investors last week, he described the company’s purpose as helping the West “scare enemies” and, “on occasion, kill them”.

Karp also joked about “getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us”.

Millions in government contracts

In the United States, Palantir has long worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). An investigation by 404 Media revealed that the company was developing a tool that generates detailed dossiers on potential deportation targets, maps their locations and assigns “confidence scores” to their likely whereabouts.

Despite the controversy, Palantir has quietly built a substantial footprint in Australia. According to Austender data, the company has secured more than $50m in Australian government contracts since 2013, largely across defence and national security-related agencies.

The 2024 financial report of its Australian subsidiary, Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd, show $25.5m in revenue from customer contracts in 2024, though the company’s local financial reports are not audited. 

In 2020, Palantir recommended that the Australian government consider “expanding the exemption from public access to disclosure documents”, arguing that filing financial reports with ASIC “is expensive” and “gives competitors access to confidential information”.

Stephanie Tran

Stephanie is a journalist with a background in both law and journalism. She has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award.

January 26, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Revealed: Australian taxpayers subsidising the IDF, illegal settlements in Israel

by Stephanie Tran | Jan 21, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/revealed-australian-taxpayers-subsidising-the-idf-illegal-settlements-in-israel/

Australian taxpayers are subsidising the Israel Defense Forces and illegal settlements in the West Bank via Australian charities. Stephanie Tran reports.

Australian taxpayers are subsidising donations to Israel’s military and to organisations operating illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories through a network of registered charities with deductible gift recipient (DGR) status, an MWM investigation has found.

Under Australia’s tax system, donations to DGR-endorsed charities reduce a donor’s taxable income, meaning the public indirectly contributes to the charity’s activities. Documents reviewed by MWM indicate that several Australian charities have raised and transferred funds to Israeli military units and to settlement-linked projects in occupied Palestinian territory.

One People for Israel raises money for IDF. Chai Foundation raises money for One People for Israel.

Financing genocide

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has

” described the situation in Gaza as “the shame of our time”.

The death toll ranges from 71,500 to estimates of 680,000. Yesterday, a baby girl became the ninth child to die from cold weather in Gaza during ‘the ceasefire’ as Israeli aid restrictions continue. In December, Israel banned 37 International NGOs.

Concerns about tax-deductible charities supporting Israel’s military and illegal settlement expansion have been raised internationally. In a 2025 report,  Albanese described faith-based charities as “key financial enablers of illegal projects” in occupied Palestinian territory, often benefiting from tax concessions abroad despite strict regulatory frameworks.

The report found that the Jewish National Fund and more than 20 affiliated entities fund settlement expansion and military-linked projects, while online platforms such as Israel Gives have enabled tax-deductible crowdfunding in more than 30 countries for Israeli military units and settlers since October 2023. 

According to the report, Christian Zionist organisations in the United States, the Netherlands and elsewhere sent more than $US12.25m in 2023 to projects supporting settlements, including some linked to extremist settler groups.

The Jewish National Fund, Israel Gives and Christians for Israel all have subsidiaries in Australia that have been awarded DGR status. ACNC registered charities Chai Charitable Foundation and United Israel Appeal have also raised funds to support the IDF.

The Chai Charitable Foundation

The Chai Charitable Foundation reported more than $19 million in revenue in 2024, with the vast majority of its funding directed overseas. Registered with the ACNC in 2017, Chai says its purpose is

“to alleviate poverty, distress and suffering in Australia and internationally.“

In its 2024 financial report, the charity disclosed $15.39 million in grants and donations for use outside Australia, compared with $1.62 million domestically.

While the charity says it supports low-income families and “civilian victims of terror” in Israel, it has also hosted fundraising campaigns linked to organisations that openly provide equipment to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

One such campaign supports One People for Israel, founded in 2023 by Ari Briggs, an Australian-born man who emigrated to Israel. The organisation says it works directly with senior IDF logistics officials to deliver helmets, protective vests and other military equipment to Israeli soldiers. A letter dated October 14, 2023, from the IDF acknowledges (image above) that Briggs was supplying equipment to military units.

United Israel Appeal

The United Israel Appeal Refugee Relief Fund Limited (UIA) reported $50.9 million in revenue in 2024.

Established in 1992 and based in Melbourne, UIA raises funds almost exclusively for overseas use, though it does not publicly break down how much of its income is spent outside Australia.

The charity describes itself as part of Keren Hayesod, a global fundraising network that operates in more than 40 countries and acts as a “works to further the national priorities of the State of Israel”.

“UIA funds programs that assist people to serve in the IDF.”

Through its support of the Jewish Agency for Israel, UIA helps fund the “Lone Immigrant Soldier” program, which provides grants, counselling, employment guidance and housing assistance to immigrants who move to Israel and serve in the IDF without family support. 

Around 1,300 lone soldiers complete their army service each year, according UIA.

UIA also funds education and training initiatives such as the Net@ program, which provides advanced technology training to young people. Promotional material for the program states that graduates are “strong candidates for elite IDF units”.

Charities response

MWM contacted each of the charities identified in this investigation, seeking comment on whether they have provided funds, equipment or other support to the Israel Defense Forces or illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank since October 2023

United Israel Appeal CEO, Yair Miller stated that “United Israel Appeal is fully compliant with Australian law”.

The Chai Charitable Foundation provided the following statement:

“The Chai Charitable Foundation does not provide equipment, funds or other support to the IDF or any of its units. The Chai Charitable Foundation does not  support any activities that are affiliated with entities on DFATs list of sanctioned entities, including those based in the West Bank. Regular checks are made to ensure that funds are not made available to entities on DFAT’s sanctions list.”

“The Chai Charitable Foundation employs an overseas Compliance Officer who oversees the onboarding, vetting and monitoring of our overseas partners. This includes ensuring that the purposes being advanced align with our mission and status as a registered charity in Australia. We are committed to the external conduct standards issued by the ACNC and the DGR conditions regulated by the ATO.”

The other charities contacted for this story did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

How DGR status works

In Australia, charities endorsed with DGR status can receive tax-deductible donations, an incentive intended to support activities that advance the public good. 

The ACNC oversees charity registration, while the Australian Taxation Office administers DGR endorsement.

MWM has obtained legal advice in respect of charity registrations. To remain registered, charities must continue to pursue a recognised charitable purpose and provide a public benefit.

The ACNC Act allows registration to be revoked if a charity has a “disqualifying purpose”, including where it engages in, or supports,

“serious criminal activity such as terrorism,”

or where it operates for a non-charitable purpose. Charities can also lose registration if they fail to comply with the External Conduct Standards, which apply to overseas activities.

For charities operating internationally, the External Conduct Standards require that funds and resources be applied consistently with the charity’s stated purpose, that reasonable controls and risk-management processes are in place to prevent misuse, and that charities take reasonable steps to comply with Australian law while operating overseas.

This includes compliance with relevant provisions of the Criminal Code, such as those relating to terrorism financing.

Evidence suggesting charitable funds or resources are being used to support foreign military units or settlement-linked activities could justify regulatory scrutiny by the ACNC, particularly where such activities appear to fall outside a charity’s stated purposes or raise risks under Australian criminal law. 

Canada’s crackdown on JNF

Regulatory action against charities funding Israeli settlements is not without precedent. In Canada, multiple charities including Jewish National Fund Canada, have had their charitable status revoked after a tax office audit found “the organisation used donations to help fund infrastructure for the Israeli military, a foreign army, which contravenes Canada’s Tax Code”.

JNF Canada was ordered to wind up its operations in Canada and disperse its remaining assets valued at $31 million. The revocation of JNF Canada’s charity status followed decades of grassroots campaigning and activism.

ACNC response

MWM put detailed questions to the ACNC about its oversight of charities funding the Israeli military and illegal settlements, including whether it considers such funding compatible with charitable purposes and whether any compliance reviews have been opened since October 2023.

The ACNC said it cannot enforce international law unless it has been incorporated into Australian domestic legislation. While the United Nations considers Israeli settlements in occupied territory to be illegal under international law, the regulator said this position “has not, at this stage, been incorporated into domestic Australian law”.

The regulator said it does not categorise concerns using identifiers such as “funding the IDF or settlement-related activities”, but stated that “between 7 October 2023 and 31 December 2025 it received 896 concerns relating to 88 charities in connection with the Israel/Gaza conflict.”

The full ACNC response to questions is below.

What obligations do ACNC registered charities with deductible gift recipient (DGR) status have to ensure their activities and overseas funding comply with Australian law, including sanctions law and counter-terrorism financing requirements, as well as Australia’s international legal obligations? How does the ACNC assess whether a charity’s overseas activities are consistent with the requirement to pursue a charitable purpose and to operate for the public benefit, particularly where funds may support foreign military units or activities in occupied territory?

The ACNC registers and regulates charities. The ATO is responsible for DGR endorsement. In most cases, organisations must be registered charities to qualify for DGR endorsement – some limited exceptions apply (government entities, ancillary funds or entities specifically listed in tax law).

Once registered with the ACNC, charities have ongoing obligations to the ACNC that they must meet to remain registered. These obligations include notifying the ACNC of changes, keeping records, reporting annually and complying with the ACNC Governance Standards (unless they are a Basic Religious Charity) and External Conduct Standards.

Australian registered charities that operate outside of Australia must comply with the External Conduct Standards (ECS) set out in Division 50 of the ACNC Act. ECS 1 covers the way a charity manages its activities overseas and how it is required to control its finances and other resources including ensuring resources are applied in accordance with charitable purposes and that reasonable risk management processes are in place to protect against misuse. ECS 1 also requires registered charities to comply with Australian laws while operating overseas, including to take reasonable steps to ensure they are not breaching international sanctions (this only applies where international law has been incorporated into Australian domestic legislation).

Speaking generally, the ACNC has a range of tools to monitor charity compliance with obligations in addition to compliance and enforcement powers.

Since 2020, the ACNC has had a program to review around 2% of all DGR endorsed charities annually (approx. 500 charities per year), focusing on entitlement to charity registration and correct charity subtypes. The selection of charities reviewed as part of this program is based on an assessment of emerging concerns or patterns of risk identified in our work.

Between 2020-2025 the ACNC conducted compliance reviews that sought to identify areas where governance could be improved amongst particular cohorts of charities where emerging risks and/or areas of regulatory focus had been identified by the ACNC and communicated to the sector. Summaries of matters that the ACNC has considered in these proactive reviews are published on the ACNC’s website here: Compliance reviews.

In addition, the ACNC has the power to compel individual charities or cohorts of charities to complete self-audits of their compliance with specific governance obligations. Programs of self-audits allow the ACNC to better understand emerging issues, areas of operating or governance risk in the sector.

The ACNC publishes information about the regulatory areas we focus our attention on.

Does the ACNC consider funding directed to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which is illegal under international law, to be compatible with charitable purposes under Australian law?

The United Nations’ view that settling civilian populations in an occupied territory is contrary to international law has not, at this stage, been incorporated into domestic Australian law. The ACNC cannot enforce international law unless that law has been incorporated into Australian domestic legislation.   

Has the ACNC received complaints or opened compliance reviews or investigations into any Australian charities alleged to be funding the IDF or settlement-related activities since October 2023?

The ACNC does not categorise concerns with identifiers such as ‘funding the IDF or settlement-related activities’.

However, between 7 October 2023 to 31 December 2025, the ACNC received 896 concerns relating to 88 charities in relation to the Israel/Gaza conflict.

What enforcement or regulatory action is available to the ACNC if a registered charity is found to be supporting activities that may contravene international humanitarian law or undermine Australia’s stated foreign policy position on settlements?

The ACNC can only enforce Australian law.

Is the ACNC working with other government agencies, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or AUSTRAC, to monitor or address risks associated with overseas charitable funding in conflict zones?

The ACNC works collaboratively with other Australian Government agencies to ensure the best placed agency takes a lead. We support a whole-of-government approach to addressing fraud, and work with other government agencies when it is appropriate to do so.

When our intelligence work uncovers broader illegal activity – for example, detecting suspicious conduct that could be related to terrorism financing, money laundering or serious fraud – we refer these matters to the appropriate authorities

January 23, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Revealed: Australia’s secret Anti-Protest Force for US Department of War

“public order management operations. “

the Government is boosting its capability to deal with anticipated political protest activities against a much expanded US military and intelligence presence in Australia.

“AUKUS costs in total secrecy.”

by Rex Patrick | Jan 5, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/australias-anti-protest-force-for-us-department-of-war/

As public concerns over the AUKUS alliance rise – with expanding US bases in Australia and Donald Trump’s belligerent conduct, FOI documents reveal the Government is secretly expanding its ‘US Department of War Protest’ Force. Rex Patrick reports.

Most people won’t be aware that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has established a new command.

Headed by Commissioner Krissy Barrett, our national police force is made up of five regional commands (Northern, Eastern, Central, Southern and Western) and a number of functional commanders dealing variously with crime, fraud and corruption, cyber operations, counter-terrorism and special investigations, and protective security.  No surprises there – the AFP structure is well established and pretty much what you would expect.

But now there’s a new AFP “AUKUS Command”, established with little fanfare and headed by AFP Assistant Commissioner Sandra Booth.

AFP Assistant Commissioner for AUKUS Sandra Booth at a US naval station. Image: AFP

AUKUS Command’s roles are centred on security for the AUKUS nuclear submarine project and interestingly include ‘Public Order Management’, but its mandate is much broader than protecting nuclear submarines.

MWM’s Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the AFP, amongst other things, sought access to documents that show the terms of reference, functions and responsibilities of AUKUS Command and Documents held by AUKUS Command that relate to potential political opposition and/or protest activity relating to the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project.

The AFP’s FOI response came in late and was covered with large swaths of black ink redacting most of the information, but enough has been revealed to show that the Government is boosting its capability to deal with anticipated political protest activities against a much expanded US military and intelligence presence in Australia.

AUKUS Protection

AUKUS Command starts with a “permanent AFP horizontal security overlay” set up at HMAS Stirling (near Perth) to “support the Australian nuclear submarine program under the AUKUS initiative”

The set-up in some part replicates the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Protective Forces and the UK’s Ministry of Defence Special Escort Group. 

The AFP AUKUS Command will initially conduct AUKUS protective security work, including waterborne and remotely piloted aircraft escorting of US Navy, Royal Navy and (eventually, maybe) Royal Australian Navy submarines in and out of waters around the base.

Submarines berthing at HMAS Stirling have to do a lengthy and protest-vulnerable surfaced transit through Gage Roads to get to/from the deep water north-west of Rottnest Island.

The AUKUS Command has established a rapid response capability and is prepared for

“public order management operations. “

Officers in the AUKUS Command are trained in rapid appraisal, coxswaining, jet ski operation, remote piloting of aircraft and countering remotely piloted aircraft, protestor negotiation techniques, protestor removal techniques and “public order management munitions delivery”.

Initially, at least, the Command will comprise four teams, a ready reaction team and a canine unit.

Nuclear protestors not tolerated

Although anti-nuclear protests focused on visiting US Navy nuclear powered submarines have so far been small in scale, the AFP has likely been alerted to the possibilities of larger scale water-borne protest by the “Rising Tide” environmental actions at Australia’s largest coal export terminal at Newcastle. 

Protest groups involved in those activities have already been subject to close scrutiny by the AFP and New South Wales Police.

In any case, it’s clear that the Australian Government and the AFP are determined to demonstrate to the United States and the United Kingdom that there will be no tolerating protest activity that might impede or delay the movement of American and British submarines stationed at HMAS Stirling as part of the AUKUS Submarine Rotational Force – West.  

But wait, there’s more, much more

But it turns out that protecting nuclear submarines is only part of the AUKUS Command’s responsibilities.

The first giveaway as to the much broader purpose of the Command is the fact that a July 25, 2025, Memorandum of Understanding signed by Assistant Commissioner Booth was between the AFP and, not the Australian Submarine Agency, but the Department of Defence.

The previously secret AFP documents released under FOI show that the AFP AUKUS Command will have strategic responsibility for delivery of protective security services to “specified Defence bases) under the Defence MOU, with a significant focus on building and supporting a future-ready Protective Security Officer workforce.

Pine Gap

The documents do not reveal which Defence bases, but the FOI request did capture emails between Assistant Commissioner Booth and other AFP officers dealing with a protest that took place last year at Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, the top-secret signals intelligence facility near Alice Springs that’s operated by the US National Security Agency, the US National Reconnaissance Office and the Australian Signals Directorate.

Major upgrades are taking place at a number of other Australian Defence Force facilities to accommodate an expanded US military presence in Northern and Western Australia.

Significant works have also been underway at Australian intelligence facilities, including a major perimeter security upgrade and installation of new satellite dishes at the ASD’s Shoal Bay Receiving Station, nineteen kilometres north-east of Darwin. 

As the US defence and intelligence footprint expands, it’s likely that the AUKUS Command’s security and “public order management” responsibilities will be quite wide-ranging.

More protests coming, and costs

As public concerns rise over nuclear issues, it’s very likely the arrival of the US submarine rotational force at HMAS Stirling, the increasing disposition of US forces around Australia and the abandoning by the US of a ‘rules-based order’ will lead to more protests.

The Mid-Year Fiscal and Economic Outlook (MYEFO) handed down in December showed an allocation to the AFP AUKUS Command of $73.8 million in this financial year and $125.2 million in the next.

The expenditure publication was unusual, given that the Government thinks it is entirely appropriate to wrap

“AUKUS costs in total secrecy.”

Indeed, even in this release, cost information in the MOU was redacted.

A lack of transparency

It is accepted that some things around nuclear submarines are properly confidential. But the Australian Government has been wrapping a thick secrecy blanket over everything to do with AUKUS; absolutely everything.

As an FOI related transparency fight goes on in background, including in the Federal Court where this writer is trying to get access to documents that advise the government on how to select a high-level radioactive waste site, the Government has (in contrast to the US and UK) refused to allow for an inquiry into this bankrupting Defence capability.

Instead of bringing the Australian public along with them, instead of generating social licence for the project, instead of being up front about the integration of the Australian Defence Force into the US Armed Forces at a time when Australians are struggling with confidence in the US, opaqueness is the order of the day for the Government.

And now, for good measure, there’s a whole new AFP command to keep a lid on the secrets and to crack down on public protests.

January 11, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

The Australian Israel Lobby Is Flat-Out Saying They Want A Ban On Criticism Of Israel

Caitlin Johnstone, Dec 19, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-australian-israel-lobby-is-flat?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=182048888&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Australians everywhere should be made acutely aware that the Australian Israel lobby is now explicitly advocating a ban on criticism of the state of Israel.

Not just hate speech against Jews. Criticism of a foreign state. They’re coming right out and saying it.

During a recent public video conference with the American Jewish Committee on the topic of the Bondi Beach shooting, the Executive Manager of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) explicitly says he wants pro-Palestine protests to be banned by the Australian government, and that addressing the problem of antisemitic hate speech in Australia necessarily means stopping opposition to Israel’s actions.

About 40 minutes into the American Jewish Committee’s YouTube video of the conference, AIJAC Executive Manager Joel Burnie demands that the Australian government take much stronger action to regulate freedom of expression regarding Israel and Zionism in Australia, saying the following:

“They need to act swiftly. They need to go to their own arms and their own institutions: no longer can you refuse service to a Zionist. We are going to prosecute people that spew hate speech against your people, and we’re not going to tip toe around the fact that the central problem here is Israel. I for one as Jewish leader will no long talk about antisemitism in isolation from Israel, because it’s the rhetoric and language on Israel that motivates the people to come and kill us. Those two terrorists were motivated by what was going on in Israel, and that’s what motivated them to come and kill us. So if they had Israel on their minds why are we acting as though it has nothing to do with the vitriolic binary nature of the pro-Palestinian advocacy movement?”

Burnie goes on to say that he wants a complete government ban on protests against Israel’s abuses throughout the nation:

“So overnight what we want immediately if you ask any Jew, what do you want, what do you want? No more protests! No more protests! No more no-go zones for Jews. I can’t, for two years, cannot take my kids to downtown Melbourne for two years on a Sunday, because of the pro-Palestinian marches, because of the violent nature of them. No more! Because that is an acceptance of the connection between the two. And until the prime minister is willing to do that, this is gonna happen again.”

Burnie is lying here, for the record. Anyone who has gone to the pro-Palestine demonstrations in Melbourne as I have will tell you that the protests are not even slightly violent in nature, and that there are Jews among the demonstrators who actively make their presence known. Those demonstrations have never been “no-go zones for Jews”; Joel Burnie doesn’t want to take his kids to downtown Melbourne on a Sunday because he doesn’t want to expose them to ideas and information which reveal the depravity of his Israel-supporting worldview.

Australians would probably benefit from watching the entire hour-long video of the conference, whose contents I first saw spotlighted on Twitter by Information Liberation’s Chris Menahan.

Some other highlights:

At 4:20 Burnie says that part of his role at AIJAC is “to take non-Jewish politicians and journalists and diplomats and other Australian officials to Israel.”

At 14:00 Nick Aronson, who is Chief of Staff to Australia’s so-called “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal, regurgitates the bogus propaganda line we’ve been hearing nonstop from Israel apologists throughout the western political/media class, “the words globalise the intifada actually mean globalise the intifada; it means kill Jews wherever they are”. Pro-Israel spinmeisters have been spouting this line with creepy uniformity ever since the Bondi shooting in order to justify government crackdowns on freedom of speech and assembly to protect Israeli information interests.

At 15:00 Burnie says “the gloves are off now” with regard to stomping out free speech in Australia, saying Jews need stop saying “not all pro-Palestinian supporters are antisemitic”, saying “The pro-Palestinian movement, or the things within the pro-Palestinian movement that we all are exposed to in the public, is too binary: you’re pro-Palestinian so you need to be viciously anti-Israel.”

At 16:20 Burnie claims the Bondi shooting “happened because of the protest movements on the streets”, citing no evidence.

At 17:30 Burnie again makes his “no more protests” demand, saying “If I could ask for one thing of the government today: no more protests. If they cannot utilise language that is not inciting violence, that does not marginalise and dehumanise Jews, they have no right to be on the streets.”

At 21:10 Burnie complains that there haven’t been any prosecutions and arrests for antisemitic speech.

At 33:30 Burnie singles out Australian Muslims, saying “there needs to be more monitoring and surveillance of Islamic hate preachers” and an auditing of their education syllabus because of an “antisemitism problem amongst the Australian Muslim community.”

At 36:25 Burnie says Jillian Segal’s notorious speech-suppressing plan for fighting antisemitism in Australia “wasn’t about quashing debate on Israel, it just happens to be that language on Israel invading all of our social spaces in Australia have made this country a very unsafe space and place for Jews.”

At 46:00 Aronson says “there’s absolutely no doubt that people need to go to jail” for antisemitic hate speech in Australia, but says that won’t be enough to fix the problem because “we can always arrest more people, make no mistake, but you can never arrest enough, to be honest.”

At 54:00 Aronson speaks of the need for regulating online speech, complaining that “a number of the online platforms pride themselves on what they call free speech — obviously we would disagree; we would call it hate speech.” At 56:00 he says “we need to continue to put pressure on these platforms to understand the role they have to play in social cohesion, and how far short they are falling of community standards.”

This comes as the Australian government announces plans to ramp up its war on free speech in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack. We can be sure to see more authoritarian measures rolled out in the weeks to come as Israel’s supporters seize on this opportunity to advance the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

December 20, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

The Shadow Cabinet: How Encrypted Lobbying and the Erosion of Record-Keeping Are Undermining Australian Democracy

14 December 2025 Andrew Klein AIM , https://theaimn.net/the-shadow-cabinet-how-encrypted-lobbying-and-the-erosion-of-record-keeping-are-undermining-australian-democracy/

This article examines a developing crisis in Australian public integrity: the systematic use of encrypted and unminuted communications between lobbyists and the highest levels of government to evade transparency laws. Drawing on recent investigative reporting and parliamentary analysis, it argues that this practice, occurring alongside legislative efforts to weaken the Freedom of Information (FOI) framework and a failure to implement robust anti-corruption measures, represents a calculated retreat from ethical transparency. This creates a “dark space” in policymaking, fundamentally at odds with the stated mission of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and the basic democratic contract of public trust. The article concludes that this constitutes a form of institutionalised obscurity that protects political interests at the expense of democratic accountability.

Introduction: The Promise and the Practice

The election of the Albanese government was heralded with a promise to restore trust and integrity after a decade of scandals. The establishment of the NACC was its cornerstone. However, a parallel track of conduct suggests a different priority: the management of political risk through the control of information. This article synthesises evidence revealing a pattern where commitments to transparency are actively undermined by operational secrecy, creating a profound dissonance between public rhetoric and private practice.

The Architecture of Evasion: “Going Non-Traceable”

At the heart of this issue is a reported, routine practice within the Prime Minister’s office. Lobbyists and stakeholders are advised to use encrypted messaging applications (such as Signal) and direct phone calls for substantive policy discussions, explicitly to avoid creating a discoverable record under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth). This guidance creates a two-tiered communication system: a formal, sanitised record for public consumption, and a shadow, substantive dialogue where real influence and negotiation occur. The justification – protecting “fluid thoughts” – is a stark departure from the principle that the formation of public policy should be a matter of public interest, not private conjecture.

Weakening the Scaffolding: Legislative and Systemic Failures

This operational evasion is not occurring in a vacuum. It is reinforced by systemic and legislative actions that degrade the infrastructure of transparency:

• The FOI Amendment Bill: The government is pursuing amendments that experts from the Australian Law Council and the Grattan Institute describe as “the most significant retrenchment” of transparency in decades. Key changes include a strict 40-hour processing cap – a logistical impossibility for complex requests – and the introduction of new, subjective grounds for refusal. This legally enshrines the difficulty of access.
• Chronic Record-Keeping Failure: A 2023 National Archives of Australia report found systemic failure across the Commonwealth in managing digital records. In 90% of recent audits, agencies received negative comments. Only one agency had a clear policy on capturing ministerial and departmental messaging for the official record. This is not negligence; it is a pervasive institutional disregard for the archival compact.
• Rejecting Anti-Cronyism Reforms: The government sat for two years on a review into “jobs for mates” in public appointments. When released, it rejected core recommendations to depoliticise the process, such as banning last-minute appointments before elections. This demonstrates a preference for preserving patronage networks over implementing substantive integrity reform.

The NACC in the Dark: An Integrity Watchdog Without a Trail

The establishment of the NACC was meant to be a circuit-breaker. However, its efficacy is premised on the existence of evidence – a paper trail, a digital record, a minute of a meeting. The practices detailed above are designed to eliminate that trail. The NACC’s own definition of “serious or systemic corrupt conduct” includes breaches of public trust and any conduct perverting the impartial exercise of official functions. Influencing policy through hidden channels, deliberately shielded from public and archival scrutiny, aligns precisely with this definition. The NACC’s first major survey, finding 15% of public officials were aware of corrupt conduct in their area, hints at the scale of the challenge it faces in a culture of obscurity.

Analysis: The “Trust Gap” and the Corruption of Process

The outcome is a critical “trust gap.” The public is asked to trust in institutions that are architecturally designed to avoid being held to account. This goes beyond traditional corruption (bribes for favours). It represents a corruption of process, where the very mechanisms for democratic oversight – FOI, archives, parliamentary scrutiny – are rendered inert. The government controls not only policy but the narrative of how that policy was formed, presenting a fait accompli to the public while hiding the machinery of influence. This creates a space where the lines between lobbying, policy development, and undisclosed conflicts of interest dangerously blur.

Conclusion: Gestures Versus Substance in the Democratic Contract

Australia is at an integrity crossroads. It has the gesture – the NACC – but is dismantling the substance required for that gesture to be meaningful. A democracy cannot function on a “need-to-know” basis where the government decides the public does not need to know how it is governed. The use of encrypted lobbying and the erosion of record-keeping are not administrative quirks; they are political strategies that sacrifice long-term public trust for short-term political convenience. Rebuilding trust requires not just new institutions, but a radical recommitment to transparency as the default, not the exception. Until the “dark space” of policymaking is illuminated, the promise of integrity will remain, like the lost records themselves, unfulfilled.

References……………………..

December 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Segal Secrets: docs reveal Antisemitism Envoy’s big pay day

by Stephanie Tran | Dec 9, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/segal-secrets-docs-reveal-antisemitism-envoys-big-pay-day/

Jillian Segal, Australia’s controversial Antisemitism Czar and Israel lobbyist, procured an extra $12.9m funding from PM Anthony Albanese, heavily redacted FOI documents show. Stephanie Tran reports.

The Albanese government has blocked key details about the appointment of Jillian Segal as Australia’s special envoy for antisemitism, with freedom of information documents (FOI) revealing a process almost entirely obscured by redactions.

The documents, released by the Department of Home Affairs in response to an FOI request, show the government relied on wide-ranging secrecy exemptions to withhold internal briefings, candidate assessments, deliberative advice to ministers, and all correspondence between Segal and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Beyond a set of boilerplate terms of reference, the documents shed little light on why Segal was chosen. What’s deliberately missing, however, is the real story.

Selection process almost entirely redacted

One of the key questions the FOI sought to answer was how Segal came to be selected. In correspondence to staff in March 2024, Home Affairs officials described an intention to provide the Prime Minister with “up to 6 candidates” reflecting “the demography of Australia”, diverse identities and gender, and “trusted relationships” in their communities.

But every document detailing assessments or the rationale for selection was either heavily redacted or withheld in full, primarily under the FOI Act’s deliberative processes exemption under s47C.

The Information Officer’s decision letter notes that Home Affairs undertook “extremely thorough” searches, but still located no resume, no risk assessments and no evaluation criteria.

The Department’s claim that it could not locate a copy of Jillian Segal’s CV appears to be at odds with the government’s own records. In a June 2024 letter to the Prime Minister, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles explicitly stated that Segal’s “Curriculum Vitae, Private Interest Declaration and Appointments Details pro-forma are at Attachment D.”

(Original article copiously shows the government documents)

Urgency and budget blowouts

What survives the redactions paints a picture of a high-speed, politically sensitive process.

The documents reveal the existence of an “Israel Hamas Social Cohesion Taskforce” within Home Affairs, headed by Giles.

In February 2024, Giles wrote to Anthony Albanese seeking “urgent agreement” to appoint envoys to combat Antisemitism and Islamophobia, citing the “immediate and significant rise in Antisemitism and Islamophobia … exacerbated by the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel [and] the ongoing conflict and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

On 21 June 2024, Giles personally recommended Segal as the preferred candidate for the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. 

In a letter dated 25 June 2024, Albanese agreed to Segal’s appointment. Albanese also approved an additional $12.9 million of funding for the two envoy roles.

“The 2024-25 Budget provided $4.0 million over two years from 2023-24 for the appointment of the Special Envoys, as a decision taken but not yet announced. Noting the appointments will now be for three years instead of one and additional support staff may be required, I agree to provide up to an additional $12.9 million in total over three years from 2024-25 for up to 12 staff, with offsets to be agreed in the 2024-25 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) context, subject to agreement with the Department of Finance.”

Public interest outweighed by need for secrecy

In its decision, Home Affairs argued that releasing deliberative material would hinder officials’ ability to provide “full and frank advice” on future appointments, and that releasing names or details of candidates would be an unreasonable breach of personal privacy.

The Department explicitly acknowledged that disclosure would “promote the objects of the FOI Act” and “inform debate on a matter of public importance” but still maintained the public interest favoured secrecy, particularly to avoid “prejudicing” internal government processes.

The information officer stated the following:

“I consider that the public interest in protecting the process of the provision of free and honest confidential advice by a Department to its Minister has, on balance, more weight, than the public interest that might exist in disclosing the deliberative matter. Endangering the proper working relationship that a Department has with its Minster and its ability to provide its Minister with honest advice confidentially would be contrary to the public interest.”

December 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Follow the money. A radioactive farce of failed land purchases 

 Rex Patrick | Dec 1, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/follow-the-money-a-radioactive-farce-of-failed-land-purchases/

The Federal Government is refusing to release any details of the land purchase for radioactive waste management. Rex Patrick follows the money trail.

n 2023, the current Minister for Resources confessed to the Senate that the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) had spent $108.6 million not finding a place for a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF).

In July 2023, Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth set aside a November 2021 declaration made by then Minister Keith Pitt that Napandee, a 211-acre property near Kimba in SA, was to be the future site of the NRWMF. Pitt’s declaration for this site was nine years in the making, but he and the Department had botched the site selection process.

Not the way to select a facility

If you wanted to select a site for a national facility to store radioactive waste, you’d look to the storage requirements, including technical, environmental, geological (such as earthquake tendency), social, and indigenous cultural and heritage considerations. And then you’d look for sites that met all those requirements.

That’s not what DISR did.

In September 2012, the Government released a notice of intention to conduct a nationwide request for land owners to nominate land for the NRWMF. The official call for nominations was conducted between 2 March and 5 May 2015.

A sweetener was added to entice landowners; the successful land seller would get four times the market value. It was quite an extraordinary proposition – it wasn’t as though the Government was intending to compulsorily acquire land from an unwilling seller.

But, why not? The geniuses who concocted the plan in DISR knew only too well that the extra money was just taxpayers’ money.

Buy, and then sell back

On 26 November 2021, the Government declared land in Napandee, owned by the Baldock family*, would be the site for the facility.

Minister’s Decision (Source: DISR)

Three days later, the Minister issued a press release stating the Government had acquired the land.Minister’s Decision (Source: DISR)

Three days later, the Minister issued a press release stating the Government had acquired the land.Minister’s Decision (Source: DISR)

Three days later, the Minister issued a press release stating the Government had acquired the land.

MWM is trying to get access to the land sale contract and the purchase price, using FOI. But access to it has been refused. You paid, but are not allowed to know.

The FOI decision is now the subject of challenge, where the Information Commissioner will be the adjudicator.

Last week, the Minister for Resources also refused to answer a formal “how much” question asked by Senator Lambie.
Local scuttlebutt is that the Department spent $10m of taxpayers’ money buying that land – almost 8 times the market value. The refusal by the Department and the Minister to give sale price answers under FOI or, respectively, to the Senate adds suspicion that this is correct.

Local scuttlebutt is that the Department spent $10m of taxpayers’ money buying that land – almost 8 times the market value. The refusal by the Department and the Minister to give sale price answers under FOI or, respectively, to the Senate adds suspicion that this is correct.
Or when the Department of Infrastructure acquired the Western Sydney Airport ‘Leppington Triangle’ land for $30m, when it was only valued at $3m.

Maladministration or something more sinister?

It’s unheard of that the Senate would be denied past expenditure information on land at Napandee.

The Government has surely overpaid for the site, even after meeting their own unexplained ‘4x price’ rule, by $4 million, but possibly by $9 million if the scuttlebutt is correct.

At best, the Government has engaged in a farce. The Department knew that the path they had taken to select Napandee was flawed.

On 1 February 2020, Senator Matt Canavan, who preceded Pitt as the Minister for Resources, announced Napandee as the site to host Australia’s NRWMF. But the Canavan decision was informal.

Realising the process would be found wanting by a Court, the Government changed tack and on 13 February 2020 introduced legislation into the House of Representatives that would have the Parliament select Napandee as the site.

Representatives that would have the Parliament select Napandee as the site.

On 6 March 2020, a senior departmental official, Sam Chard, met with the Mayor of Kimba, during which he said words to the effect that (as recorded in Justice Charlesworth’s decision) ,

“parliamentary scrutiny would replace the mechanism for legal challenge under the NRWM Act.”

MWM can’t publish for legal reasons – but you can read about it here).

DISR and the Government thought they were onto a winning solution because the proposed legislation would shut down the option of challenging the decision in a court (Courts can’t overturn the decisions of Parliament unless they are unconstitutional). The problem was the Senate refused to pass it. So, they went back to the original plan, and Minister Pitt formally made the ministerial site decision on 26 November 2021.

What the FOI has revealed is an extraordinary fact – the land was actually purchased on 11 November 2021, 15 days before Pitt made the decision that it was the Minister’s chosen site.

* Editor’s note: MWM makes no allegation of wrongdoing by the Baldock family. They are merely a beneficiary of DISR maladministration or of their farce.

December 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment