Under the revised AUKUS agreement, Australia will be liable for any problems or losses associated with disposing of nuclear waste. If something goes wrong, Australia pays. The liability is indefinite. The waste will remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years.
The government has calculated preliminary costs. The ASA has the documents. But when a citizen asks, the agency claims it cannot find them.
The government has calculated preliminary costs. The ASA has the documents. But when a citizen asks, the agency claims it cannot find them.
In July 2025, Michael West Media submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA). The question was simple: what are the latest cost estimates for a solution for the treatment and storage of high‑level radioactive waste from AUKUS?
This is not a radical question. Defence is supposed to provide “cradle to grave” costings for any major capability before it is approved. The AUKUS submarines were approved without those costings. The $368 billion price tag does not include radioactive waste storage and disposal.
The government has calculated preliminary costs. They exist. They are just not willing to share them with the people who will have to pay for them.
When the ASA finally responded, it did not provide the estimate. It claimed it could not find it.
“Preliminary searches have been carried out within one branch of one division of the ASA … that branch has advised that approximately 3,000 documents are potentially in scope. They would require manual examination.”
Three thousand documents. For one simple costing request. The agency is managing a $368 billion project, and it cannot find a single estimate for a cost that will likely run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
As Rex Patrick, the former senator and transparency crusader, put it: “Quite unbelievable!”
II. The Cradle: Billions in Wealth Transfer
The cradle of the AUKUS program is a cascade of taxpayer funds flowing out of Australia.
The 2024 AUKUS budget of $53–63 billion has already blown out to $71–96 billion – a 52 per cent increase for the upper band. The Collins class submarine upgrade has blown out from $4–5 billion to $7.8–11 billion – a 120 per cent increase.
The total cost of ownership of AUKUS could exceed $1 trillion.
This is not defence. This is wealth transfer – from Australian taxpayers to foreign defence giants.
III. The Grave: A Liability We Will Never Escape
The grave is the radioactive waste. The $368 billion AUKUS price tag does not include radioactive waste storage and disposal. That cost will be enormous – experts estimate it could double the total AUKUS price tag.
Under the revised AUKUS agreement, Australia will be liable for any problems or losses associated with disposing of nuclear waste. If something goes wrong, Australia pays. The liability is indefinite. The waste will remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years.
The government has calculated preliminary costs. The ASA has the documents. But when a citizen asks, the agency claims it cannot find them.
As Rex Patrick has noted, if the Minister asked for the latest cost estimates, he would get them almost instantly. But when a citizen asks, the agency claims it cannot find them.
IV. The Secrecy Is Deliberate
This is not the first time the government has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide information about AUKUS nuclear waste.
The ASA has argued that a $360,000 report on potential locations for a high‑level nuclear waste dump – a decision that will impact Australia for millennia – is a Cabinet document and must remain secret.
It took the agency to the Administrative Review Tribunal to fight the release of this report. The agency spent taxpayer dollars on lawyers to argue that the public should not be allowed to see a roadmap for where the most toxic material on our planet may be dumped for tens of thousands of years.
The report was prepared on unclassified computers and transferred on unclassified networks. It was never a Cabinet document. But the agency successfully argued that it should be treated as one.
The government has calculated the costs. The government has the documents. The government knows where the waste will go. But it will not tell you.
Why? Because the numbers are too big. The decisions are too controversial. The truth is too uncomfortable.
So they hide behind “Cabinet‑in‑confidence.” They hide behind “preliminary estimates.” They hide behind “3,000 documents.”
And they hope you will stop asking.
VI. The Mess at the Australian Submarine Agency
The ASA is not just disorganised. It is in a mess.
In November 2024, the government asked Boston Consulting Group to review the agency’s organisational structure. A contract was signed for $2.7 million. In April 2025, it was amended to $7.4 million. Three months later, it was amended again to a whopping $12.1 million.
In parallel, the defence minister asked former Defence Secretary Dennis Richardson to undertake an urgent top‑to‑bottom review of the ASA amid “serious concerns” about how it was managing AUKUS.
None of that seems to have helped. The agency still cannot find its own cost estimates.
VII. The Opportunity Cost
Every dollar spent on AUKUS is a dollar not spent on aged care, on health, on education, on housing, on climate action, on the things that actually keep Australians safe and well.
The $368 billion price tag is already blowing out. The waste disposal costs will add hundreds of billions more. The total could exceed $1 trillion.
This is not a defence strategy. It is a wealth transfer strategy – dressed up in flags and naval jargon.
The money is leaving Australia. The profits are flowing to Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Babcock. The waste is staying here. The liability is staying here. The secrecy is staying here.
VIII. Whose Cradle? Whose Grave?
The cradle belongs to the defence contractors. The profits flow to their shareholders. The grave belongs to Australia – to the communities that will host the waste, to the taxpayers who will pay the bill, to the generations who will inherit the liability.
This is not a failure of process. It is the process working as designed.
The government has calculated the costs. The government has the documents. The government knows where the waste will go. But it will not tell you – because the truth is too uncomfortable, and the wealth transfer is too profitable.
IX. A Final Word
Rex Patrick is one of the few people in this country who refuses to stop asking. He is a “Transparency Warrior” – a former senator and submariner who has made it his mission to hold the powerful to account.
He needs support. He needs attention. He needs people to share his work, to amplify his voice, to demand answers.
The truth will still be buried in those 3,000 documents – unless we keep digging.
Whose cradle? Whose grave? The answer is clear. And the silence is complicity.
Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal has published a handbook which unequivocally clarifies that her office exists not to protect Australian Jews from discrimination, but to stomp out criticism of the state of Israel.
However bad you’re imagining it is, it’s worse. The handbook, set to be formally launched later this week under the title “Understanding Antisemitism in Australia,” explicitly conflates antisemitism and antizionism with statements like “Antisemitism and antizionism are both expressions of hatred towards Jews” and asserting that it is antisemitic to accuse Israel of “apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide.”
It is therefore unambiguously the official position of the Australian government’s appointed authority on antisemitism that it is hateful and abusive toward Jews and their religion to oppose the racist political ideology underpinning the modern state of Israel.
So when Australians hear Jillian Segal and government officials talking about how there’s been an increase in “antisemitism” in our country and saying extreme measures must be taken to stop it, it’s important to be clear that this is the “antisemitism” they are talking about. They are talking about criticism of Israel.
Let’s go through the handbook together and highlight some revealing excerpts, shall we?
The forward in the handbook stresses the importance of the Australian government’s endorsement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been opposed around the world for its conflation of criticism of Israel with hateful actions toward Jews. Under the IHRA definition it is considered antisemitic to claim that Israel is a racist endeavor, or to compare Israel’s abuses to those of Nazi Germany — both of which are entirely legitimate criticisms which should be put forward far more often than they are. Much of the handbook follows from the premises of the IHRA definition.
Segal’s office states that the handbook “is intended as a practical resource for schools, universities, public servants, community organisations and anyone seeking to understand antisemitism today.”
Segal’s office says that antisemitism “morphs” over the ages, from the blood libels and “Christ-killer” accusations of the Middle Ages to the racism of Nazi Germany, and has now morphed so that “antisemitic tropes are conveyed and justified in the language of human rights and international legal arguments.”
“For example, sometimes Jews are labelled and libelled as ‘settler-colonialists’, ‘oppressors’, and a symbol of a global system of domination that ‘can seemingly accommodate even the murder of Jews as Jews’,” the envoy proclaims.
Do you see how the subject was moved to lump medieval superstitions about Jews in with entirely legitimate criticisms of the modern state of Israel? According to Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, criticising Israel using “language of human rights and international legal arguments” is not meaningfully different from saying that Jews drink the blood of Christian children.
This, clearly, is stark raving insanity.
“Legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitic,” the envoy concedes, then proceeds to completely negate this concession with everything that follows. “However, there are many examples of antisemitic imagery, tropes, conspiracy theories and propaganda (echoing medieval myths) that have found their way into anti-Israel discourse. It is also increasingly common for the word ‘Zionist’ (or iterations of it) to be used as cover or proxy for ‘Jew ’.”
This is completely made up. The claim that critics of Israel’s abuses use the word “Zionist” when they really mean “Jew” is just something Israel apologists started asserting with no substantiation whatsoever a few years ago. They have no evidence for this assertion apart from the frequency and forcefulness which with they assert it.
The envoy defines Zionism as “the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination within their ancestral homeland,” which is misleading at best. That’s not what Zionism is. Zionism is what we see before us today. The genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and nonstop war and abuse. That’s what Zionism is, as evidenced by material reality. The best definition of Zionism is its real-world manifestations. Zionism is what it looks like when you give the Zionists everything they want.
“A new variant of antisemitic atrocity denial emerged in the wake of the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks — the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” the envoy writes. “Disturbingly, these atrocities have been met by some with denial, minimisation, justification and distortion — echoing Holocaust denial, minimisation, and distortion.”
The envoy writes of the importance of “Standing firm against antisemitism parading as ‘anti-racism’,” stressing the IHRA position that framing Israel as a racist endeavor is hateful toward Jews. A flyer saying “We don’t want your two states. We want all of 48” is labeled “antisemitic, because there is only one Jewish country.”
Segal’s office warns of the dangers of “Holocaust inversion,” which is when “Israel and Jews are portrayed as Nazi-like perpetrators of mass atrocities and genocide,” which is bad because it “serves to demonise and delegitimise Israel, Israelis and Jews.”
The list of humanitarian institutions who say Israel is NOT committing genocide in Gaza includes:
1. Nobody
2. No one
3. Zero
4. Nothing
5. Nada
6. Zilch
7. Sweet damn all
8. A complete absence
9. Diddly squat
10. Bupkis
This is not some fringe conspiracy theory. It is a thoroughly established and entirely indisputable fact. Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism is saying that facts are antisemitic…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Throughout the handbook, the feelings of Australian Jews are cited over and over again as supremely important and of far more urgent a concern than genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and wars of immense geopolitical consequence…………………………………………………………………………………………
Virtually nothing is said about the real victims. The murdered, displaced and terrorized targets of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran. The war orphans. The child amputees and burn victims who were operated on without anesthesia. The Palestinians being raped and tortured in Israeli prisons. The people who will carry the physical and psychological wounds from their holocaust with them for the rest of their lives.
They are not regarded as important by Jillian Segal. The real crisis, in her mind, is people talking about these things and making Jewish Australians feel upset.
The NACC Commissioner’s recusal from all defence matters has shifted greater responsibility for NACC investigations onto its three deputy commissioners. They’ve received almost no scrutiny. Until now.
This is a short extract from our latest investigation, undertaken in collaboration with journalist Nick Feik, which was published today by The Australia Institute’s The Point. Click link below to read the full story now. We will publish and email the full text in a week or so.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission’s performance since its inception has been widely condemned. The leadership of Commissioner Paul Brereton, in particular, has drawn heavy criticism
The mismanagement of his conflicts of interest, firstly in relation to Robodebt and then his potential conflict arising from defence-related investigations, has undermined the reputation of an institution whose success relies on its transparency and accountability, as have the NACC’s inordinate secrecy and its refusal to hold any public hearings to date.
As a result, greater responsibility for NACC investigations has been placed in the hands of its three deputy commissioners. However none of these deputies has been a judge or senior legal professional. By comparison, the dozens of assistant commissioners who’ve served the NSW ICAC, for example, have overwhelmingly been SC or KC, and many were also judges.
Indeed, the NACC’s three current deputy commissioners as a group represent the least qualified combination of deputies permitted under the NACC Act.
This months-long investigation raises major concerns about the suitability of all three deputy commissioners, casting serious new doubt on the legitimacy of the NACC as currently constituted…
Two current NACC Deputy Commissioners were appointed to the NACC straight from jobs into which they had been parachuted by Coalition governments: Nicole Rose and Ben Gauntlett were both “captain’s picks” into public roles that ordinarily required the use of a transparent merit-based selection process. In neither case did the Coalition do this.
Deputy Commissioner Rose, the delegated decision maker who decided not to investigate the Robodebt Six, has a diploma of hotel management as her highest academic qualification. She was handed two CEO roles, at AUSTRAC and CrimTrac, by then Justice Minister Michael Keenan, ahead of vastly more experienced candidates, including a judge, barristers, and a former police commissioner.
Deputy Commissioner Gauntlett, meanwhile, was handpicked by Scott Morrison’s Coalition Government as Disability Discrimination Commissioner, a move that was condemned by numerous human rights legal experts at the time for not being an open merit-based selection process as required.
Until the Government delivers “a powerful, transparent and independent NACC – one with teeth”, as promised by Prime Minister Albanese – the NACC will continue to be a running sore in the nation’s integrity framework, mistrusted and maligned by the public. It could be argued that the NACC was set up to fail.
Danny Danon points at Hezbollah while Israel kills peacekeepers, passes death penalty laws, and plans occupation
Dedicated to the three UNIFIL peacekeepers killed in Lebanon. To the families who are still waiting for the truth. To the world that refuses to see.
The Killings
On March 30, 2026, two Indonesian UNIFIL peacekeepers – Captain Zulmi Aditya Iskandar and First Sergeant Muhammad Nur Ichwan – were killed when a roadside explosion destroyed their vehicle near the town of Bani Hayyan in southern Lebanon. Two others were injured, one severely.
Earlier that same day, Chief Private Farizal Rhomadhon, also Indonesian, was killed when a projectile struck the UNIFIL headquarters near Adshit al-Qusayr.
Three peacekeepers. Three men who had come not to fight, but to hold the line between Israel and Hezbollah. Three men who were there under the mandate of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war.
They are dead. And the world is being told a story.
The Accuser
Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, did not wait for an investigation. He did not wait for evidence. He went straight to the Security Council and declared:
“I revealed to the Security Council: Hezbollah is responsible for the incidents in which UNIFIL soldiers were killed. This is pure terrorism. Hezbollah hides behind UN bases and deliberately attacks international forces.”
He offered no proof. He cited no investigation. He simply accused.
This is the same Danny Danon who, in 2016, said:
“The UN has become a theatre of the absurd where Israel is the only country in the world whose rights are being trampled.”
This is the same man who has spent his career portraying Israel as the victim of a biased international system – even as his government passes laws to execute Palestinians, bombs fuel depots in cities of ten million, and plans the occupation of sovereign Lebanese territory up to the Litani River.
The Duplicity
Let us examine the pattern.
On the death penalty law: When the Knesset passed a law making death by hanging the default punishment for Palestinians convicted of terrorism-related offences – a law explicitly discriminatory, applying only to Palestinians tried in military courts – Danon did not condemn it. He did not call it a violation of international law. He said nothing. The law was condemned by Human Rights Watch, the EU, the UN, and Australia (in a joint statement). Danon’s response? Silence.
On the ecocide in Iran: When Israel bombed fuel storage facilities in Tehran on March 7, poisoning a city of 10 million with black rain, causing generational damage to soil and groundwater, Danon did not speak. He did not call it a war crime. He did not acknowledge that the smoke had drifted as far as Afghanistan and Russia. He said nothing.
On the killing of journalists: When the International Federation of Journalists reported that at least 234 journalists had been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 – a mortality rate of 10 per cent for the profession – Danon did not condemn. He did not call for investigations. He said nothing. In fact, Israel’s new ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, called slain journalists “100 per cent terrorist” members of Hezbollah. Danon did not correct him.
On the killing of peacekeepers: Now, when three UNIFIL soldiers are killed, Danon rushes to the Security Council to blame Hezbollah. He does not wait for the investigation. He does not offer evidence. He simply accuses.
The pattern is clear: when Israel kills, Danon is silent. When others are accused, Danon is loud. He is not a diplomat. He is a propagandist.
What the Evidence Suggests
The UN peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, told the Security Council that initial investigations point to a “roadside explosion” and “most likely an IED.” He did not name Hezbollah. He did not name Israel. He called for a swift, thorough, transparent investigation.
Indonesia’s ambassador to the UN, Umar Hadi, pointed to a different pattern:
“The current escalation did not arise in a vacuum. It stems from repeated incursions by the Israeli military into the territory of Lebanon.”
Pakistan’s ambassador, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, noted that attacks on peacekeepers “may constitute war crimes under international law” and are part of a “disturbing pattern” that undermines UNIFIL and the entire international order.
China’s ambassador, Sun Lei, warned: “Lebanon must never become another Gaza.”
None of them blamed Hezbollah. None of them accepted Danon’s accusation at face value. They called for investigation. They called for accountability. They called for the violence to stop.
But Danon had already made up his mind. He always has.
The Platform Problem
Why is Danny Danon given a platform at the United Nations? Why is his word taken seriously? Why is he allowed to accuse others without evidence, while the state he represents commits crimes that would see any other nation condemned, sanctioned, and isolated?
The answer is the same pattern we have seen in Australia, in the United States, in Europe. The Zionist network has captured the institutions. The fear of being labelled antisemitic silences dissent. The double standard is not an accident – it is enforced.
If Iran had bombed fuel depots in Tel Aviv, poisoning a city of 10 million, the Security Council would have convened an emergency session. Sanctions would have been imposed. The ambassador would have been expelled.
When Israel does it, Danon speaks about Hezbollah. The world listens. The world nods. The world does nothing.
What We Know About Danny Danon
He was born in Tel Aviv in 1971. He served in the Israel Defence Forces as a paratrooper. He was a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot. He served as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. He was Minister of Science, Technology and Space. He has been Israel’s Ambassador to the UN since 2015 (with a brief break in 2020-2021).
He has a long history of inflammatory statements:
In 2017, he called for the closure of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), saying it “perpetuates the conflict.”
In 2018, he accused the UN of “obsessive hatred of Israel.”
In 2024, after the International Court of Justice found it “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, he called the court “antisemitic” and the ruling “absurd.”
He is not a seeker of truth. He is a defender of power. And his power is the power of the state that is committing genocide.
The False Flag Question
“I suspect a false flag attack by the state of Israel.”
We cannot say definitively. The investigation is ongoing. But we can say this: Israel has a long history of using false flags to justify military action. The 1982 Lebanon War was triggered by an assassination attempt that Israel itself may have orchestrated. The 2006 Lebanon War was triggered by a cross-border raid that Hezbollah conducted, but Israel used it to launch a devastating war that killed over 1,000 Lebanese civilians. The pattern is there.
What we know is that Danon did not wait for evidence. He blamed Hezbollah immediately. He used the deaths of peacekeepers to advance Israel’s narrative. And that narrative serves one purpose: to justify Israel’s planned occupation of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River.
Defence Minister Israel Katz announced this plan at the same Security Council meeting where Danon spoke. He said Israel would raze “all houses in villages near the Lebanese border” and “maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani River.”
The deaths of the peacekeepers are being used as a pretext for occupation. That is the duplicity. That is the crime.
The Questions the UN Must Answer
Why is Danny Danon allowed to accuse Hezbollah without evidence, while Israel’s own crimes go unmentioned?
Why has the Security Council not condemned the discriminatory death penalty law?
Why has the Security Council not condemned the ecocide in Iran?
Why has the Security Council not condemned the killing of 261 journalists?
Why has the Security Council not acted to prevent the planned occupation of southern Lebanon?
Why is Israel treated differently than any other nation?
The answers are not complicated. The network has captured the institutions. The fear of being labelled antisemitic silences dissent. The double standard is enforced.
But the truth is not silent. The truth is being written. The truth is being published. The truth is being read.
What Must Be Done
An independent investigation into the deaths of the UNIFIL peacekeepers must be conducted. Not by Israel. Not by Hezbollah. By the UN. The findings must be made public.
Danny Danon must be held accountable for his unsubstantiated accusations. If he has evidence, let him present it. If he does not, his words are not diplomacy – they are propaganda.
The Security Council must condemn the death penalty law. A joint statement is not enough. Words are not enough. Action is required.
The planned occupation of southern Lebanon must be stopped. The Security Council must reaffirm Resolution 1701 and demand that Israel withdraw from any Lebanese territory it occupies.
The double standard must end. Israel must be held to the same standards as every other nation. No more exceptions. No more impunity.
The Larger Truth
Danny Danon is not the problem. He is a symptom. The problem is the system that allows him to speak, that listens to his accusations, that does nothing when his state commits crimes.
The small gods wear nooses on their lapels. They bomb fuel depots in cities of ten million. They pass death penalty laws that apply only to Palestinians. They kill peacekeepers and blame their enemies. And the world watches. The UN meets. The statements are issued. The condemnations are read. And the bombs continue to fall.
But we are not silent. We are writing. We are publishing. We are cutting the wire.
The truth will out. The small gods will be seen. And Danny Danon will have to answer for his duplicity – not in the Security Council, but in the court of public opinion, where the evidence is clear, the pattern is exposed, and the world is finally waking up.
Dedicated to the three UNIFIL peacekeepers killed in Lebanon. To the families who are still waiting for the truth. To the world that refuses to see.
Israel’s ambassador, Hillel Newman, spoke at the National Press Club today, and walked into something he might not have expected: journalists doing their job on Israel. Joshua Barnett reports.
Hillel Newman was a controversial – but not surprising – choice as Israel’s new ambassador in Australia. He is a vocal supporter of Israel’s war against humanity and has openly discredited the legitimacy of the UN.
Given our mainstream media’s tacit support for Israel, Newman may have expected typical softball questions, but instead, he faced a breadth of important questions that Australians would like answered, including the subject of Australian Aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an Israeli drone strike in 2024.
The most pointed exchange came from Anna Henderson of SBS World News, who used her question to join the deaths of journalists and aid workers in one blunt challenge. Henderson began,
“I want to take this opportunity as well to pay tribute to the journalists and aid workers who have been killed doing their job internationally,”
before turning directly to the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom. She told Newman,
“Israel defense sources have told us that the investigation into the Israeli drone strike that killed Zomi Frankcom in Gaza has been shelved, and that there will be no prosecutions after two years.
“What is the status of the military Advocate General investigation into the death of Zomi Frankcom, will the Israeli Defense Force release the audio of the drone strike so the evidence is transparent, will anyone be prosecuted, or was this one of those tragic mistakes in your view?”
Newman did not answer those questions cleanly. His first response was, “I’ve never heard that it’s been shelved,” followed by, “It could be that I’m not updated, I’ll check.”
Pressed on the missing drone audio, he claimed that the Australian special Adviser Mark Binskin had been given “full access to what was available,” but when Henderson and others pointed out Binskin, in his own words, did not get the audio, Newman ultimately conceded, “I would have to check that.”
The air was tense as Sky News host Tom Connell pressed Newman even further, stating that Binskin himself admitted that the IDF would not give him the audio.
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Israel’s ambassador, Hillel Newman, spoke at the National Press Club today, and walked into something he might not have expected: journalists doing their job on Israel. Joshua Barnett reports.
Hillel Newman was a controversial – but not surprising – choice as Israel’s new ambassador in Australia. He is a vocal supporter of Israel’s war against humanity and has openly discredited the legitimacy of the UN.
Given our mainstream media’s tacit support for Israel, Newman may have expected typical softball questions, but instead, he faced a breadth of important questions that Australians would like answered, including the subject of Australian Aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an Israeli drone strike in 2024.
The most pointed exchange came from Anna Henderson of SBS World News, who used her question to join the deaths of journalists and aid workers in one blunt challenge. Henderson began,
“I want to take this opportunity as well to pay tribute to the journalists and aid workers who have been killed doing their job internationally,”
before turning directly to the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom. She told Newman,
“Israel defense sources have told us that the investigation into the Israeli drone strike that killed Zomi Frankcom in Gaza has been shelved, and that there will be no prosecutions after two years.
“What is the status of the military Advocate General investigation into the death of Zomi Frankcom, will the Israeli Defense Force release the audio of the drone strike so the evidence is transparent, will anyone be prosecuted, or was this one of those tragic mistakes in your view?”
Newman did not answer those questions cleanly. His first response was, “I’ve never heard that it’s been shelved,” followed by, “It could be that I’m not updated, I’ll check.”
Pressed on the missing drone audio, he claimed that the Australian special Adviser Mark Binskin had been given “full access to what was available,” but when Henderson and others pointed out Binskin, in his own words, did not get the audio, Newman ultimately conceded, “I would have to check that.”
The air was tense as Sky News host Tom Connell pressed Newman even further, stating that Binskin himself admitted that the IDF would not give him the audio.
Zomi Frankcom killing
The public record is already clear on some basics. Zomi Frankcom was killed on 1 April 2024 in Gaza alongside six other World Central Kitchen workers.
The Australian special adviser’s report said the IDF’s initial investigation found the strike “should not have occurred”, that the workers were not deliberately or knowingly targeted, and that the Military Advocate General (MAG) was considering possible follow-up action. The report also recommended Australia seek regular updates on the MAG process.
Yet nearly two years on, the audio still has not been handed over publicly, and in September 2024, Penny Wong said Israel had not responded to Australia’s request for it.
Then came the simplest question of the day, from Andrew Probyn from Nine: “Will Israel apologise to the family of Zomi Frankcom?” Newman would not do it. “Sympathy with the families” was as far as he went. On reparations, he said that would depend on the final outcome.
Who wins from that? Governments buying time. Military systems avoiding scrutiny. Diplomats preserving the script.
And who pays? Dead journalists. Dead aid workers. Their families. And the public,
“asked yet again to accept sympathy in place of transparency.”
The questions now are very simple. Has the Zomi Frankcom investigation been shelved or not? If not, what is its status? Why has the drone audio still not been released? Why was Binskin denied that audio? And if Israel says it can distinguish between journalists and militants, what is its actual verified number?
That was the surprise at the Press Club. The journalists did their job. The Ambassador mostly did what diplomats do best: deny, deflect and disregard the questions.
Climate information wars and fossil fuel dependency are national security threats that are undermining Australia’s ability to respond to crises like the Iran war, a new report says.
This battleground is actively undermining the country’s ability to reach energy sovereignty and protect Australians from external threats, says retired Australian Defence Force (ADF) admiral Chris Barrie.
“There has been a failure to understand how energy dependence on fossil fuels will cause both economic disruption and more perilous physical conditions for Australians,” Barrie said in a statement accompanying a new report outlining the scale of the threat.
“Now the two issues are colliding.
“We are facing an unprecedented energy crisis much worse by the world’s failure to face its fossil fuel addiction. Layered on top is a climate disinformation war globally and in Australia that is actively undermining the capacity to build a renewable, clean-energy future and curb coal and gas exports.”
The Climate Disinformation War report says Australia, and the world, have been engaged in an information war over climate change for at least two decades, as “anti-climate propaganda and disinformation networks” grew into multi-billion dollar permanent campaigns.
Today, power comes from dominating the information space and Australians’ perpception of the world is now warped by mis- and disinformation, says The Climate Disinformation War report author, intelligence analyst Anastasia Kapetas.
“This is no longer just a communications issue,” she said in a statement.
“It is a national security threat with consequences for Australia’s sovereignty, economic resilience, disaster preparedness, institutional trust and strategic autonomy. We are already seeing a drift toward authoritarian politics linked to climate denial.”
Responding to the scale of climate disinformation requires coordination across civil society and industry, and across security, economic, and governance institutions, Kapetas says in the report.
It calls for comprehensive anti-trust architecture, such as the current European Union Digital Markets Act, to stop tech platforms that amplify disinformation from becoming too powerful to regulate.
It also wants digital regulation that requires companies to take responsibility for online disinformation and other harms, and “urgent, enforceable” regulation of generative AI that can rapidly scale disinformation.
Marketing group Clean Creatives last year estimated the top 29 oil majors spent $US6.97 billion ($A9.9 billion) in 2024 on media management and PR.
They’ve created “a tidal wave of hostile messaging”, said California Energy Commission chair David Hochschild in Sydney this month.
Sadly, one of the culprits is Australia’s own Liberal and National parties, whose energy policies for two decades and claims of what renewable energy could, or would do despite evidence to the contrary, allowed disinformation and misinformation to flourish.
The impact of this wave of money and propaganda on Australians was made clear last year, when a Senate committee inquiry exposed just how deeply mis- and dis-information is now entrenched in this country, and how badly its damaging Aussie communities.
As Renew Economy managing editor Giles Parkinson put it, the Senate committee unearthed “harrowing evidence of abuse, threats, and intimidation – much of it driven by fear and loathing inspired by deliberate campaigns to demonise renewables”.
The anti-renewables “outrage machine” is even having a real impact on attitudes to Australia’s favourite technology, rooftop solar and home batteries, as noted by Populares boss Ed Coper at the EN26 conference last week.
Energy security starts at home
While some media commentators still scoff at the idea that renewables offer energy independence, governments and companies are taking note.
Last week, the UK fast-tracked balcony solar rules specifically to beef up energy security, and Australian electricity retailer Discover Energy finished a pivot that started after the 2020 Ukraine War-coal price spike to dump its gas licence to focus on solar-batteries and virtual power plants.
Indeed, “homegrown” energy sources are now equated with security, says International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol.
“We have seen, in Europe since 2022, the phenomenal growth of renewables mainly driven by security concerns,” Birol said.
“We have more options to deal with [this] crisis [than during the 1970s oil price shocks].
“Renewables have come to maturity… batteries, these will be a big game changer in terms of solar and wind becoming an even bigger part of the energy sector.”
In a blow to latent hopes in conservative circles, Birol doesn’t believe the way out for Australia is nuclear – even though he is a big fan of the technology and it’s rising again after the last shock in 2022.
He urges Australians to be “very, very proud” of what the country has achieved with solar and home batteries as “not every country needs to be nuclear power”.
Australian industry super funds are investing in companies involved in the Gaza genocide, and unions are not demanding they stop. Andrew Gardiner reports.
Protected by rules putting a member’s “best financial interests” over ethical, environmental or social considerations, the vast majority of Australia’s industry superfunds are all-systems-go on pouring money into projects connected to the decimation of Gaza, dispossession in the West Bank, and bombing Israel’s neighbours.
An MWM investigation has confirmed that just two of Australia’s 20 industry super funds are making modest changes to their investment portfolios. The other 18 remain invested in Israel’s war machine, with Australian Super alone funding corporations like Elbit Systems (drones), ICL Group (white phosphorus) and Palantir (AI/software for weapons systems).
This, even as the IDF is again using the banned white phosphorus in Lebanon, in which Australian super is invested.
The two funds which did divest – Vision Super and HESTA – still have some money tied up in Israeli projects in Gaza and the West Bank. “HESTA and Vision divested from Israeli banks (but) they still have money in companies listed on a UN database as operating from Israel’s illegal settlements”, Molly Coburn from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) told MWM.
Activist Jill Sparrow says even those modest changes could be quietly reversed “as soon as we look away”. “Divestment isn’t set and forget (and)
“there’s a lot of money to be made in dropping bombs,”
“so super funds could be sorely tempted”, she said.
If you’re in a union-partner industry super fund and have a problem with genocide, chances are you’re out of luck on the socially-conscious investments front. Unions routinely route members’ super into partner funds with little regard to the social or environmental impact when it’s invested.
Ethics ignored
Under 2005 rule changes, union members can transfer their super to retail super funds, Australian Ethical and Future Group, which shun companies whose work enables the carnage in Gaza. These funds show it can be done, so why have industry super funds not done it?
Instead, unions aligned with the Labor Party, under pressure from Zionist lobbyists, are content to send members’ money to super funds that aid the Israeli war effort, funding what the UN calls “a moral stain on us all”.
Like so many other ACTU affiliates, the United Workers Union (UWU), with 151,000 members, talks a good game on Israel’s actions in Gaza, but hasn’t put its members’ super where its mouth is. MWM’s efforts to ascertain how much the union had done to lobby its super funds – HostPlus, Australian Super and HESTA – yielded nothing.
What we learned from UWU members is that in early 2024, a rank-and-file motion including divestment was passed at the council level in various states before being “soft-blocked” by union officials, who reportedly sat on it. Later that year, a more formal “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) motion, requiring real action compelling divestment by the super funds, was defeated.
“Social issues are bread and butter issues, and funding war is a dead end. Our leadership – who are on the boards of HESTA and Australian Super – (need) to stop hiding behind ‘fiduciary duties’ to fund death and destruction”, UWU delegate (early childhood education) Nicki Toupin told MWM.
Fidiciary duties
Fiduciary duty doesn’t just provide cover for unions putting the bottom line first. “In the interests of members”, it’s cited time and again by super funds whenever there’s pressure to divest.
Buttressing their argument is case law precedent, which will raise the hackles of Australian republicans: Cowan v Scargill, a UK decision dating back to the Thatcher years (1985), helped redefine a member’s “best interests” as “best financial interests” (emphasis added). 2021 changes to fiduciary duty here in Australia reflect that new emphasis.
How do you define “best financial interests”? Wouldn’t a stable Middle East be good for the world’s economy, providing investment opportunities for our super funds that don’t involve genocide?
“Egregious war crimes, crimes against humanity and devastating environmental impacts mean you can argue that the financial interests of super fund members are undermined by investments that support the Israeli military”, Claire Parfitt, Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at Sydney University, told MWM.
It seems our super funds, and their investment managers, are ignoring these arguments in the quest for a quick return, their investment in the Israeli war machine rendering Middle East instability something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are, of course, equal and opposite rules against super funds investing in projects “maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory”. But some rules, it seems, are more equal than others; successive Australian governments barely lift a finger to enforce international court rulings, human rights obligations and social considerations (ESG), which might trouble the bottom line.
To quote a famous movie line, “a foul is not a foul unless the ref blows his whistle”. The failure to enforce international and ethical obligations means super funds can go on hiding behind “fiduciary duty”; at least 18 of our 20 industry funds are doing just that.
The “fiduciary duty” chestnut, and “soft blocking” tactics by union officials aligned with an ALP which quietly supports the Gaza carnage, have rendered meaningful “change from within” on divestment all but impossible. So groups like ASU for Palestine and UWU 4 Palestine are taking matters into their own hands.
Following a 1000-strong “community picket” of the Israeli-owned ZIM Ganges cargo ship at Port Melbourne, ASU for Palestine started looking at divestment as a way to hit Israel where it hurts. After ASU secretary (now Senator) Lisa Darmanin, then a board member at Vision Super, inevitably advised ASU for Palestine of its “fiduciary and statutory obligations” (adding it wasn’t legal for her to “act as (a) representative” of ASU members on divestment) it became clear something more compelling was called for.
What did ASU for Palestine do? It began a campaign to raise awareness on divestment, suggesting ASU members “switch their super fund” elsewhere, while lobbying to change the default super fund in enterprise agreements to none other than Australian Ethical.
It’s amazing how the threat of losing thousands of ASU members (and untold millions) can motivate a super fund to abandon “fiduciary” rhetoric and do the right thing. A couple of months later, amid much fanfare at the ASU conference, Vision Super announced its limited divestment, full details of which are expected by the end of this month.
These kinds of ‘direct action’ appear to actually work, although (per APAN) the extent of Vision’s divestment was limited. “If it’s not good enough, we’ll just have to go again”, Sparrow told MWM.
For their part, UWU 4 Palestine sees divestment as a major social cause that it and Members First, a grassroots change ticket at upcoming union elections, can get their teeth into. “Building a rank and file, fighting union that isn’t remote from members gives us the power to push for the kind of world we want, not just on workplace issues but in investing our money in something other than genocide”, Toupin told MWM, adding
While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history.
The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight. This includes AI and autonomy technologies
The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved.
On December 10, 2025, Responsible Statecraft published a report that should have shaken capitals around the world. Buried in the details of President Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” for Gaza was a revelation: two American surveillance firms, Palantir and Dataminr, had embedded personnel inside the U.S.-run Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel.
Their presence was not incidental. Palantir’s Project Maven – an “AI-powered battlefield platform” that collects surveillance data from satellites, drones, and intercepted communications to “optimize the kill chain” – was being positioned to shape Gaza’s post-war security architecture. Dataminr, which scans social media to provide “event, threat, and risk intelligence” to governments and law enforcement, was also inside the room.
This is not conspiracy. This is confluence – the quiet alignment of corporate interests, military objectives, and political capture. This article traces that confluence from the battlefields of Gaza to the boardrooms of Australia, and asks a simple question: Who benefits?
Part One: The Business Model – AI as Occupation
Palantir’s “Kill Chain” Optimisation
Palantir Technologies has been explicit about its ambitions. CEO Alex Karp has described the company’s technology as “optimising the kill chain.” Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract, sucks information from multiple sources and “packages it into a common, searchable app for commanders and support groups.” It has already been deployed to guide U.S. airstrikes across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
Since January 2024, Palantir has been in a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military for “war-related missions”. The company has expanded its Tel Aviv office significantly over the last two years. Karp defended this collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying Palantir was the first to be “completely anti-woke”.
The Gaza Laboratory
For the last two years, Gaza has functioned as an incubator for militarised AI. Israel’s Lavender system, an AI-assisted surveillance tool, used predictive analytics to rank Palestinians’ likelihood of being connected to militant groups, based on an opaque set of criteria. Public sector workers – healthcare workers, teachers, police officers – were included on kill lists because they had ties to Hamas by virtue of working in a territory the group governed.
The Gospel system functioned as a “mass assassination factory.” One source admitted spending only “20 seconds” per target before authorising bombing – just enough to confirm the Lavender-marked target was male.
Under Trump’s proposed “peace plan,” these technologies would be scaled up. The plan envisions “Alternative Safe Communities” – fenced, heavily monitored compounds where Palestinians would be relocated, their movements tracked by AI systems, their online activity scanned by Dataminr, their phones monitored by Palantir’s platforms. Entry would be contingent on approval by Israel’s Shin Bet, with criteria that could disqualify hundreds of thousands based on algorithmic “risk scores.”
For tech companies, war is opportunity. Access to vast datasets, real-world testing for new military systems, and long-term contracts for post-war surveillance infrastructure.
For Israel, the arrangement offers a way to outsource occupation while maintaining control.
For Palestinians, it promises more of what they have already endured: unremitting horror, dragnet surveillance, and death by algorithm.
Part Two: The Australian Connection – Wealth Transfer and Complicity
AUKUS: The $368 Billion Commitment
While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history. The AUKUS nuclear submarine program is estimated to cost $368 billion over coming decades, with $53–63 billion allocated for the first decade alone.
The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight. This includes AI and autonomy technologies developed under Pillar 2 of the agreement, which focuses on “artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum science, advanced cyber, and electronic warfare.”
The same technologies being tested on Palestinian populations in Gaza are, under AUKUS, being integrated into Australia’s defence infrastructure.
The Ghost Shark Precedent
In September 2025, the government announced a $1.7 billion investment in “Ghost Shark” autonomous submarines – underwater drones developed by Australian company Anduril, whose U.S. parent has close ties to the defence establishment. Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite described the technology as so impressive that “the Americans have invested in the company.”
The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved.
The Cost of Living vs. The Cost of War
While this wealth transfers to the United States, Australians struggle with a cost-of-living crisis that the government refuses to adequately address. The Robodebt scheme – an automated system that raised unlawful debts against welfare recipients – offers a template for how algorithmic governance can devastate vulnerable populations .
The National Anti-Corruption Commission recently found two public servants engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” in relation to Robodebt. But as Economic Justice Australia noted:
“The system punishes only the vulnerable. The main sanction for damaging behaviour at the top levels of the Department has been naming and shaming.”
No one went to jail. No one lost their pension. The system protected itself.
The same pattern is now repeating at scale: algorithms making life-and-death decisions, with no one accountable when they fail.
Part Three: The Segal Nexus – Silencing Critics, Enabling the Agenda
The Envoy’s Role
Jillian Segal AO, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, occupies a unique position at the intersection of power. Her credentials are impeccable: former ASIC deputy chair, board member of the Sydney Opera House Trust, the Garvan Institute, and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. She is deeply embedded in the networks that connect Australian business to Israeli interests.
In December 2025, the Albanese Government formally adopted Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, accepting all 13 recommendations………………………………………………………………………………………..
The framework created by the antisemitism envoy – however well-intentioned – provides cover for those who would shut down debate. Critics are not engaged; they are managed. Those who persist are not answered; they are silenced.
The Business Connection
Segal’s husband’s company, Henroth Investments, donated $50,000 to Advance Australia, a right-wing lobby group that has shared anti-immigration content and claimed Palestinians in Australia were a “risk to security.” She has disclaimed knowledge of the donation, and government ministers have accepted her statement .
But the appearance matters. When the antisemitism envoy is married to a donor to an organisation that promotes anti-Palestinian rhetoric, it feeds a perception that her role serves a particular political agenda rather than a genuine anti-racism brief. When her networks connect Australian business to Israeli interests, and when those interests align with the very AI companies testing their technologies on Palestinian populations, the confluence becomes visible.
Part Four: The Alignment of Values
In a bizarre way, the values of Palantir’s leadership align with the values of Australia’s political class…………………………………………………………………………………
What if they were, instead, a mechanism to enable and facilitate Israel’s transition to an AI-driven economy independent of the United States?
Consider the logic:
Israel seeks economic independence. Netanyahu has announced plans to “taper off” U.S. military aid, pivoting toward AI sovereignty. A $200 million joint AI and quantum science center with the U.S. is in development.
A state reliant on a single product must ensure demand. If Israel’s future exports are AI-driven surveillance and warfare technologies, it needs customers. It needs a demonstrated market. It needs a proof of concept.
Gaza provides the laboratory. The technologies tested there—Lavender, Gospel, the Maven platform – are refined in real-world conditions, with a population that cannot resist, cannot refuse, cannot escape.
Critics must be silenced. This is where the antisemitism framework becomes essential. If criticism of Israel’s actions can be reframed as antisemitism, if legitimate concerns about algorithmic warfare can be dismissed as hatred, if the very people documenting war crimes can be delegitimised – then the business model is protected.
Australia plays its part. By adopting the antisemitism envoy’s recommendations, by embedding the IHRA definition into policy, by creating legal frameworks that can be used to silence critics, Australia becomes an enabler of this system. Not through conspiracy—through confluence. Through the quiet alignment of interests that requires no coordination, only opportunity
Part Six: The Accountability Vacuum
The Robodebt scheme offers a template for what comes next………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Conclusion: What We Have Discovered
This article has traced a network of connections that is not conspiracy but confluence:
Palantir and Dataminr embedded in Gaza, testing AI systems on a captive population, refining technologies that will be exported worldwide.
AUKUS transferring Australian wealth to the U.S. military-industrial complex, integrating the same AI and autonomy technologies into our defence infrastructure.
Jillian Segal positioned at the nexus of Australian business, government, and Israeli interests, her office providing the framework that silences critics.
The antisemitism claim deployed not against genuine hatred, but against legitimate criticism of Israeli policy – protecting the business model, enabling the silence. · The accountability vacuum ensuring that when things go wrong, no one is responsible.
The pattern is consistent. The players are visible. The evidence is documented.
Australian news analysis
What remains is for Australians to ask themselves: Is this who we want to be?
Do we want our wealth transferred to corporations that “optimize the kill chain“? Do we want our government to enable the testing of AI warfare on a captive population? Do we want our political class to silence critics while profiting from death?
The answer, for those with eyes to see, should be clear.
But the system is designed to keep those eyes closed. To cry “antisemitism” at anyone who questions. To ensure that the only voices heard are those that align with the business model.
An Australian charity receiving over $200 million in tax-deductible donations is ignoring international law, while the Government looks the other way. Stephanie Tran reports.
Jewish National Fund Australia (JNF Australia) has remitted more than $125.4m to Israel since 2009, according to financial records, while receiving $213m in tax-deductible donations since 2013.
In 2024 alone, the organisation reported $12m in donations and bequests, with $10.4m transferred to Israel.
Despite JNF Australia’s assertion that it operates independently of its Israeli parent, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (KKL-JNF), an investigation by MWM has revealed that tax-deductible donations raised by JNF Australia have been directly transferred to KKL-JNF. Some of these funds have been used to support IDF soldiers and fund illegal settlements.
Independent really?
NF Australia has repeatedly stated that it operates independently of KKL-JNF in Israel.
In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that KKL-JNF transfer 80% of its revenue to the Finance Ministry to help fund state-run infrastructure projects or risk losing its tax-exempt status.
Following the announcement, JNF Australia declared that it was a “separate independent entity” from KKL-JNF. They stated that “funds raised by JNF Australia go directly towards these projects, with not one dollar used to fund KKL”
In 2021, KKL-JNF’s board voted to officially permit the purchase of private land in the occupied West Bank for settlement expansion, a decision that was criticised as an open violation of international law.
Shortly after the decision, JNF Australia’s president and CEO again attempted to distance the organisation from its Israeli parent, stating that the Australian body was “an independent entity from KKL”.
“JNF Australia only applies donor contributions towards JNF Australia projects and priorities [and] is therefore unaffected by any changes to KKL’s priorities and policies, whether in respect to land acquisition or elsewhere,” they said, adding that the organisation “has no representatives on the KKL board, nor is it involved with or bound by any of their decisions”.
However, our analysis of Israeli financial filings shows that JNF Australia has transferred millions of dollars directly to KKL-JNF (also known as the Israel National Fund) since making these statements.
Although the sources of foreign donations were redacted in Israel National Fund’s 2024 financial report, financial reports lodged in previous years identify Australia as a source of overseas donations.
Between 2021 and 2024, KKL-JNF received 41.86m Shekels ($19.4 million) in donations from Australia and New Zealand.
The financial reports state that these donations “are received from residents of various countries, including through KKL-JNF offices abroad”.
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement, decades before the establishment of Israel. Over the past century, KKL-JNF has played a central role in land acquisition and large-scale “forestation” projects across the occupied Palestinian territories.
These activities have long been intertwined with the displacement of Palestinians. An investigation by Haaretz revealed that the Israeli Defence Ministry recruited KKL-JNF to secretly purchase Palestinian land in the West Bank for settlers. Israeli NGO Zochrot has accused JNF of contributing to the “ongoing Nakba” through projects that plant forests or develop parks on land where Palestinian communities once stood, while supporting illegal settlement initiatives.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion finding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law.
The ICJ held that Israel must end its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, and immediately cease all new settlement activity. The Court also held that third states have an obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
In a subsequent position paper responding to the ruling, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said states should not provide tax deductibility for donations to organisations that support illegal occupation.
JNF supporting illegal settlements
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement, decades before the establishment of Israel. Over the past century, KKL-JNF has played a central role in land acquisition and large-scale “forestation” projects across the occupied Palestinian territories.These activities have long been intertwined with the displacement of Palestinians. An investigation by Haaretz revealed that the Israeli Defence Ministry recruited KKL-JNF to secretly purchase Palestinian land in the West Bank for settlers. Israeli NGO Zochrot has accused JNF of contributing to the “ongoing Nakba” through projects that plant forests or develop parks on land where Palestinian communities once stood, while supporting illegal settlement initiatives.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion finding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law.
The ICJ held that Israel must end its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, and immediately cease all new settlement activity. The Court also held that third states have an obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
In a subsequent position paper responding to the ruling, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said states should not provide tax deductibility for donations to organisations that support illegal occupation.
“States shall not give support to these organizations, for example, through allowing the organization to have tax-exempt status or providing tax deductibility for donations to the organization and must ensure that financial contributions to support the unlawful occupation, including settlements and settlers, cease,” the Commission said.
Chris Sidoti, a commissioner on the UN inquiry, said the implications for Australian charities that fund Israeli settlements were clear.
“We should end tax deductibility for any Australian charities that provide funding for Israeli settlements or for Israeli organisations that support the establishment or maintenance of settlements,” he said, “Any organisation that is financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation, including funding settlements,
“should have its tax-exempt status removed and should be deregistered.”
Despite the UN General Assembly adopting a a resolution in September 2024 demanding that Israel end its unlawful occupation no later than 12 months after the adoption of the resolution, the Israeli government has accelerated settlements in the West Bank.
Last month, Israel’s security cabinet repealed land laws, enabling settlers to purchase land in the West Bank without limitation and without government oversight to “enable accelerated development of settlement on the ground”.
Since the US-Israeli war with Iran began, Israel has imposed a total military closure on the West Bank and Israeli settlers have seized the opportunity to expel more Palestinian communities from their land.
Support for IDF soldiers and settlers
Jewish National Fund Australia publicly promotes programs providing financial support to soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including “Ach Gadol”, “Atidim Lone Soldier Education Support” and “Panim el Panim”.
The Ach Gadol initiative offers one-on-one support for “lone soldiers” serving in the IDF. The project aims to create a support system for lone soldiers throughout their army service and “deepen the values of Zionism and love of the land among young new immigrants”.
According to JNF, “there are over 7,000 lone soldiers currently serving in the IDF. About 45% of these soldiers are new immigrants, coming from Jewish communities all over the world.”
Panim-El-Panim is a program launched in cooperation with the IDF Chief Rabbinate to “provide the soldiers with the tools and ability to cope with the complex challenges they face during their military service and life afterwards”. According to JNF Australia, Panim-El-Panim meets with over 90 thousand soldiers annually.
Atidim Lone Soldier Education Support assists lone immigrant soldiers after their service, providing the “support they need to become part of Israel’s vital nation building”.
According to Al Jazeera, more than 50,000 foreign soldiers have fought for IDF during Gaza genocide. 621 of these soldiers are Australian citizens.
JNF Australia has also fundraised for Ateret Cohanim, an extremist settler group active in East Jerusalem. Ateret Cohanim has filed eviction lawsuits against around 100 Palestinian families living in East Jerusalem. JNF Australia removed the fundraiser from its website after members of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society wrote an article about the fundraiser.
Daniel Luria is the executive director and spokesman of Ateret Cohanim later claimed that “Ateret Cohanim does not receive any money from the JNF Australia and Ateret Cohanim has not appeared on the JNF site as a partner project.”
MWM put questions to JNF Australia regarding their relationship to KKL-JNF and their funding of IDF soldiers and settlers. They did not respond to the request for comment.
“Public Benevolent Institution”
JNF Australia operates through three charities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC):
All hold deductible gift recipient (DGR) status. The Jewish National Fund (Australia) Pty Limited is also registered as a public benevolent institution (PBI).
Under Australian law, charities must pursue exclusively charitable purposes and comply with governance and external conduct standards, including obligations relating to overseas activities.
PBIs receive the most concessional treatment under Australia’s charity law, including exemption from income tax, eligibility to receive tax-deductible donations, and access to fringe benefits tax concessions not available to most other charities.
The three charities are overseen by the same 8 person board. Doron Lazarus is the CEO of JNF Australia and long-time board member Pamela Krail is the current president.
ACNC response
MWM put questions to the ACNC, regarding whether providing funds to the IDF and illegal settlements was compatible with JNF Australia’s DGR and PBI requirements. They stated that:
“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.”
See the ACNC’s full response below: [on original]
………….Violating international law
Despite the ACNC’s assertion that they “can’t enforce international law”, legal experts say the use of tax-deductible donations to fund projects connected to Israeli settlements and the IDF raises significant issues under both Australian law and international legal obligations.
The Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ), which has been monitoring potentially unlawful activities of Australian charities operating in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the legal position regarding settlements is well established.
“It is well established that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are unlawful under international law, and this position has been repeatedly affirmed by the international community,
“including through Australia’s own foreign policy.“
According to ACIJ, Australian charities supporting activities connected to settlements could face scrutiny under Australia’s criminal and taxation laws.
“Australian charities supporting activities connected to unlawful settlements raise serious questions about compliance that extend beyond charity regulation to broader concerns under Australia’s criminal and taxation laws,” the organisation said.
“Conduct that amounts to direct or indirect participation in the transfer of the civilian population of an occupying power into territory it occupies is a criminal offence under Australia’s Commonwealth Criminal Code.”
ACIJ also warned that funding directed to the IDF may raise additional legal risks given the current proceedings against Israel and its leadership in the ICJ and ICC:
“Directly or indirectly funding the Israeli military raises additional concerns, particularly in circumstances where Israel is currently before the International Court of Justice over alleged violations of the Genocide Convention, and where senior Israeli leadership, including the Prime Minister, is subject to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes,
“These circumstances raise serious questions about the risks of complicity for those financially supporting Israel’s military apparatus.”
Human rights lawyer Rita Jabri Markwell, who is part of the coalition of lawyers developing the proposed “Red Lines Package” legislation aimed at preventing Australian institutions from supporting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, said the issue also engages Australia’s international obligations.
“In July 2024, the International Court of Justice found that all third-party states, including Australia, have a mandatory positive obligation not to render aid or assistance that would maintain Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“The court further stated that all states must abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory.”
Markwell noted that Australia supported the UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to end its unlawful presence in the occupied territories.
“Australia has recently voted in favour of a United Nations resolution demanding that Israel rapidly end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, aligning ourselves with 142 other nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand,” she said.
“What we say at the United Nations must be matched by what we do at home.”
Markwell said the Red Lines Package seeks to close the gap in Australian law.
“This gap in domestic law is precisely why the upcoming Red Lines Package is urgently needed. The bill incorporates these international obligations into domestic law and empowers the ACNC commissioner to revoke charity status where there are breaches.”
“Tax-deductible donations are a form of public subsidy. Every Australian taxpayer contributes when charities are granted Deductible Gift Recipient status. It is therefore vital that charities ensure these funds are used solely for genuine public benefit,” she said.
“Under this system of occupation, settler violence against Palestinians is rife, often armed, protected and facilitated by the Israeli Military. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers have assaulted, tortured, and committed sexual violence against Palestinians, stolen their belongings and livestock, threatened to kill them if they did not leave permanently, and destroyed their homes and schools under the cover of the ongoing campaign in Gaza and now Iran.”
“Behind every donation are attacks on real people and lives, and real suffering.”
In 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada over the use of donations for Israeli military infrastructure projects.
There is an ongoing campaign in the UK to revoke the charitable status of JNF UK for its role in funding the Israeli military and supporting Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The decision by Adelaide University to withdraw a venue booking for an event featuring a leading United Nations human rights expert has ignited a fierce debate about academic freedom and censorship in South Australia.
The controversy surrounds a panel discussion titled “Settler Colonialism: What It Can Tell Us About the Conflict in Israel/Palestine,” which was scheduled to be held at the university’s Elder Hall. The event is part of the Constellations: Not Writers Week, a breakout festival created in response to the recent cancellation of the official Adelaide Writers’ Week.
The panel features Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was to appear via video link, alongside esteemed historian Henry Reynolds and UNSW academic Lana Tatour.
According to event moderator Chris Sidoti, Elder Hall had been booked a month in advance. However, on Tuesday, the university informed organisers that the booking was being revoked, citing “health and safety” concerns.
In a statement, an Adelaide University spokesperson defended the decision, stating they were only made aware of the external event the previous Friday. The university claimed it could not accept the booking because it:
“… did not go through the required review and approval process in accordance with the required policy and procedure.”
The spokesperson added that the university could not “ensure the safety, respect and comfort of those attending” and suggested an alternative venue – the National Wine Centre – at a significantly higher cost of $23,500, compared to the $750 fee for the university hall.
This explanation has done little to quell the criticism. Mr. Sidoti described the move as a “sad reflection on the state of Adelaide University today,” arguing that the institution’s core role is precisely “to provide forums for these kinds of discussions – and it’s failing in that.”
The cancellation has drawn sharp rebukes from political figures, who see it as part of a worrying trend of silencing dissenting voices.
Democracy education resources
Greens Senator for South Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young, demanded the university explain its actions, calling the reports “concerning.” She linked the decision to the earlier controversies surrounding Writers’ Week, suggesting a broader “culture of fear infecting our institutions.”
“You cannot cancel curiosity, you cannot cancel compassion, and you cannot silence a city that believes in the exchange of ideas and freedom of expression,” Senator Hanson-Young said. She accused the university of capitulating to external pressure, stating that “seeking to silence a distinguished international human rights expert undermines academic freedom, weakens intellectual integrity, and contradicts the very principles universities are meant to uphold.”
The event is part of the Constellations festival, which was formed after the official Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled this year. That decision followed the withdrawal of hundreds of authors protesting the treatment of Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was controversially uninvited from the original lineup.
When questioned directly about whether concerns regarding Ms. Albanese’s appearance – particularly in light of past criticism and US sanctions – influenced the decision, the university spokesperson did not provide a direct answer. They reiterated that the institution prides itself on being a place for the free exchange of ideas.
Event to Proceed at New Venue
Despite the university’s withdrawal, the discussion will go ahead. Organisers have secured the Norwood Concert Hall in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs for Thursday evening, where a sold-out crowd is expected to attend.
Senator Hanson-Young highlighted the public response as a rebuke to the university’s decision:
“Thankfully the event will go ahead… showing that South Australian audiences aren’t as fearful as these institutions,” she said.
There’s a burger franchise in Boronia. I go there, that’s how I got to know the name Hash Tayeh. Reasonable prices. Decent food. Hash Tayeh, the man behind the franchise has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza. I’ve followed him on X for years. Never saw hate speech. Just someone who watched children die and refused to stay silent.
On Wednesday, 25th February 2026, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found him guilty of racial and religious vilification. His crime? Leading a chant at a pro-Palestinian rally in March 2025: “All Zionists are terrorists.”
The same day that judgment was handed down, videos circulated online of people celebrating the burning deaths of Palestinian children. Laughing. Cheering. No charges. No accountability. No outrage from those who shape our laws.
“I keep asking myself what kind of world we are building when outrage at injustice is punished, but the celebration of human suffering is tolerated.”
This article examines that question. It traces how a fraudulent definition of antisemitism has been weaponised to silence critics of genocide. It documents the legal machinery being built to protect a foreign state from accountability. And it asks where we are headed – because when you cut through the rhetoric, that’s exactly what’s happening.
The Tayeh Case – A Warning Shot
The chant was “All Zionists are terrorists.” Judge My Anh Tran ruled that its natural effect was to incite hatred against Jewish people as a group.
Here’s the problem: Zionism is not a religion. It’s a political movement founded in the late 1880s by Theodor Herzl, an avowed atheist. It advocates for a Jewish state in historic Palestine. It has the same structural relationship to Judaism that Christian Zionism has to Christianity – a political ideology drawing on religious heritage, not a faith itself.
The court accepted that “Zionism” is a political ideology. But the chant targeted “All Zionists,” which Judge Tran ruled was aimed at “all supporters of the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state.” This moves the target from a specific government policy to a group defined by its support for the Jewish state – and therefore, in the court’s reasoning, to Jewish people themselves.
The judge acknowledged you can criticise governments. But you cannot, she ruled, incite hatred against a racial or religious group.
Except Zionism isn’t a race. It isn’t a religion. It’s a political position. And under this ruling, political criticism becomes a criminal offense.
The Definition That Was Never Adopted
This didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because Australia has been systematically adopting a definition of antisemitism that was never officially approved.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition” includes two sentences and eleven examples. Seven of those examples involve criticism of Israel.
But here’s what the Israel lobby doesn’t tell you: the examples were never adopted by the IHRA Plenary.
Oxford University PhD candidate Jamie Stern-Weiner’s research, based on a confidential internal memo from an ambassador present at the May 2016 IHRA Plenary meeting, reveals the truth. Sweden and Denmark explicitly opposed including the examples. The Plenary agreed to adopt only the basic two-sentence definition. The examples were retained as “working material” – a rough draft, not an official definition.
Despite this, from approximately 2018 onwards, pro-Israel lobby groups began promoting the definition as if the examples were part of it. The misrepresentation has now been accepted by governments and institutions worldwide, including Australia.
Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the original definition, has publicly stated it’s being “weaponised” to silence criticism of Israel. He repudiated legislative efforts to codify it, recognising exactly what would happen.
The Legal Machinery
Victoria has adopted the IHRA definition. The state has passed Australia’s strongest anti-vilification laws. A new civil scheme will come into full effect in April 2026, making it even easier to pursue complaints at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
The ACT is now reviewing its own anti-vilification laws, with the government stating that:
“… strengthened laws could include increased penalties, or the inclusion of aggravated or additional offences to more clearly capture criminal conduct motivated by hate.”
The machinery is being built. And its primary effect, in practice, is to suppress speech critical of Israel.
The Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights puts it plainly:
“The IHRA working definition of antisemitism has no place in law. The analysis presented here makes clear that the IHRA definition reproduces anti-Palestinian racism, exacerbates antisemitism, and serves as a tool of censorship of political speech, academic work, and civic engagement on matters of public importance, including criticism of Israel.”
The Legal Contradiction – Wertheim v Haddad
There’s a problem with this whole edifice. Australian law already addresses it.
In Wertheim v Haddad [2025] FCA 720, handed down 1 July 2025, the Federal Court ruled on precisely this distinction.
Justice Angus Stewart found that 25 antisemitic imputations were conveyed in the respondent’s lectures. But crucially, he rejected imputations that sought to characterise criticism of Israel or Zionism as antisemitic.
“The ordinary, reasonable listener would understand that not all Jews are Zionists or support the actions of Israel in Gaza and that disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group.”
Australian travel guide
“Needless to say, political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity.”
The court established, as a matter of Australian law, that:
Criticism of Israel is not, in itself, antisemitic
Criticism of Zionism is criticism of an ideology, not a race or ethnic group
The distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is legally recognised and must be maintained
The IHRA definition, with its conflation of political criticism with racial hatred, sits in direct tension with this binding judicial authority.
Yet Hash Tayeh sits convicted.
The Genocide They Won’t Name
While this machinery grinds into motion, the killing continues.
More than 75,000 Palestinians have been murdered in Gaza. Tens of thousands more remain missing under rubble. Approximately 70% are women and children. Close to 300 journalists have been killed.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution in September 2025 declaring Israel’s actions constituted genocide, supported by 86% of voting members. Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov of Brown University, who initially resisted the conclusion, now states unequivocally: “My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.” Israeli professor Raz Segal of Stockton University called it a “textbook case.”
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, named after the man who coined the term, has documented how genocide denial is being normalised in Western political discourse. It accuses Germany of complicity, noting that organisations receiving public funding disseminate “disinformation and denialist narratives” while major media outlets become “the Israeli government’s most loyal mouthpiece.”
At Trump’s inaugural “Board of Peace” meeting in Washington, there was no mention of these 75,000 dead. Trump’s envoy thanked Benjamin Netanyahu – an internationally indicted war criminal – and spoke exclusively of Israeli captives. Palestinian suffering was erased entirely.
As one analyst noted: “Peace that exonerates the perpetrators and silences the victims is not peace. It is the normalisation of barbarism and the impunity of genocide.”
What’s Being Silenced
The IHRA definition is not about protecting Jews from discrimination. Existing anti-discrimination laws already do that.
The definition’s purpose, in practice, is to shield Israel from accountability. The seven examples involving Israel are not accidental. They are structural – designed to ensure that any serious criticism of Israeli policy can be framed as antisemitic.
Comparisons of Israeli policy to that of the Nazis
Accusations of genocide (even when documented by genocide scholars)
Demands that Israel be held to the same standards as other nations
As one analysis notes, “This prohibition extends not only to direct comparisons, but to any claim that Israel is by its very nature an ethno-state, or that it is currently engaging in genocide, creating concentration camps, planning for mass expulsions, or engaging in other war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
When genocide scholars, international courts, and UN investigators document these realities, they are accused of antisemitism. When a Melbourne man leads a chant about Zionists, he is convicted.
The message is clear: you may not speak truth about what Israel is doing. You may not name genocide. You may not criticise the ideology that justifies it.
The Double Standard
The IHRA definition commits the very acts it claims to oppose.
It creates a double standard for Israel by proscribing language and criticism that no institution proscribes with respect to any other country. I can criticise Hindu nationalism in India, White nationalism in South Africa, discrimination in Hungary. I cannot criticise Israel for doing the same – or worse.
It stereotypes Jews by assuming that all Jews identify fully with Israel and with the nature of Israel as a Jewish state . Yet the document simultaneously denounces stereotyping Jews. The contradiction is baked in.
It creates impunity for genocide by shielding Israel from the accusations that would be leveled against any other nation committing these acts.
“Singling out antisemitism as the only form of racism deserving of a separate definition is not only unnecessary to protect Jews from discrimination, but also may give rise to antisemitic conspiracies about Jews controlling the government.”
Where We Are Headed
Hash Tayeh’s conviction is not an isolated case. It’s a warning.
The machinery is being built. The definition is being embedded. The penalties are being strengthened. The ACT is reviewing its laws. The federal government attempted to pass similar measures. Victoria has already enacted them.
And every time someone speaks out against what is happening in Gaza, they risk becoming the next Hash Tayeh.
The Iranian Foreign Minister warned at the Al Jazeera Forum that “impunity for attacks on civilians risks normalising military domination as a guiding principle of international relations.” The Somali President cautioned that “the foundations of global governance are weakening” and that “the institutions created after World War II are under grave threat.”
This is where we are headed. A world where the law is replaced by force. Where genocide proceeds with impunity. Where those who speak truth are silenced.
And where a man can be convicted for chanting about Zionists while people celebrate the burning of Palestinian children without consequence.
“Who decides which voices are dangerous and which hatred gets a free pass?”
The answer is becoming clear. Those with power decide. Those who control the definitions decide. Those who can frame criticism as hate decide.
The IHRA definition gives them that power. The courts enforce it. The media amplifies it. And the killing continues.
More than 75,000 dead. Tens of thousands missing. A generation of children erased. And the response from our institutions is to tighten laws against those who speak out.
This is not about combating antisemitism. Real antisemitism – attacks on synagogues, harassment of Jewish individuals, Holocaust denial – is already illegal. Those laws remain on the books. This new machinery adds nothing to their enforcement.
What it adds is the power to punish speech that offends a foreign government’s political interests. Speech that names genocide. Speech that demands accountability.
You are free to criticise any country’s actions – as long as that country is not Israel. You are free to denounce any ideology – as long as that ideology is not Zionism. You are free to oppose any war – as long as that war is not in Gaza.
That’s not freedom. That’s a license to censor. And it’s being used to shield genocide from scrutiny.
The question is whether we will accept it. Whether we will let them silence us while children burn. Whether we will let them build this machinery of suppression while pretending it’s about protecting anyone.
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.”
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.
Albanese and Marles clearly don’t think they’ll be around in politics when the radioactive mess hits the fan. For them, that’s a future Government’s problem to solve.e.
As the SA Premier basks in the campaign glory of a $3.9 billion downpayment on shipyard for nuclear subs, the Federal Government is kicking the nuclear waste can down the road. Rex Patrick reports.
Meanwhile, two senior government officials have told the Administrative Review Tribunal that the public they serve need to be kept in the dark on plans to deal with civil and AUKUS nuclear waste.
For over 40 years, Australian governments of various flavours have been trying, and failing, to work out what to do with the nation’s growing medical and industrial nuclear waste. That problem has become harder as the need to deal with AUKUS’s high-level reactor waste has been added to the task.
Australia’s 3,700m3 of low-level and 1,300m3 of intermediate-level radioactive waste is stored in over 100 locations nationwide, including at hospitals, science facilities and at universities.
Since July 2023, when the Federal Court set aside the decision of the Morrison Government to locate a civil National Radioactive Waste Management Facility at Kimba, there’s been radio silence from Prime Minister Albanese’s Government on what the next steps will be.
There has been a similar silence about the plans for AUKUS high-level waste, despite the Government already having a plan for selecting a dump site.
Narrative control
As MWM tried to use Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to squeeze some information from the Government about on what’s going on, what was instead revealed was a conscious plan to keep the public in the dark.
In order to try to keep everything secret the CEO of the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA), Mr Sam Usher, give evidence to the Tribunal explaining the dangers of letting what he described as a “nuclear illiterate” Australian public know what’s going on. The Government’s remedy to public illiteracy, it seems, is to keep the public illiterate.
In an 18th-century approach to winning over the public, he affirmed in an affidavit that
“The release of information (requested by MWM) in these circumstances does not align with current messaging or status on (redacted) – which heavily relies on public approval – could negatively impact trust, and the building and sustaining of the social license that ARWA and the Australian Government will need to deliver (redacted).”
And indeed, CEO Usher asked the Tribunal to keep that statement secret. MWM challenged the secrecy, and the Tribunal ordered the statement to be released; trust and social licence, all to be obtained from the public by narrative control.
Thou shalt not debate!
Alex Kelton, Deputy Director General of Strategy at the Australian Submarine Agency, gave similar evidence. The public should not know – it’s too dangerous for government.
Kelton testified that transparency would cause the diversion of Government resources “by inviting [public] discussion about early contemplative thinking on a matter which Australia does not have a long-standing policy position”.
Transparency would, she said:
“provide signalling about the advice to Government which may result in commentary“
“that places pressure on government to rule in or out particular options, ideas or strategies, or effectively forecloses approaches to issues, by reason of adverse public sentiment that is not fully informed and which it is premature for the government to engage publicly on until it has done further work to develop its view of the options and the position.”
The Australian Government has never run a successful program to obtain social licence for a nuclear waste facility. A fact that flows from that is that Deputy Director General Kelton has no experience in such an endeavour either. She was the Chief of Staff to Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, so she does have political experience.
“Important or urgent?“
The argument adopted by Usher and Kelton on behalf of the Government is that there will be a public consultation, but until that occurs, nothing should be made public.
The evidence in the Administrative Review Tribunal paints a disturbing picture.
In the middle of Usher’s evidence was a sentence with unusual quotation marks around the words “important” and “urgent”.
21.9. Managing radioactive waste that is “important” but rarely “urgent”, considering the long lead times involved
Redacted evidence from Kelton, which the Government was later forced to reveal the gist of under challenge from MWM, explained that the Government was sitting on its hands, not doing anything. A brief on how to choose a location for AUKUS nuclear waste was provided to Defence Minister Richard Marles in December 2023, and nothing has happened.
Under cross examination it was clear that Usher was frustrated by the Government’s failure to deal with an “important” issue with the necessary “urgency”,.
No consultation
MWM was at pains to point out to the Tribunal that there is no legal requirement for the Government to conduct consultation. Section 10 of the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Act allows the Defence Minister to issue a regulation declaring any site in Australia as a nuclear facility for the purposes of AUKUS.
No consultation is required, and any future Government, faced with delays caused by inaction by today’s Government, can just announce a site – and in those circumstances, the Government is asking for no information to be released under FOI.
“Any place in Australia is on the cards.”
Kelton also put in her affidavit that (this) Government has announced the AUKUS nuclear waste site will be on current or Defence land.
However, during cross-examination, Kelton conceded that any location in Australia can be selected and then turned into Defence land by way of compulsory acquisition. She confirmed that all the Defence Minister’s announcement means is that whatever land is used, it will be a “Commonwealth Facility”.
Along with an announcement that any decision on a future nuclear submarine will now not be made until the 2030’s, it is clear that from the Administrative Review Tribunal proceedings that, against the advice of the ARWA, the Government are not interested in advancing work on a future high-level radioactive waste dump. Again, starting from scratch, that project might take at least a decade, probably longer, but Marles and Albanese appear to have no interest in getting things underway.
Living in the moment
Marles gets to jump on a private jet and head to Washington to meet with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He gets to strut around and talk tough on Defence. Meanwhile, Albanese clings to AUKUS like a political lifebuoy, hoping to avoid a hostile social media post from President Trump and any suggestion Labor is “soft on defence”.
But in a gross act of maladministration, they’re avoiding the tough political decisions needed now if AUKUS nuclear waste, and indeed all our other radioactive waste, is to be properly tackled.
Albanese and Marles clearly don’t think they’ll be around in politics when the radioactive mess hits the fan. For them, that’s a future Government’s problem to solve.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.”
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.
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
Antinuclear 