Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024 (No. 2)
Senator HUGHES (New South Wales) (09:27): Just yesterday we saw that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities heard evidence from the vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, who refused to unequivocally agree that a staff member's social media post saying, 'May 2025 be the end of Israel,' was antisemitic.
They refused to convey a university position on this matter. If that doesn't prove that this committee is inadequate, I don't know what will. It is absolutely obscene that we are once again having to have a look at academic grants and have a look at Dr Abdel-Fattah and her behaviour, which has included doxxing Jewish Australians.
She has encouraged young children to chant hateful terrorist slogans. She has absolutely demonstrated antisemitism at an Australian university. She encouraged those children at an encampment on Sydney university campus and she has promoted Hamas on her social media accounts.
They are a recognised terror group. If anyone, anywhere, any place, was inciting the support of a terror organisation, they would be called out but not at Australian universities and not when it's hatred of the Jews, it would seem. That is a different type of incitement according to many people who sit on the other side of this chamber and in the left-wing halls of academia.
Australian universities should be moulding young minds. Instead, this same academic, Dr Abdel-Fattah was just invited to another university. She is up at the Queensland University of Technology for another antisemitism platform.
She was there under the guise—and this is where we see the Greens and their rhetoric play out, they do these events under the guise—of fighting racism. They're antiracists, but they are antisemites. It's about time, certainly, that the Labor government had the guts, the wherewithal—we know the intellectual fortitude is lacking in many of their offices, but perhaps someone with some needs to step up and point out that, when you are inciting hatred, when you are talking about the annihilation of a country, when you are talking about support for recognised terror organisations whose sole mission is the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, that is antisemitic.
If you don't understand that that is antisemitism, just think about it in terms of the racism that you talk about. If anyone was calling for the destruction of any other race of people based on their religion—say the destruction of all Christianity: 'We want all Christians gone'—that would be seen as antireligious. Say we talked about the destruction of—I'll use my own race—all Caucasians.
Sam Kerr may take a note out of this book. It is racist to attack white people. So if someone were to say, 'All white people need to be annihilated,' that would be seen as racist—God forbid I should use another example!
Why is the destruction of Jews not antisemitic? Just understand it for what it is. It's what it is.
Universities should be places where young minds are taught to question and to debate. You don't send your kids to university to be indoctrinated. You send your kids to university—and quite often at great expense to families—not to learn basketweaving and gender studies; you hopefully send them to university to learn how to expand their mind, to question, to look at things objectively, to look at different arguments and to be able to present a view or a position on something with a well-put-together argument.
Instead, what people are getting at universities now is nothing but an indoctrination. And we know it has always been left-leaning. I enjoyed my days at university, where I very much never wavered, even after four years.
My former university professor commented to me that I was still wearing the pearl earrings that I wore on day one of my university degree and that it showed some strength of character that, within five minutes of turning up to my university, I hadn't adopted the flowy skirts and become a left-wing Marxist but went into university voting Liberal and came out still doing the same.
Unfortunately, young minds can be susceptible. They're looking to fit in, to be part of the culture—the culture that has been allowed to fester at universities across Australia, and particularly at the universities that like to think they're better than all the other universities: the universities of the Group of Eight. They like to think they're a little bit more elite.
Yet they have become absolute hotbeds of antisemitism, which is racism. And that has been allowed to continue to grow. So I am incredibly pleased to be here to speak in support of Senator Henderson's bill, the Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024 (No. 2).
I think it's the right thing to be done. I hope that the Labor Party takes a good hard look at what's been happening in our great country, where a community now no longer feels safe, and changes their position and does support this bill. To the Labor Party: you can't move away—one in, all in.
There are people in the Labor Party who do understand antisemitism, who do support Israel, and I am sorry that you are having to sit in a party room, in a caucus, that does not support you. I'm sorry that one member in particular, a Jewish member, Josh Burns, has been, quite clearly, hung out to dry by his own party in the way that he has been supported—or, more to the point, not.
So perhaps it's time for a bit of moral courage from those opposite to actually put a bit of pressure on the leadership. The boss is away; he's on a plane up to Townsville. He doesn't want to talk to the Australian people through the parliament today.
He's up there. It's convenient timing, some may say, but he's gone up there. The boss is away.
Come on! Let's get some of your other guys up there. Senator Watt interjecting— Senator HUGHES: I'm sorry, Senator Watt?
You? I've lived through floods, and I know how terrible they are. And the flood's still going to be there after today.
Senator Watt interjecting— Senator HUGHES: Senator Watt thinks he can start these sorts of smears. Just start me, because we're talking about antisemitism and the fact that you and your mob are continuing to play politics with antisemitism. See what the Jewish community says about you.
Go and see what the Jewish community says about you and the weakness. I think we all know why the AFP didn't tell the Prime Minister about the caravan with the explosives. You, on that side, cannot be trusted with information to keep Australians safe, because your racist ideology that is antisemitic would bar you.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Grogan ): Senator Hughes, resume your seat. Senator Watt? Senator Watt: Senator Hughes has made a number of imputations against various members of the government, and she should withdraw.
Senator McKenzie interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator McKenzie. Your interjection is not required. Senator Hughes, would you please withdraw those comments.
Senator HUGHES: For the ease of the chamber and for you, Madam Deputy President, I withdraw. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you. Senator HUGHES: Antisemitism that this government is supporting—because they cannot say 'antisemitism' without putting in antiracism, racism, Islamophobia, 'Let's walk both sides of the street, because God forbid we do anything to upset our voters in south-west Sydney; we've got to protect those, so we'd better not go out in support of Jewish Australians.' Jewish Australians have guards out the front of preschools.
It is unbelievable that people are too afraid to identify themselves with a kippah for fear of being attacked in our country. Yet this government stands by, stands idle, refusing to stand up for Jewish Australians, and will pop by a domestic terrorist attack only once the tennis match is over. What a disgrace!
What is now very apparent is a break from normal traditions in national security, because the Prime Minister can't be trusted, and his office can't be trusted when it comes to antisemitism. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes, I'll ask you to temper your comments. Senator HUGHES: Well, I'm sorry; the truth hurts.
That's why Chris Minns, who's actually shown some leadership—the Premier of New South Wales—went out and very clearly stated it, when he was briefed. There's not a problem there, in an operational sense. But it's funny that there is over here, and we know why that is.
How embarrassing, but how disgraceful, that this is the state of leadership in this country or—as the Jewish Australians know—no leadership in this country. So I absolutely call on the decent members of the Labor caucus—and I know that's you, Senator Ciccone, Senator Farrell and Senator O'Neill, who are very strong supporters of Israel, who have always stood up for the Jewish community, who have done the right thing—to support this bill.
We are seeing antisemitism not only allowed to fester but actively encouraged at universities. It is being actively demonstrated, encouraged and accepted by vice-chancellors at universities that this is an appropriate way for people to behave, that this is freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not free of consequences.
When you support terror organisations—if that is not the point that someone stands up and says no, when is it? Labor must support this bill if you are to have any face left to the Jewish community. The fact that you all stood in here—I felt sick listening to some of the ridiculous syrup coming out of mouths in this chamber on Tuesday in the face of Senator Lambie's motion.
The fact that Senator Faruqi got up on behalf of the Greens was not only ridiculous, given her own performance standing next to antisemitic posters depicting that Jews must be put in the bin— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hughes, I'll just ask you to be mindful of where you're going with this in terms of making accusations against senators in this chamber.
Senator HUGHES: The fact that the person who has stood next to a poster that said 'Put Israel in the bin' was also the person who stood up and spoke on behalf of an antisemitic motion in support of Jewish Australians is an insult and a slap in the face to everyone of any decent mind—an absolute slap in the face. And then we hear, 'We must not allow racism, but what we will allow is people to support terrorist groups that like to kill Jews.' That's what universities are allowing to occur.
That is what is happening to the young minds of our nation—the young minds who should be put into a situation where they are encouraged to question and grow and learn. Part of that should be that they can actually intellectually understand, when they say 'From the river to the sea', which river and which sea, because I bet most of those children who are out there protesting wouldn't know which river and which sea.
They are indoctrinated. It's like a cult. Families are having to deal with these universities putting this rubbish in their children's heads, turning them into activists, not academics.
These universities are turning students into activists, not people who will contribute to our community. They'll spend a life in perpetual university politics and filled with hatred. It must be exhausting for them all to hate everybody so much.
Live and let live, people. Why do you just want to hate on the Jews all the time? And the Jewish community knows it.
The Holocaust didn't start with the gas chambers; it started with the sort of behaviour we're now seeing on the streets of Sydney, in Dover Heights, in Maroubra and in Dural. Dural is all acreage. It's like semi-rural farmland.
It's insanity. How can the Labor government sit there and say, 'Nothing to see here—don't worry; we'll do a half-baked little inquiry'? You can't even get a witness to acknowledge that calling for the death of Israel in 2025 is antisemitism.
What is wrong? This is why there must be a judicial inquiry. This is a no-brainer.
What is happening in this country has to be stopped, and it has to be stopped before people are indoctrinated into this hatred. These vice-chancellors are on their million-dollar-plus packages, yet they're allowing this kind of hate to fester. I hope some of them, when they move out of their homes, try to move back to some of the suburbs where this is occurring and can witness it for themselves rather than in the cloistered halls of universities where they hide and fester in this hatred and where they hide and support the terror organisations through their inaction.
It is appalling. It is shameful, and I call on the decent members of the Labor Party to— (Time expired)