Tensions in parliament over a rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia sparked by the war in Gaza have spilled over into a second day with the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, calling the Greens “evil” and accusing it of playing a “central” role in protests on university campuses.
Parliament’s question time erupted on Wednesday after Anthony Albanese accused the Greens of spreading misinformation and Dutton alleged the Greens were condoning acts of violence instead of condemning them.
Albanese had condemned pro-Palestinian protests outside MPs’ offices in the months since 7 October as a bad development for democracy, with some Labor MPs claiming they and their staff had been intimidated in some instances.
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, later singled out Greens leader Adam Bandt and his party out on national television and made allegations against the Greens and their federal leader.
On Thursday morning, Bandt threatened Dreyfus with legal action for making “utterly unfounded statements” to the ABC and “spreading disinformation”.
Dutton continued his criticism of the progressive minority party on 2GB on Thursday, saying he thought Bandt was “unfit for public office”.
“I think that people need to have a conversation with their kids and their grandkids, with their nextdoor neighbours, just about how evil the current Greens party is – that they’re nothing about the environment. They’re all about radical causes,” Dutton said.
“And somehow Adam Bandt, who I think is unfit to be in public office, he has led a party now that is central to what we’re seeing on campuses and the distribution of hate and antisemitic messages online.”
In response Bandt said he would not be lectured about peace and non-violence “from a prime minister and opposition leader who back the invasion of Gaza”.
“What we are expressing support for is peaceful protests across the country, calling for the government to do something to bring pressure to bear on this extreme Israeli war cabinet. Because the slaughter is getting worse, children are dying because they can’t get enough to eat or drink,” Bandt said.
Leeser says Jewish Australians ‘feel abandoned’
The Liberal MP Julian Leeser told parliament on Thursday morning that the government was “unable to say antisemitism without saying Islamophobia in the same breath”.
Leeser sought to suspend standing orders to bring on debate about his private member’s bill to set up a commission of inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities, saying “so many Jewish Australians are always at the forefront pushing back against the bigotry against other groups and yet at our time of need we feel abandoned”.
“Can I say, as a Jewish Australian, I am so sick and tired of this government, the human rights commission, universities and other bodies in Australia being unable to say antisemitism without saying Islamophobia in the same breath,” he said.
“To fail to singularly identify and call out the particularity of antisemitism, and indeed the largest increase in antisemitism in our history, in and of itself is antisemitic.
“And it creates some sort of dangerous narrative for our social harmony that suggests a Jewish-Muslim conflict here in Australia when so much of the antisemitism is actually propagated by the militant socialist left.”
In Senate estimates on Thursday morning, a debate between the Liberal senator Sarah Henderson and the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi became heated after Henderson said “I’m not talking about Islamophobia” when a government minister included Islamophobia in response condemning all forms of racism and vilification.
“Because you don’t think it exists? That’s why you’re not talking about it,” Faruqi said in reference to Henderson’s comments to the ABC interview when she said there was “no issue” with Islamophobia on campuses.
Henderson sniped back at Faruqi before both senators withdrew their comments.
Figures compiled by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry show 662 antisemitic incidents were reported in October and November 2023, representing a 738% increase compared with the same months in 2022.
The Islamophobia Register Australia has said that in the seven weeks after 7 October, it received 230 reports of Islamophobia, a 13-fold increase when compared with previous levels. Both organisations have reported a “surge” in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents reported on Australian university campuses.
