The nation’s Jewish community has told Labor it cannot wait any longer to implement a landmark plan to stop the wave of anti-Semitic hate, after Education Minister Jason Clare said he would not move until seeing a similar report on stamping out Islamophobia. Source: The Australian.
Nearly a week after Anthony Albanese personally unveiled the plan to stop antisemitism, Mr Clare declared that he will wait for the Special Envoy on Islamophobia to hand down his own report next month before he commits to any recommendations to punish universities that fail to stop antisemitism on campus.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said Jewish Australians wanted to see swift action on antisemitism, regardless of any other reports that may be delivered on other issues.
“Regardless of what reports on other issues may be presented in coming months, we expect progress in the implementation of Ms Segal’s plan,” he said.
The Segal plan contained almost 50 recommendations, including stripping universities and arts festivals of public funding if they failed to stop antisemitism, training migration officials to screen for extremists, and implementing a nationwide definition of anti-Jewish hate for all levels of governments and public institutions.
Mr Clare said he wanted to see reports being prepared by Islamophobia envoy Aftab Malik and the Race Discrimination Commissioner before the Government considers “those recommendations to their final conclusion”.
“I do think I need to look at all of those reports that might make different recommendations here,” Mr Clare said.
The concerns come as Labor MP Ed Husic cautioned against being “heavy-handed” and rushing to adopt Ms Segal’s recommendations without careful consideration of the consequences. “Let’s take the time to think it through. A lot of thought has been put into it,” he said.
Mr Clare backed Mr Husic’s comments, saying “This is something that we’re going to give careful consideration to … having a look at racism in all its ugly forms across our universities and across our community”.
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Jason Clare flags ‘months’ until antisemitism response (By Noah Yim and Rhiannon Down, The Australian)
