Wednesday, 19 June 2024

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:24): (978) My matter tonight is for the attention of the Premier but could also be of interest to the Minister for Police, and it relates to a matter raised by Dr Heath just before and the trashing of the office of Josh Burns in the last few hours today. What is clear is the rising level of antisemitism and the targeting of offices, and the threatening activity that is occurring is completely and utterly unacceptable. It is very unusual for me to be raising a matter that has affected a Labor federal MP.

Harriet Shing interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, any MP, but I am making the point that I am not doing this in a partisan way. I am doing this because he is somebody that is in the area that Ms Crozier and I represent. We actually see him at local events. He overlaps with our area, and whatever you might say about him, he is sincere in his views about Israel and the need to respond to the rising antisemitism.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

David DAVIS: He is Jewish; that is right. I am just being clear about these points. But the issue here is that the state government and indeed the federal government I think have allowed this to get away from them. They have allowed the rising tide of antisemitism to actually get away from them, and this is because of the early weakness. I know there was a flurry of activity federally in the last few days where the federal government or the federal leaders in the Labor Party, including the Prime Minister, tried to come in and target the Greens – and that may well be justified, I might add; I am not in any moment protecting the Greens on this.

Georgie Crozier: Put them last on the ballot paper.

David DAVIS: That would be the first thing. That would be actually one response that the Prime Minister and the Premier could actually lay out. But the fact is that it is no longer safe in this way and there has to be some response. This will have to be both a police response on one hand but also a response through the Victorian Multicultural Commission and a response through a whole series of other steps. None of this is straightforward, which is why I am raising it for the Premier, because it requires a comprehensive response.

One response, as Ms Crozier has outlined, is that they could make a very clear statement that they are going to put the Greens last on every how-to-vote card across the state. That would be one way. But at least let us hear very clearly protections for Jewish people, a condemnation of Hamas’s attack in Israel and a recognition that the shillyshallying around by federal and state Labor has been unsuccessful until now.