Thursday, 24 September 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:23): I also want to draw the chamber’s attention to the world premiere that I attended of Cancelled, a movie, part of the Jewish International Film Festival. Director Danny Ben-Moshe has put together what is a remarkable movie. It looks at the experience of Jewish creatives following 7 October, and it follows not just Deborah Conway, who so many are aware of as a remarkable musician and singer in our country, but also visual artist Nina Sanadze, writer Joshua Dabelstein and circus artist Talia Sofizade. They face incredible opposition – racist activity, frankly antisemitic activity, to prevent them performing and prevent them undertaking their artistic activities. This, I think, is disgraceful in modern Australia. People’s backgrounds should not become a feature that prevents them from being able to perform and being able to undertake their artistic activity. Cancelled is a remarkable feature film that documents this subject in Australia, and I was honoured to attend the premiere at the Classic Cinemas in Elsternwick. We need to be very careful. We need to make sure that our system in Australia prevents this antisemitic and racist activity. Our creatives should be able to get on and do their jobs and not be faced with antisemitic and frankly outright racist attacks on them.