Crime
Anti-Semitism – an ugly incident caught on camera
There is no doubt that in recent months there has been a surge in crimes of intimidation directed at Jews living in Australia. But the search for underlying causes or the nature of the perpetrators is yielding little by way of any consistent pattern.
That is the main finding in Martin McKenzie-Murray’s Saturday Paper contribution Is foreign interference behind the rise in hate crime? According to the police “a substantial portion of this crime originates overseas”, but that’s too broad a category to tell us much. The police mention “heightened political rhetoric”, and Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry mentions Australia’s febrile political atmosphere as a possible contributor to these attacks.
Press reports of arrests and charges do not reveal any pattern of names associated with Islam, or of ages suggesting that students may be among the perpetrators. In fact the police suggest that many of the perpetrators are among the usual socially disconnected groups who always over-feature in criminal activity. Also there is a small band of Nazis who occasionally reveal their ugly presence, who seem to be “white” native-Australian males, probably at the core of the demographic group supporting the Coalition parties.
It is far too early to infer anything from the idiotic behaviour of two nurses at Bankstownwn Hospital. Although the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson, imprecise with language, refers to their talking about “Jews” (unnecessarily raising anxiety among the Jewish community), the two nurses were prattling about a fantasy world where hundreds of Israelis are being treated in a suburban Australian hospital! Perhaps it’s a case for the drug squad rather than one for the anti-terrorism squad.
It’s not clear if there is any ideology attached to crimes against Jewish Australians. Understandably there are many Australians who disagree with the way the Netanyahu government has responded to the terrorist attacks of October 7, and who have sympathy for the Palestinians, but logically that has nothing to do with Jews living in Australia.
In view of the similarities in the beliefs in all three main streams of Abrahamic religions, it is doubtful if those who attack Jews do so because of theological differences. A more plausible explanation is that some people see Jews as a “race”, an idea re-introduced into our political discourse when Dutton referred to indigenous Australians as a “race”.
The idea of “race” leads to much unnecessary pain. The ABC found itself going down a rabbit burrow in trying to refer to a Lebanese “race”, and a UK court struggled to figure out what “white” means. Surely it’s about time everyone grew up and realized that the term “race” was scientifically debunked over 100 years ago, and accept that the Holocaust was helped along by the idea that there were distinct “races”.
A colleague reminded me that in fact the very term “anti-Semitism” refers to far more than prejudice against Jews. The term refers to a language group, including Arabic speakers. That makes a bit more sense than talking about “race”, and it properly puts recent crimes into a broader category of xenophobia.
As lawyers point out in the next article, each crime is unique. A telling example is provided by the vicious attack in Parliament on Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, himself the great-grandchild of a Jew murdered at Auschwitz. This attack is reported in several media, including the Australian Jewish News: Gag bid during Shoh Speech. The incident prompted Dreyfus to state:
I never thought I’d see the day when a Liberal leader would try to silence a Jew for speaking about antisemitism in the Australian Parliament. This is one of the most shocking things I have witnessed in my time in Parliament. We need to put an end to the wave of antisemitism in this country and the only way that will happen is if there is unity and bipartisanship. It’s time for the grotesque politicisation of the trauma and the horrific experiences of the Jewish people since October 7 to end.
To get some understanding of the emotion involved, and the contrast between Dreyfus’ dignified manner and the behaviour of those mocking him, it’s worthwhile spending 5 minutes looking at the videoclip of the incident on the ABC’s 730 (between 02:40 and 06:50 minutes).
The louts sitting on the opposition benches were able to hurl their abuse at Dreyfus with the impunity provided by Parliamentary privilege. It’s much safer than spray-painting swastikas on walls and parked cars, but is it any different?
Mandatory sentencing
Apparently many Labor MPs were opposed to mandatory sentencing, but when it came to the vote they agreed to the legislation.
The Law Council issued a press statement, Mandatory sentencing is not the answer, quoting Council President Juliana Warner:
Mandatory sentencing laws are arbitrary and limit the individual’s right to a fair trial by preventing judges from imposing a just penalty based on the unique circumstances of each offence and offender.
On Radio National Breakfast former National Security Legislation Monitor Bret Walker made the same point: Warning on mandatory sentences for Nazi symbols. He also queried the wisdom in singling out particular types of perpetrators or victims. (8 minutes).
Politically this is another case of the Albanese government being seen to allow the Coalition to set the agenda, as if it is a temporary caretaker government until the legitimate government takes its place. That’s material for a casebook of great political misjudgements.
it’s also a reminder that those who talk loosely about “law and order” actually have little respect for the law.
Its most serious aspect is that it effectively transfers some power to executive government, eroding the separation of judicial and executive power. Lech Blaine, in the Quarterly Essay Bad cop: Peter Dutton’s strongman tactics, has described Dutton’s contempt for the law. He is the self-assured cop, who knows the person he has arrested is guilty, and who doesn’t want some magistrate to stand in his way by demanding annoying evidentiary details.
The strongman’s first step on the path to dictatorship is to weaken the judiciary, or to ignore it. His second, more difficult, step is to weaken Parliament. Dutton is on record admitting to a Sky News journalist “I've always seen Parliament as a disadvantage frankly for sitting governments”.
We have been warned that Dutton is on the same path as Trump, in consolidating power in executive government.
Youth crime in Melbourne – a problem of repeat offenders
In last week’s roundup there was reference to an established trend of a long-term fall in most categories of crime. On the ABC’s 730 Report there was a segment on a surge of youth crime in Victoria, illustrated by a harrowing account of a 17-year old in a stolen car killing a young doctor, and security camera footage of boys invading a home to steal car keys.
There has indeed been a surge in youth crime in Victoria, but the figures provided by the state Crime Statistics Agency show there has been no rise in the number of offenders. (The figures are shown on a graph presented on the ABC website post of the story.) The story is almost certainly about repeat offenders, relating to loose bail laws in Victoria. As is so often the case with some categories of crime, the problem relates to a small group of offenders.
As with the incidents of youth crime in Alice Springs, Townsville and other places where there has been a concentration of repeat offenders, there has to be a public policy response that protects the public by putting these young offenders behind locked gates, but in some institution that does a better job than our brutalized jails. The longer-term policy response should be about the way boys are socialized.
Corruption – Australia improves but our election campaign laws still favour big money
Australia has improved its score and its ranking on Transparency International’s index of corruption in government. Denmark once again occupies top place, followed by a bunch of European countries, Singapore and New Zealand. In 2024 our rank has moved from #12 to #10, but our score is still a long way short of the top countries.
Transparency International defines the index as a measure of “how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople”. Australia’s index over the last 12 years is shown in the chart below.
It is notable that our score took a dive in 2013, coinciding with the election of the Abbott government, and it fell to a low point in 2021, the last year of the Morrison government. It has picked up from that low point, but it is still a long way down from its score in 2012 (the start of the series).
Presumably the establishment of our National Anti-Corruption Commission has helped improve our score, but its poor performance in dealing with Robodebt exposes its limitations. Many of our integrity institutions have superficially strong charters, but they are weak in prosecuting breaches of the rules. Australia has a long way to go in strengthening integrity institutions, for example by putting their funding on a firm footing, and by shifting responsibility for appointment of agency heads from executive government to Parliament.
Election campaign funding
One of our particular weaknesses relates to funding of election campaigns. Late on Wednesday night (or was that Thursday morning?) Parliament passed legislation on election funding reform. In terms of disclosure and timing it’s an improvement. But all along, since Labor was elected in 2022, electoral funding reform has been in terms of a “bipartisan” deal between the two established parties, ignoring the voices of those elected by the one-third of the population who do not support either main party.
It is clear that the purpose of the changes has been to privilege the two-party duopoly, making it harder for new parties and independents to secure representation, and to give existing parties a financial advantage. You can hear Zali Steggall, independent member for Warringah, express her view on Radio National – Crossbench slam passage of donations law. She considers the process to have been “underhanded”. (6 minutes) Helen Haines has said that unpicking the Labor-Coalition reform legislation will be a key negotiating point if neither major party can form government.
Constitutional expert Anne Twoomey says the laws could be challenged in the High Court. We have an implicit right to political expression, which can be overridden for legitimate purposes, such as compensating for bias in our electoral system. But protecting the interests of the Labor, Liberal and National parties, by allowing them to enjoy huge donations which independents are not allowed to raise, does not constitute a legitimate purpose in Twomey's opinion. (ABC Radio National 6 minutes.)
In the coming week there will surely be more analysis and explanation that can be linked on next Saturday’s roundup. Independent members of Parliament can be counted on to keep the issue alive.
The coal and gas lobby
Also of importance to Australia, in its comments relating to global corruption Transparency International makes specific mention of the influence of the fossil-fuel sector:
Many nations with high CPI [Corruption Perceptions Index] scores have the resources and power to drive corruption-resistant climate action around the world, but instead they often serve the interests of fossil fuel companies.
The Dutton risk
In view of the close relationship between our opposition leader and mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, who has urged the Coalition “to follow the lead of Donald Trump”, election of a Coalition government could set us back once again. (Notably America’s CPI score took a huge dive with Trump’s first election in 2017.)
The Coalition’s general “deregulationist” approach, its policy of re-introducing golden-visas allowing no-questions-asked migration to wealthy applicants, and its policy of replacing public servants with private consultants all suggest that a Dutton government would take Australia back to the crony capitalism of the 2013-2021 period.