The chamber has moved into the airing of the grievances (also known as members statements) which means it is now almost time for the first question time of the year.

Please, grab what you need to get through it. At this point I wouldn’t blame you if a lobotomy was part of that.

Going back to 2020 when ASIO chief Mike Burgess elevated rightwing terrorism as as growing threat in Australia during his annual state of the security state speech (in 2020 he mentioned rightwing extremism about six times), Peter Dutton, who was then Home Affairs minister, immediately pivoted to ‘leftwing extremism’ which had not been mentioned. He justified that pivot by claiming that Islamic terrorism was ‘leftwing’.

He said on 25 February 2020:

You can use Islamic extremist, you get in trouble for using that, you can use leftwing to describe everybody from the left to the right. I said today I don’t care where people are on the spectrum, if they pose a threat to our country and want to do harm to Australians then they are in our sights.

I am completely blind to where people are on the spectrum.

I just find it such a semantic and nonsense debate, if people are involved in a right-wing organisation, they are planning an attack, they are acting outside of the law, they will be treated no differently than somebody who is an Islamic extremist that is planning an attack in the same way.

So five years ago, rightwing extremism (which included neo-Nazis) was leftwing because according to 2020 Dutton, you can “use leftwing to describe everybody from the left to the right” but 2025 Dutton thinks anyone protesting genocidal acts of a nation state against another nation state is anti-Semitic, although neo-Nazis literally marching Australian streets is largely greeted with silence.

Right. Got it.

Labor MP Linda Burney has also spoken on the motion and she is one of the only ones to take aim at Peter Dutton and the Coalition for politicising the issue:

…Leadership is understanding that these anti-Semitic Acts and acts of racism divide people. They hurt people. They stay with you. And let me tell you, I can speak from personal experience about that.

So instead of trying to make this a political issue, instead of trying to paint one side one way and one side the other, why don’t we show the Australian community an act of bipartisanship, an act of not accepting what’s been going on, an act that will provide to the Australian people that we are one in rejecting racism, in rejecting anti-Semitism and in rejecting hate in this country that is required by this parliament, not what we are seeing now, where there is the attempt to sow division here.

How can the Australian people have any faith in its political leadership? We cannot come together on this one. I urge everyone to do it. I am proud to be part of the government who has made many, many moves and done many things to support social cohesion in this country, to call out anti-Semitism as absolutely unacceptable. I’m proud of that

...And you cannot rewrite history and you cannot rewrite the truth. Politicising this issue is reprehensible. It’s unacceptable. It is not a display of leadership to the Australian community

Back in the house and LNP MP Andrew Wallace has taken the debate…places. None of them good.

There is only so much conflation of facts and re-writing of a narrative one can stomach while watching Auspol. It does no one any favours to be so entirely one-eyed for pure political gain, and it certainly does not address the simmering hatreds threatening Australian cohesion.

Australia’s security agencies were warning of the rise of the far-right, which included Nazis, under the Coalition government, while Peter Dutton was the minister heading those agencies. That included when their were literal Nazis marching Australian streets.

Dutton’s response was to label extremist Islamic terrorism ‘leftwing terrorism’ and attack ‘leftwing lunatics’

There was no immediate response from Dutton when neo-Nazis marched in Adelaide’s CBD on January 26.

Hatred should always be called out. But that is all hate. Consistently. Not just where someone may see political gain.

Over in the senate, the chamber is also discussing an anti-Semitism motion. Independent senator Jacqui Lambie has put forward this one:

That the Senate:
(a) deplores the appalling and unacceptable rise in antisemitism across
Australia – including violent attacks on synagogues, schools, homes,
and childcare centres;
(b) unequivocally condemns antisemitism in all its forms; and
(c) resolves that all parliamentarians will work constructively together to
combat the scourge of antisemitism in Australia.

Liberal senator James Paterson then tries to amend it to add in:

(d) calls on the Government to support:
i. strengthening the penalties for those who urge or threaten
attacks against places of worship;
ii. strengthening the sentencing regime for terrorism by legislating
for a mandatory minimum term of 6 years imprisonment for all acts
of terrorism under Commonwealth law; and
iii. the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences of 12 months
imprisonment for the display of prohibited anti-Semitic and
terrorist organisation symbols and related behaviour in public, and
increase the maximum penalty to 5 years prison.

While independent senator Lidia Thorpe wants the senate to debate:

That the motion be amended to read as follows:
That the Senate:
(a) deplores the appalling and unacceptable rise in antisemitism across
Australia – including violent attacks on synagogues, schools, homes,
and childcare centres;
(b) unequivocally condemns antisemitism and racism in all its forms; and
(c) resolves that all parliamentarians will work constructively together to
combat the scourge of antisemitism and racism in Australia.

Wentworth independent MP Allegra Spender has previewed some of the amendments she wants to make to the hate law legislation. From her release:

Under the current Bill, the promotion of violence and hatred is not considered a crime unless it explicitly urges or threatens violence. This leaves a gaping hole that is being exploited by certain groups and individuals who are still able to glorify and promote hatred with impunity.  

These statements have a cumulative effect that often leads to violence, fear and division.

Peter Dutton then addresses the motion and well. It is certainly one side of what has been happening in Australia.

To be clear, no one is denying that anti-Semitism is not an issue, or that it must be terrifying for Jewish people to experience those threats. All hatred must be addressed and those who threaten people on the basis of identity, race or religion absolutely most be held accountable.

However, it is also true that people have been witnessing terrifying actions in Gaza and Palestine, which have been carried out by the Israeli Defence Forces and that there are human rights and ICC investigations into those actions. There have been protests, which have included members of the Jewish community, against the actions of the IDF.

Two things can be true at the same time. Peter Dutton does not bring any nuance to his contribution though, and conflates all things together. He also denied there was this “sort of hatred and this sort of racism…being conveyed against any other pocket of the Australian community”:

Now I want to thank the member for Wentworth for bringing forward this motion. It is true, though, that we worked with the member for Wentworth and the government to see struck out the original words which were contained in paragraph two, which read… ‘as we condemn all similar hatred directed to any groups in our community’.

Now the member agreed to that form of words being struck out because we don’t think that was necessary.

We also think it is inexplicable to try and mount the argument that this sort of hatred and this sort of racism and this sort of anti-Semitism is being conveyed against any other pocket of the Australian community. We voted against the government’s motion because it stopped us from moving amendments to the members motion, which would have strengthened the motion and provided stronger support to the community, and we’ll continue to do that in further forms of this Parliament.

Anthony Albanese goes through the measures the government has taken and then says:

We saw hatred in the October 7 attacks. The same hatred fueled the fire that devastated the Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. The same hatred for those who targeted child care center in Moore, these acts of hatred are an assault on the rights of every that every Australian cherished, in addition to the laws we have passed, this government has made multiple commitments and investments to combat anti-Semitism. They include establishing Special Operation avalanche to respond to and investigate anti-Semitic attacks.

…We want to make sure that we have not just the words as we repeat them never again. We want to make sure that this is a reality, and we know that anti-Semitism has given dark shadows across generations. I say to Jewish Australians, live proudly. Stand tall. You belong here, and Australia stands with you.

Anthony Albanese continues:

Our government is committed to keeping the community safe, we have not wavered. Anti-Semitism stands in vile opposition to all we are as a nation and all that we have built together over generations, it has no place in our nation, and we’ll combat it with the full force of our laws and with total commitment from every level of government.

Some of the horrendous acts have led to arrests. More will follow. We have a simple message to those cowards and criminals engaged in these low acts of hatred, you will be caught. You will be punished. Our government has no tolerance for your actions. That is why we introduced a landmark ban on the Nazi salute hate symbols, the first ever, which came into effect in January last year. It’s also why we criminalised doxing legislation that some failed to support in this Parliament, just at the end of last year, our groundbreaking legislation has made it easier for our lower law enforcement bodies to deal with the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts. But it cannot be our only tool. Hatred feeds on ignorance, and ignorance thrives in darkness. So as we fight these crimes of bigotry in the present, we are building for a better future through the life of education and memory.

The prime minister is now speaking on the motion put forward by Allegra Spender.

He says:

I want to speak about the issue that’s actually before us. The first day that this parliament sat after the terrorist atrocities of October 7, 2023 overwhelmingly, this parliament voted for a motion overwhelmingly. It said in clause three, this house condemns anti-Semitism and recognises that generations of Jewish people have been subject to this hateful prejudice.

I said this on that day.

I know I speak for every member of this House when I say that this kind of hateful prejudice has no place in Australia. The awful anti-Semitism chanted by some of the protesters at the Sydney Opera House is beyond offensive. It is a betrayal of our Australian values. We reject it and we condemn it. Our country is better than that, and our country is a better place because of our Jewish community.