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INTRODUCTION – SALUTING TOM HUGHES
Julian – thank you for your kind introduction.
You’re a dedicated representative for the people of Berowra, a devoted member of the Liberal Party, and a thoroughly decent man.
And in the last six months, you’ve been nothing short of valiant in calling out anti-Semitism in our country, in standing with your fellow Jewish Australians, and in defending our democratic values.
I’d ask the audience to join me in a round of applause for a formidable man of faith – Julian Leeser.
Erin – thank you for your welcoming words.
Simon – thank you for that wonderful and moving rendition of Rhapsody in Blue.
I acknowledge too John Howard – one of our greatest prime ministers and my dear friend.
And David Ossip – President of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here tonight.
I am truly honoured to have been asked to deliver the seventh Tom Hughes Oration.
I pay tribute to the extraordinary man after whom this oration is named.
Tom Hughes has been many things in his life.
A pilot in the Second World War who received the Legion of Honour for his role in the Normandy Landings.
A ‘venerable lion of the Sydney bar’ who accepted briefs in a principled ‘cab on the rank’ manner.
A pragmatic and non-partisan Attorney-General whose legal opinions were a hallmark of brevity, clarity and readability.
An unfailingly loyal Gortonite who admired his Prime Minister and his ‘great friend’ for being ‘an agent of change’.
A grazier who enjoys winning a stock auction almost as much as a case in court.
And a man known for his profound care for his family, friends, colleagues and clients.
Ian Hancock’s masterful biography of Tom Hughes finishes by quoting a letter Tom received from a fellow silk, Tom Bathurst, who had just been appointed as Chief Justice of New South Wales.
Bathurst wrote to Tom:
“I sought to model myself on you, not only in relation to your outstanding forensic and legal abilities, but also the dignity, honesty and integrity you brought to any matter in which you appeared.”
Ladies and gentlemen, Tom celebrated his 100th birthday in November last year.
We are honoured by his presence here tonight, along with his wife, Chrissie, and several members of his extraordinary family – another part of Tom’s incredible legacy.
Please join me in a round of applause to salute a man who is not only part of the Greatest Generation, but a man who is a truly great Australian.
THE AUSTRALIAN ACHIEVEMENT
Ladies and gentlemen, we live in the greatest country in the world.
Many Australians may have lost sight of that fact at present – and understandably so.
The cost-of-living crisis is being felt in homes and businesses around the country.
Many Australians are living day-to-day, or from paycheque-to-paycheque.
But amidst these tough times, it’s important to remind ourselves of how fortunate we are to live in Australia.
Imagine if we were citizens of another country today.
We might be on the frontlines in Ukraine.
We might be mourning the loss of a loved one killed in Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel or in the conflict which has followed in Gaza.
We might be living with little freedom or hope under one of the world’s many dictators.
We might be paying a people smuggler and risking our life on a rickety boat in rough seas to escape privation for the chance of a better life.
Even among all the thriving democracies, Australia is the safest, most egalitarian, and most prosperous democracy of them all.
To be born in Australia – or to become an Australian citizen after settling here – is to win the lottery of life.
To acknowledge that Australia is the greatest country in the world isn’t to say that our nation had ideal beginnings.
Many Indigenous Australians suffered terribly.
For the convicts who arrived from Britain on the First Fleet and the ships afterwards, life was incredibly difficult.
But in an astonishingly short period of time, penal colonies became successful settler economies and federated to form a new country.
Australia was formed without civil war, revolution, or the level of bloodshed most other countries have known.
We bucked the trend.
And since 1901, successive generations of Australians forged a modern nation in peacetime and defended our country and its values in wars and conflicts abroad.
To acknowledge that Australia is the greatest country in the world isn’t to say that we’ve had an unblemished history.
Our forebears acted the way they did because they were a product of their times and thinking – just as we are of ours.
It’s unremarkable that our forebears made errors and committed wrongs.
What is remarkable, however, is how few errors they made – how few wrongs they committed.
Especially when we consider the historical ledger of almost every other civilisation or nation.
Commendably, the sense of fairness and humility at the heart of the Australian character has seen us acknowledge our mistakes and course correct.
The White Australia Policy was dismantled and replaced with a non-discriminatory immigration program.
The equal rights of Indigenous Australians were progressively recognised and apologies made for the sins of the past.
Unlike other countries where difference has caused separatism, apartheid, and enduring enmity, in Australia there has been a warm acceptance of difference.
We are a people of many backgrounds, of many faiths, who practise many cultural traditions but are united by a common set of values.
None more important than our respect for law and liberty, our respect for freedom of belief and association, and our respect for democracy.
What has been created on this continent is truly special.
No country is perfect.
Yet to understand our history is to recognise that the Australian story is overwhelmingly one of success.
Every Australian today is a beneficiary of what our forebears built.
That is why we celebrate the achievement of modern Australia.
An achievement forged from our Indigenous heritage, British inheritance, and migrant contributions.
THE AUSTRALIAN ACHIEVEMENT UNDER THREAT
The Australian achievement is an enduring intergenerational project.
Like a home, we must maintain it.
Like a garden, we must tend to it.
But the Australian achievement is under threat.
Just over six months ago, a seething mob gathered on the steps of this very building.
They burnt a flag of Israel.
They threw flares.
They chanted “F*** the Jews” and “F*** Israel”.
Whether the mob’s catchcry was “Gas the Jews” or the similarly repugnant “Where’s the Jews”, their intent was crystal clear:
The mob sought to intimidate Australia’s Jewish community.
The mob sought to incite violence against Australians of Jewish faith.
The mob exercised their right to free speech and chose hate speech and rank anti-Semitism.
What we saw that night was a contempt for law and liberty, a contempt for freedom of belief and association, and a contempt for democracy.
In watching the footage of the sordid behaviour of those protesters, Australians did not recognise their fellow countrymen – or indeed, their country.
I think most Australians were shocked by the events that night at Bennelong Point.
It was a recognition that something is rotten in the state of Australia.
The Sydney Opera House is not just an engineering feat.
In this building, actors entertain us, orchestras enthral us, dancers entrance us, singers enchant us, and speakers engross us.
The Sydney Opera House is a symbol of civilisation – it’s an icon of the Australian achievement.
And six months ago on this building’s steps, a menace which threatens the Australian achievement and our civilisational values unveiled itself.
The protests of October 9 were a moment of awakening for our nation.
We must not surrender our civilisation to anti-civilisational forces.
We must defend the Australian achievement from those who seek to sabotage it.
Worryingly, I fear we are falling short in both these duties.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel and the events at the Sydney Opera House, incidents of anti-Semitism in Australia have increased by 738 per cent.
I believe there are two causes for this fallout:
A failure of law enforcement to exercise its power.
And a failure of political leadership from those in power.
Reporting from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry reveals that incidents of anti-Semitism have been on the rise during the last decade.
But the anti-Semitism which has emerged in the wake of October 7 is of a magnitude and intensity unlike anything we have seen before in this country.
The events at the Sydney Opera House – and subsequent incidents – have laid bare an anti-Semitic rot afflicting our nation, our society, and our institutions.
Indeed, Australia is not the only democracy beset by this alarming rot.
Tonight, I am compelled to touch on some concerns regarding our migration, education and political systems and to suggest some remedies.
But first, let me examine the immediate aftermath of the October 9 protests on our soil.
A FAILURE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT TO EXERCISE ITS POWER
A mob undeterred creates a movement.
That’s precisely what has occurred due to a failure of law enforcement and failure of political leadership in response to the October 9 protests.
Consider what has transpired since the events at the Sydney Opera House.
Last November, pro-Palestinian protesters unleashed violence on the streets of the Victorian suburb of Caulfield – home to some 20,000 Jewish Australians.
In the same month, demonstrators stormed the Crowne Plaza in Melbourne to intimidate Israelis staying in the hotel whose loved ones had been killed or taken hostage on October 7.
In February, there was the doxxing of details of 600 Jewish writers, artists, musicians and academics by pro-Palestinian activists, including Clementine Ford.
In the same month, a Jewish Melbourne man was kidnapped and assaulted with a hammer by four assailants – including prominent anti-Israel activists.
In March, the Vietnam War Memorial and Captain Cook Memorial Globe in Canberra were graffitied with anti-Israel slogans.
Indeed, since October 7, a handful of extremist preachers have delivered anti-Semitic sermons which are clear examples of either hate speech or an incitement of violence.
Four days after Hamas’ barbaric attack, I joined a crowd of 10,000 people at Dover Heights for a Jewish community vigil.
The fear among Australians of Jewish faith there was palpable.
Since then, our Jewish community has only become more apprehensive.
Parents are worried about sending their children to school in uniform lest they be targeted.
Principals have hired private security guards.
People are scared to visit their synagogue or their supermarket.
In our country, there are anti-vilification, anti-harassment and anti-incitement laws at both the federal and state levels.
Given the scale and severity of anti-Semitic incidents, it is astonishing how few arrests have been made.
If perpetrators are not held accountable, then would-be perpetrators are not deterred.
Had the law enforcement response been stronger to the events at the Sydney Opera House, it may have prevented other incidents such as those in Caulfield and the Crowne Plaza.
It would be concerning if – among our top-ranking police officers – there is a reluctance to enforce the law because to do so risks offending certain cultural sensitivities or stoking tensions in particular communities.
If our top-ranking police officers harbour such fears and have adopted a soft approach, they do a disservice to these very communities who want the law enforced just like their fellow Australians.
If we are to turn the tide of anti-Semitism, the law needs to be enforced readily – not reluctantly – against those inciting hatred and violence.
A FAILURE OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP FROM THOSE IN POWER
A lack of political leadership from those in power is another reason for the rise in anti-Semitism.
Many of you will remember John Howard’s response to the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996.
The gun prohibitions which he sought to introduce grated against his liberal inclinations.
He saw them as an ‘infringement of individual liberty’.
But John Howard also understood the ‘broader national and human interest involved’.
He appreciated the need to call upon Australians in a tragic moment to ‘bring about a profound cultural shift’ in community attitudes.
That’s exactly what he did in winning the hearts and minds of his fellow Australians and political opponents.
It was one of his finest hours.
While no one was killed during the October 9 protests, the events at the Sydney Opera House were akin to a Port Arthur moment in terms of their social significance.
In my judgement, Prime Minister Albanese has not risen to that moment.
During his address at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, the Prime Minister said we must not let anti-Semitism ‘find so much as a foothold here’.
The problem is that anti-Semitism has found many footholds in our country.
The Prime Minister has failed to grasp the gravity of what’s happening on our soil.
He cannot see the danger which anti-Semitism poses to our social cohesion, to our way of life, and to the preservation of the Australian achievement.
In the assessment of Paul Kelly of The Australian, Prime Minister Albanese sees anti-Semitism ‘as an electoral problem to be managed, not as a social evil to be addressed with practical and moral leadership.’
To his credit, the Prime Minister has delivered a few strong statements condemning Hamas’ attacks and incidents of anti-Semitism in Australia.
But the strength of these statements has been weakened by Labor’s own doing.
The Prime Minister and members of his government have downplayed the unprecedented level of anti-Semitism afflicting our country by dishonestly treating it as analogous with other forms of prejudice.
Consequently, a profound social challenge is being handled by Labor as a routine problem which they hope will disappear on its own accord.
Indeed, insufficient political resolve also explains shortfalls in the resolve of law enforcement.
We’ve seen the Prime Minister fail to provide the necessary leadership to mobilise adequate federal police resources to Alice Springs to address the disorder there.
I believe his leadership has been similarly lacking in what has become a supine law enforcement response to incidents of anti-Semitism across the states.
Additionally, what should have been clear-cut condemnations of anti-Semitism from the Labor Party have been clouded by instances of moral equivalence and moral ambiguity.
What remains is a national moral fog which has made anti-Semitism permissible.
Penny Wong made that moral fog denser last night.
The Foreign Minister not only implied that the Albanese Government is prepared to recognise a Palestinian state.
She had the audacity to blame Israel for a failure of a two-state solution.
Let’s be clear about a few things.
Since the Balfour Declaration and the end of the First World War, it has been Arab Palestinian leaders who have rejected a two-state solution on multiple occasions.
And it was Hamas’ barbarity on October 7 which has set back the goal of a two-state solution.
Hamas vowed to repeat their savagery many times over until Israel is annihilated and the Jews of Israel are driven into the sea.
Until Hamas is defeated, a two-state solution isn’t even conceivable because Hamas will always pose an existential threat to Israel.
This reality makes the Foreign Minister’s remarks last night utterly illogical, ill-timed and inappropriate.
For a crass domestic political win, Penny Wong has irreparably damaged our relations with our ally Israel.
An ally who has shared intelligence with us and thwarted terrorist attacks against our own interests, including against members of the Australian Defence Force.
It is the most reckless act of a Foreign Minister I have seen in my 22 years in the Parliament – and it has weakened our international standing.
Prior to the 2022 election, Mr Albanese promised that a Labor Government would hold a balanced position on the Israel-Palestinian issue and not depart from the Coalition’s approach.
Since the election, however, the Albanese Government’s foreign policy positions have exposed a clear prejudice towards Israel.
The Albanese Government has failed to provide the moral clarity which distinguishes the lawful from the lawless, which differentiates civilisation from barbarism, and which discerns the good from the evil.
Indeed, there is a direct correlation between Labor’s muddied foreign policy positions and its lax domestic policy positions on anti-Semitism.
John Howard delivered a cultural shift after the events of Port Arthur.
In the wake of the events at the Sydney Opera House, I believe we need a reassertion of our cultural values to clear the moral fog.
We are a tolerant country.
And because we are a tolerant country, we need strong political leadership which shows – through its words and deeds – that there is a limit to what will be tolerated.
MIGRATION
Addressing anti-Semitism requires us to be honest about its root causes.
We grant visas to migrants based on the contributions they can make to Australia regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, gender, or cultural beliefs.
Our immigration program embodies that wonderful value of Martin Luther King Jr:
We judge people by the content of their character.
And that is why we have welcomed to our shores people from almost every country in the world.
Central to our social cohesion is a social contract buttressed by reciprocity.
In exchange for the privileges, protections, liberties and opportunities which Australia affords to newly arrived migrants, we place reasonable expectations on those migrants.
We expect them to work hard.
We expect them to integrate, especially by learning English.
And we expect them to abide by our liberal democratic values.
One of the reasons we can celebrate the Australian achievement is that the vast majority of migrants who have settled in Australia since Federation have adhered to this social contract.
They have contributed to our communities and nation in many fields of endeavour.
They have raised families and built businesses.
They have become citizens, championed our way of life, and embodied the very spirit of Australia.
Many first generation Australians arrive here as migrants from countries plagued by war, violence and discrimination.
There are second, third and subsequent generations of Australians who maintain connections with these countries given their ancestry or family networks.
A core clause of the social contract is that we do not allow the problems, tensions or animosity of other parts of the world to manifest in our communities or on our streets.
We do not import the hatred of other homelands into our own home.
What makes the Australian achievement so special is that we are a country built from migration which has avoided Balkanisation.
Or so we thought.
The events of the Sydney Opera House have shone a light on the fact that there are people in our country today who do not subscribe to our liberal democratic values.
There are people in our country today who have ripped up the social contract.
There are people in our country today who do not want to change for Australia but want Australia to change for them.
This cannot stand.
My message to this recalcitrant minority is simple:
You will not change us.
If you do not subscribe to the Australian way of life, leave this country.
Let me be clear about the resolve of a future Coalition Government under my leadership.
Australians who incite or choose violence should face the full force of the law.
Non-citizens who incite or choose violence should have their visas cancelled and be deported.
We will have a zero-tolerance approach for the intolerable behaviours of the few who threaten the Australian achievement for the many.
EDUCATION
In addition to being an issue of import, anti-Semitism is also homegrown.
In his perceptive speech to the Robert Menzies Institute last November, Julian Leeser spoke about ‘the anti-Semitism of the campuses’.
He called it ‘a by-product of a flawed worldview’ which is growing and festering in our classrooms.
Julian’s diagnosis is correct.
And since October 7, Hamas’ cause has regrettably found its champions and cheer squads in many democratic nations.
The terrorist organisation might eventually be defeated on the battlefield.
But if its propaganda goes unchallenged, then it will successfully mobilise a new generation of Israel haters and anti-Semites.
In late November, hundreds of Australian students skipped school to join pro-Palestinian rallies.
Similar trends of truancy are sweeping across Western democracies.
Crowds of young people chant, “From the river to sea, Palestine will be free”.
Some are oblivious to the genocidal meaning of the words.
Others can’t name the river or the sea.
Most would have no idea that the Jewish people trace their continuous connection with the land of Israel to around 1300 BC.
One 16-year-old girl who attended a protest in Melbourne said that Hamas was ‘doing a good job’.
These rallies expose the chilling degree to which schools and universities have become places of indoctrination instead of education.
If you have any doubt of this fact, consider how three Australian academics encouraged students to attend climate strikes and pre-signed a sick note endorsing absenteeism.
It’s no wonder that many children fear a climate apocalypse.
It’s no wonder that students uncritically accuse Israel of genocide and readily dismiss the depravity of a declared terrorist organisation.
In our classrooms and lecture theatres, young Australians are being increasingly taught ‘what to think’ – not ‘how to think’.
Context and complexity is being glossed over in favour of propaganda and polemics.
Social media has amplified the problem.
Survey findings from the Pew Research Centre shows that 46 per cent of US teenagers say they are online ‘almost constantly’.
The statistics would be similar for Australian teenagers.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written about how digital technologies are ‘re-wiring’ young minds.
Social and new media platforms have ‘channelled partisan passions’ and enabled people to ‘retreat into self-confirmatory bubbles’.
The anti-Israel hate which is being force fed to young Australians doesn’t only increase incidents of anti-Semitism – as reprehensible as that is.
It conditions young minds to reject the liberal democratic values which underpin the Australian achievement.
Nothing short of a societal wide effort is required – from parents in homes, educators in schools and universities, and political leaders across governments – to reject the forces of indoctrination and to bring about a renaissance of education.
That starts with a renewed focus on teaching the basics.
A Coalition government is committed to seeing a prioritisation on reading, writing and maths, including through teaching with explicit instruction.
We also need to ensure our students have a better grasp of the horrors of the Holocaust as well as the age-old, enduring and shape-shifting nature of anti-Semitism.
POLITICS
While I hold out hope for our students, I cannot say the same for some in politics.
The Australian Greens have become the most dangerous political party in our country.
Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi posed for a photo with pro-Palestinian student protesters who carried a placard depicting an Israeli flag being thrown into a bin with the words, “Keep the world clean.”
New South Wales State parliamentarian Jenny Leong invoked a Nazi era trope in accusing the ‘Jewish lobby’ seeking to ‘influence power’ using its ‘tentacles’.
Online and off, the Greens have been fuelling the fire of anti-Semitism.
Just as their environmental façade masks their socialist tendencies, the Green’s anti-Zionism veneer conceals their anti-Semitism.
I believe there is an obligation on parliamentarians across the country to show that these hate-filled views cannot stand in a political party by calling them out at all times.
CONCLUSION
Ladies and gentlemen, whether it’s the Voice referendum, the class warfare of tax cuts, or the anti-Semitism infecting our country, issue after issue threatens to divide us as a people.
The Australian achievement wasn’t built on disunity.
I believe the Australian people have had a gutful of the politics of division and the preoccupation with difference.
A Coalition Government under my leadership will rebuild our national confidence and camaraderie by focusing on the things which unite us.
Our love of family.
Our attachment to community.
Our aspiration and optimism.
Our sense of duty.
Our pride in our country.
Most importantly, we will defend those values which underpin our unity.
Our respect for law and liberty.
Our respect for freedom of belief and association.
Our respect for democracy.
We will safeguard the Australian achievement from those who seek to destroy it.
We will always speak up with moral courage and provide moral clarity against threats, like anti-Semitism, to our way of life.
Thank you.
[ends]