Media Report 2025.04.24
Just not kosher. The diabolical dilemma facing Jewish voters in Macnamara
(The Age, 24/4/2025)
Jewish Australia’s relationship with the Albanese government is, to put it mildly, complicated.
Nowhere is this more acutely felt than in Australia’s most Jewish electorate, Macnamara, currently held by Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns.
With early voting now open, electors in Melbourne’s bagel belt suburbs of Caulfield, Elsternwick and Ripponlea are weighing what message to send, if any, about the government’s response to October 7, the war in Gaza and the corrosive forces that have spun off into their communities.
Like the abysmal conflict still raging in Gaza, there are no good choices on offer.
To understand the prevailing Jewish sentiment towards Anthony Albanese and his government heading into this election campaign, this column sought the views of Peter Wertheim.
Wertheim is one of the co-chief executives of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a peak body which represents about 200 Jewish schools, synagogues, sporting clubs, and cultural organisations. As an organisation, it has been a vociferous critic of the federal government’s tepid response to antisemitism unleashed by the war.
Wertheim is also one of the few Jewish community leaders with a direct line to the PM. As a former Slater and Gordon lawyer whose clients included trade unions and the Labor Party, and an honorary solicitor for the Aboriginal Legal Service and East Timor Relief Association, he has a long-standing relationship with the ALP, Albanese, and social causes dear to the party’s true believers.
In 2011, Wertheim and Albanese forged an alliance against a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign by the Marrickville council.
For Albanese, the issue was partly personal, as the local mayor was trying to oust his wife at the time, Carmel Tebutt, from her state seat of Marrickville. Having spoken to Albanese about it over the years, Wertheim has no doubt that Albanese’s stance against the BDS was principled and sincere. “I think he understands that demonising an entire nation is racist and wrong in every way and no way to end a conflict,” he says.
When asked to articulate how Jewish communities feel now towards the PM and his government, Wertheim says there is no black and white answer.
“We have been heartened by many of the measures taken by the government, but at times we have felt disappointed by what we see as hesitancy and inconsistency in the government’s messaging,” he says.
In the credit column for the ALP, Wertheim points to $57.5 million in federal government grants to boost community security, the appointment of a special envoy for antisemitism, the passage of stronger anti-incitement laws and the banning of Nazi salutes, symbols and memorabilia.
In the column against, he cites the government’s reflexive bracketing of concerns about Jewish hatred with Islamophobia, positions taken at the UN which appear to absolve Hamas of responsibility for the war in Gaza and the ALP’s preferencing of the Greens, a party whose parliamentarians have at times refused to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organisation and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.
Since the campaign began, Albanese has ruled out a power-sharing arrangement with the Greens but resisted calls from Jewish groups to preference the Liberals ahead of the Greens in all seats. In Macnamara, Burns won dispensation from Labor HQ to provide how to vote cards without preferencing either the Liberals or the Greens, a step which this week triggered reprisals from the Greens.
When pressed on whether he considers Albanese a true friend to Jewish Australians, Wertheim offers a careful response: “It’s the role of any prime minister to be a real friend to all Australians. I believe we have a good, mutually respectful relationship with the PM, as we do with the opposition front bench.”
Wertheim’s equivocation goes to the heart of the Jewish dilemma in Macnamara, where Jewish voters represent about 12 per cent of the electorate.
The battle for Macnamara is, on paper, a genuine three-way contest between the ALP, the Greens and the Liberal Party. But, in the absence of a spectacular shift in voting behaviour in a seat held by Labor for more than 100 years, only the ALP or Greens can win.
It is almost certain that Liberal candidate Benson Saulo will poll the most first preference votes. The Liberals have done so at the last four elections and should again on 3 May, particularly if Jewish voters abandon Labor and the Greens.
It is also near certain that the seat will be won by whichever party is in second place once preferences have been distributed down to the last three candidates.
In 2022, Labor led the Greens at this point of the count by just 594 votes. That ensured that Greens preferences lifted Burns comfortably above the Liberals. Had the Greens been in second place at that stage, they would have won off the back of Labor preferences.
Tony Lupton, a former Labor state parliamentarian, has teamed up with Michael Danby, a former Labor MP for Macnamara who preceded Burns in the seat, to campaign against the Greens. Their main objective between now and polling day is to explain to prevaricating Labor voters the vagaries of preferential voting.
“How much of a warm feeling do you want to get in the polling booth compared to the hangover you’ll have the next day when the Greens get elected?” Lupton says.
“I never say that the Liberals cannot possibly win Macnamara but the overwhelmingly likelihood is that, if Josh Burns finishes third, the Greens will win. For people who are thinking they will vote Liberal to punish the Labor Party, that would be their nightmare scenario.”
This electoral conundrum is causing Jewish voters more anxiety than a Woody Allen screenplay. Two Jews, three opinions, the old joke goes. In Macnamara, there are three candidates, two possibilities and neither is remotely kosher to most Jews.
Chip Le Grand is state political editor.
Bandt retaliates against Labor by putting teals, Payman before government
(The Age, 24/4/2025)
The Greens will back Climate 200 candidates and rebel senator Fatima Payman’s party over Labor in must-win contests this election, dumping the preference-swap pact between the two parties in the bitter fallout over the battle for the marginal Melbourne seat of Macnamara.
The call to direct preferences on Greens’ how-to-vote cards to independents, including pro-Gaza candidates in Sydney and Melbourne, is partly designed to punish Labor for its contentious decision to have an “open ticket” and not direct preferences to any party in Macnamara, first reported by this masthead.
Several Labor sources and one Greens source, unauthorised to speak to the media about confidential dealings, said that some of the anti-Labor calls were driven by Greens’ anger that missing out on Labor preferences could rob the Greens of a chance to take the seat.
Labor’s choice to run an open ticket in Macnamara, which has a large Jewish population, was aimed at assuring Jewish voters that Labor was not co-operating with the pro-Palestine Greens.
The Greens privately threatened to run open tickets across two states, which could have cost Labor several seats, but eventually backed down over fears such a move would help Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
Greens leader Adam Bandt is basing his election pitch on the mantra of “keep Dutton out”, frustrating some Greens members who wanted the party to fight Labor more vigorously.
Grassroots Muslim candidates in the Melbourne seat of Calwell and Sydney seats of Blaxland and Watson, all held by Labor, will also receive Greens’ preferences. The minor party has also placed the Australia’s Voice party – set up by Labor defector Payman after she left the party last year over her stance on Palestinian statehood – ahead of Labor on some state Senate tickets.
Greens preferences help Labor beat Coalition candidates in many seats across the country. The minor party’s backing of community independents comes as Dutton is trying to paint teal MPs as Greens in disguise.
Independents funded by Climate 200 are picking up Greens’ preferences in the Coalition-held regional seats of Wannon, Cowper, Flinders, and Monash, where progressives are spending big to unseat Coalition MPs.
More consequential is the Greens’ call to direct preferences to Climate 200-aligned candidates in seats where Labor is worried about tight results.
They include the Tasmanian seat of Franklin where Labor minister Julia Collins is under pressure from independent Peter George over salmon farming, Gilmore where Labor is defending an ultra-marginal seat, Fremantle where an independent who almost won a state seat is now challenging Labor federally, as well as other Labor versus Liberal seats such as Casey and Deakin.
A spokesman for Bandt said preference decisions were made by party officials, not MPs, but he highlighted the anger within the Greens over Labor’s Macnamara move.
“This Labor-Liberal preference deal has just put Peter Dutton one step closer to The Lodge,” the spokesman said.
“Many local groups are preferencing climate and other independents ahead of Labor and Liberal because as they have approved over 30 coal and gas projects in a climate crisis and failed to act on Gaza.”
A spokesman for Labor declined to speak about preference deals.
A spokesman for Climate 200 said it made no deals with the Greens to win their backing.
Asked why none of the 35 Climate 200-backed candidates were running in the four Greens-held seats or any of the Greens’ key target seats, the spokesman said: “Climate 200 has not been approached by any community independent groups in Greens held seats.”
Simon Holmes a Court, who founded Climate 200, has consistently denied his outfit controls independents’ campaigns. The body is not a political party, but provides some functions that are usually delivered by parties, such as polling, assistance with candidate selection, research and funding for advertising.
Several sources from the Labor and Liberal parties said they were aware of conversations between their party officials and Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay about preferences, but that in those conversations Fay made clear he did not control preference decisions.
“Whenever preferences are raised, Climate 200 explains that preference decisions are a matter for campaigns and discussions about them should be had directly with campaigns,” the Climate 200 spokesman said.
North shore teal distances herself from allegedly antisemitic posts
(SMH, 24/4/2025)
A teal candidate on Sydney’s north shore has used a forum for Jewish voters to distance herself from allegedly antisemitic posts made by her social media accounts in 2022, saying a former volunteer was responsible for the potentially damaging comments in the very close race in Bradfield.
On Tuesday, Sky News published comments it said were deleted after being made in October 2022 by social media accounts belonging to independent candidate Nicolette Boele’s campaign, which called on voters to donate “shekels to maintain our chutzpah” as part of a fundraising drive.
The teal candidate narrowly lost in May 2022 to Liberal MP Paul Fletcher, who is stepping down following a redistribution and amid polling which showed he was on track to lose.
Boele, who has maintained an electorate office and styled herself as Bradfield’s shadow member, has built strong grassroots support. But the posts’ appearance in the election’s final fortnight is potentially harmful if the race comes down to just hundreds of votes.
The electorate has the second-largest Jewish population in NSW after the seat of Wentworth.
In her opening speech at a Bradfield candidates forum convened by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies at a synagogue in Lindfield, Boele declared “antisemitism is a scourge”.
“Since my campaign’s disgraceful social media post back in 2022 I’ve made efforts to educate myself, to listen and learn and to start the work to model myself more in understanding antisemitism.”
Boele is challenging Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian, who is defending a margin of just 2.5 per cent in the two-party preferred vote.
Both candidates’ campaigns have already been threatened by potentially damaging revelations. Boele has apologised for allegedly making a sexual joke to a 19-year-old female hairdresser, which she has admitted was a poor attempt at humour.
This masthead also revealed Kapterian was named in a $650,000 settlement a former political staffer reached with the Commonwealth in September over discrimination and harassment claims, without admission of liability from anyone accused of wrongdoing. A spokesperson for the Coalition said Kapterian was not a party to the proceedings, and was unable to comment.
Tuesday’s forum, the last time the candidates are expected to debate, fell on the first day of pre-polling.
The two, who have shared the stage at several events, agreed on several policy areas, including defunding Palestinian aid agency UNRWA. Boele said she was open to supporting a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities, a Coalition policy.
The forum, which focused on the conflict in Gaza and social cohesion following a spate of antisemitic attacks across Sydney, touched on climate and energy policy and the cost of living, which this masthead has found is high in the minds of voters in Bradfield, which has only had Liberal members since its creation in 1949.
Speaking after the forum, Kapterian rejected the idea the Coalition had failed to protect the affluent, leafy electorate against cost-of-living pressures.
“Cost of living issues are postcode-agnostic. And this challenge has been at a national level. It’s been an avid failure of the current government.”
Boele said that her 1300-strong volunteers showed there was “momentum and appetite for change, for better representation” in Bradfield.
“It has been a safe seat for 75 years, with five guys in the same party, so I think we just really have to wait until May 3 to find out how Bradfield votes.”
Election 2025: Anti-Israel Greens candidate goes from blockading Anthony Albanese’s office … to winning his preference
(The Australian, 24/4/2025)
Anthony Albanese has claimed he is not responsible for his own how-to-vote cards and has never heard the name of his Greens challenger as it emerged the anti-Israel candidate preferenced by the Prime Minister was part of a blockade of his Grayndler electorate office.
Greens hopeful Hannah Thomas said on Wednesday the Prime Minister was “arrogant” for claiming he “wouldn’t be able to tell you” who she was, adding Mr Albanese had failed to act on the cost of living, climate and Gaza.
She also said Grayndler voters had hoped for a “Whitlam-esque prime minister” but had been let down by Mr Albanese’s performance as a leader.
The Australian can reveal Ms Thomas took part in what became a long-running protest outside Mr Albanese’s electorate office in mid-2024, which forced him to temporarily avoid the workplace on safety grounds. At the time, Mr Albanese said the blockade was “appalling” and had “no place in a democracy”.
Ms Thomas, who also led a recent march towards the Sydney office, has advocated for Israel to be sanctioned and its ambassador to Australia expelled, while calling on the government to uphold the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr Albanese on Wednesday defended the choice to direct preferences to Ms Thomas in his seat despite criticising the party for months for its anti-Israel rhetoric.
“I’m not about promoting the Greens candidates, whatever their name is,” he said.
Mr Albanese claimed Labor’s “organisational wing” was responsible for his preferences, saying he was “not about promoting the Greens candidates”.
Both Labor and the Coalition in recent months have accused the Greens of “fanning the flames” of fraying social cohesion and taking advantage of the Gaza conflict for political gain.
A Greens spokesman said the party “utterly rejected” any “offensive accusation” that the party or its members were anti-Semitic.
Mr Albanese’s decision to direct preferences to the Greens drew sharp rebuke on Tuesday by Australia’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which called the move “profoundly disturbing”.
Mr Albanese questioned The Australian’s coverage of his preferences being directed to the Greens.
“It’s rather strange, I’ve got to say. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if you’d have asked me who the candidate was,” he said.
“I don’t intend to promote the name or the candidate of the Greens party candidate, and I’m surprised that The Australian had determined to promote them.”
Ms Thomas said Mr Albanese’s comments showed he was out of touch with their electorate.
“The Prime Minister’s comments are arrogant and confirm how much he takes the Grayndler community for granted,” she told The Australian.
“I’ve been knocking on doors across the inner west, and people here, just like millions across Australia, know you can’t keep voting for the same two parties and expect a different result.”
Ms Thomas said Grayndler had moved further to the left of Mr Albanese. “Grayndler is an extremely progressive electorate and people here had high hopes that their local member would be a Whitlam-esque prime minister who pursued bold reforms to make life better for everyday people,” she said. “Instead, they’ve been deeply disappointed with the government tinkering around the edges when it comes to cost of living, housing and climate, and failing to act on Gaza.”
Ms Thomas – who moved to Australia as a student in 2009 – said there was no preference deal between her and Labor, and she had simply adhered to the Greens’ move to put Labor above the Coalition in every seat.
Mr Albanese won Grayndler, which Labor has held since its 1949 inception, with 54 per cent of first preference votes in 2022.
Almost all Labor’s frontbench has engaged in preference deals with the Greens, including the nation’s most senior Jewish MP, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
The two exceptions are Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, who has given his second preference in the NSW central coast seat of Shortland to an independent, and special envoy for social cohesion Peter Khalil who is facing a tense battle with the Greens to hold on to the seat of Wills in Melbourne.
Labor’s MP in the inner-south Melbourne seat of Macnamara, Josh Burns, is running an open ticket and denying Greens preferences after rising fears among his electorate’s significant Jewish population.
The Greens retaliated to Mr Burns’ move, backing Climate 200 candidates and rebel senator Fatima Payman’s party over Labor in a slew of must-win contests in Victoria and NSW.
Speaking to Nine’s Karl Stefanovic on Wednesday’s Today program, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells said “no one in the ALP” had done more to “fight the Greens” than Mr Albanese, saying it was “clear” where the party stood. But Stefanovic said Mr Albanese in one hand had “bagged” the Greens and ruled out governmental negotiations with it, and in the other chose to do a preference deal with them.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles also defended the move and ruled out any “deal” with the Greens after May 3. He said Labor’s preferences in Grayndler were nearly obsolete as the seat is safely held.
“No deal with the Greens … and Anthony (Albanese) could not have been clearer,” he said.
The ALP’s preference furore came after the Coalition was engulfed in a controversial decision to direct its voters to preference One Nation second in a number of must-win seats. The move marks the biggest departure of the Coalition’s decades-long reticence to preference Pauline Hanson’s party after John Howard issued an edict in 2001 that One Nation should be “placed last on every Liberal Party how-to-vote card around Australia”.
Senator Hanson returned the favour, preferencing the Coalition second where it was either under threat or has a chance of beating Labor or an independent.
Anthony Albanese reveals he killed off Gillard government’s 2010 deal with Greens
(Herald-Sun, 24/4/2025)
Anthony Albanese has warned the Greens they can make Peter Dutton PM if they want to, revealing he killed off the last Labor-Greens agreement in 2013 and there would never be one again.
Pressed on whether Labor would be forced to reach some kind of agreement with the Greens to form minority government, the Prime Minister said the Greens had no cards to play and he would never do a deal with them.
Asked about the infamous Gillard Government deal of 2010, Mr Albanese revealed that he killed it off in a late-night meeting after Kevin Rudd returned to power.
“It’s something that we did in 2013 when I became Deputy Prime Minister,” he told this masthead.
“There was a meeting at night and people were coming in and the Greens said at that time, what’s in it for us tomorrow? Why should we vote for confidence?
“And my response to them was, you’ve got a choice: Kevin Rudd or Tony Abbott. That’s your choice.”
The PM also vented his fury about Greens-linked activists blockading of his electorate office — effectively preventing staff from attending and constituents from getting the help they need — as well as a doorknocking campaign in his electorate that challenged voters about their views on the Gaza conflict.
This comes amid a misinformation campaign in Inner West and South West Sydney that falsely claims Australia is sending arms to Israel.
The Grayndler MP said voters “don’t want conflict brought here”.
“They know we’re not participants in this conflict. And some people have tried to portray us as participants and we’re just not.
“So there’s that fake news going around about Australia providing weapons that is just absolute, absolute fabrication.
“And it’s just not true. And it is extraordinary that people have been prepared to say things that they know are not true in order to secure some political advantage.”
The Prime Minister said the Greens and other fringe groups represented overprivileged ideologues more concerned about political purity than outcomes for ordinary working people.
“For some people, for a lot of people who are in the Greens political party or some of the fringe groups, for them it’s an academic exercise who wins government. For so many people who I really care about and I want to represent. For them it’s a real difference in their life. It’s whether they get a decent wage in their job.”
Mr Albanese said the Greens’ rampant activism had hurt vulnerable people and their own supposed causes.
“The idea that you would doorknock for Palestine, that ‘Where do you stand?’ is just frankly incredibly alienating, as is the fact that constituents of mine were stopped getting assistance on social security, on Medicare, on migration issues — including refugee issues,” he said.
“The effective blockade of my office was not just inappropriate, because blocking people from getting assistance is never appropriate, but also completely alienated people from those ideas.”
Pressed on why Labor continued to do preference deals with the Greens, the former factional warrior said it was no longer his call — “I’m way past that. Thank goodness!” — but that it would rarely help Greens MPs get elected.
And where three Greens MPs were elected in Brisbane at the last election, Labor is confident of winning at least one of those seats back and possibly all three.
“The truth is that I’ve said very clearly we won’t be entering into deals post-election,” he said.
“People will have a choice if we don’t get to 76. But I believe very firmly that we can and will get to 76 seats.”
By Joe Hildebrand
Mahmud Abbas urges Hamas to give in as Israeli strikes escalate
(Daily Telegraph, 24/4/2025)
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has urged Hamas to free all hostages, saying their captivity provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza, as rescuers recovered charred bodies from an Israeli strike.
Israeli attacks killed at least 25 people across the besieged territory, while Germany, France and Britain urged Israel to end its blockade on aid.
Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, ending the ceasefire that had largely paused hostilities and saw the release of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinians from Israeli custody.
Talks on a new ceasefire have so far failed to produce any breakthroughs, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
“Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over.”
“Every day there are deaths,” Abbas said.
“You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this ordeal,” he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim called Abbas’s remarks “insulting”.
“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he said.
Ties between Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas have been tense, with deep political and ideological divisions for nearly two decades.
Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, while Hamas has criticised the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on dissent in the West Bank.
By Tiffany Bakker and Staff writers
Eleven killed in Gaza school shelter as Israel continues bombing campaign
(The Guardian, 24/4/2025)
At least 25 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza, including 11 in the bombing of a school turned shelter, the strip’s civil defence agency said, as Israel’s war against Hamas in the besieged Palestinian territory grinds on despite a new ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators.
Intense Israeli bombings hit several areas of Gaza on Wednesday, killing 11 in a school sheltering displaced people in al-Tuffah, a neighbourhood of Gaza City. The strike ignited a huge fire that claimed most of the casualties, said a civil defence spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal.
The Qatari network Al Jazeera and Palestinian media broadcast footage of several bodies wrapped in white shrouds at al-Shifa hospital’s morgue, and women weeping over the body of a child.
“We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire,” a witness, Umm Mohammed al-Hwaiti, told Reuters.
“People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred [people], charred children, and were walking and saying ‘dear God, dear God, we have no one but you’. What can we say? Dear God, only,” she said.
Unusually, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not comment on the school attack. Israeli officials say fighters from Hamas and allied factions hide behind civilian infrastructure, claims that the Palestinian militant group denies.
Israel has renewed its aerial and ground campaign since the collapse of a two-month-old ceasefire and hostage and prisoner release swap in mid-March. Since then, according to the UN, nearly 2,000 people have been killed and another 420,000 forced to leave their homes or shelters as Israel seizes ever-larger swathes of the territory for what it terms security buffer zones.
More than 51,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken captive. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel imposed a total blockade on the strip two weeks before it unilaterally restarted the fighting. Food, water, fuel and medicine are now running critically low, leading aid agencies to declare that Gaza’s already devastating humanitarian crisis is worse than ever.
On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany urged Israel to stop blocking aid into Gaza, warning of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death”.
“Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change,” the ministers said. The joint statement – unusually strong criticism from some of Israel’s closest allies – came several weeks after similar calls from the UN, EU and Arab states.
Efforts led by Qatari and Egyptian mediators to resume talks aimed at a ceasefire and ending the war have not yet led to a breakthrough. Reports of a new plan emerged on Wednesday that would include a truce of between five and seven years, and the release of the rest of the Israeli hostages seized in October 2023.
A Hamas delegation travelled to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, late on Tuesday to discuss the proposal. Israel has not responded to the invitation to another round of indirect negotiations.
There has been little sign that either side is willing to move closer on fundamental issues such as the disarmament of Hamas or the withdrawal of Israeli troops, although it is believed mediators are under pressure from Washington to show progress before Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East next month.
The president of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, made a rare intervention in the conflict on Wednesday, calling for Hamas to free the Israeli hostages and saying their captivity provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza.
Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, called Abbas’s remarks “insulting”. Hamas and Abbas’s secular Fatah party, which dominates the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority, fought a brief civil war in 2007 that resulted in Hamas seizing control of Gaza.
‘Sick of being ignored’: galvanised by Gaza, Australian Muslims aim to exert new political power at the election
(The Guardian, 24/4/2025)
In elections gone by, Az Fahmi volunteered for Labor’s home affairs minister, Tony Burke, in her electorate of Watson in Sydney’s south-west. Now she wants change.
“Enough is enough. We’re sick of being taken for granted. We’re sick of being ignored,” says the campaign volunteer, who works in communications.
“For the first time in a very long time, you’re seeing our community really become invested in the electoral process, and starting to believe that there is hope for change.”
Sara, 39, who asked for her real name to be withheld, agrees. The clinical researcher who lives in Caroline Springs, in the Victorian electorate of Gorton, says this election feels different.
“I think this is the first election that I’m going to be walking into with a really keen understanding of how the government will be supporting the Muslim community with the challenges that they’re facing,” she says.
They are two Australian Muslims who are mobilising as a result of a war fought thousands of kilometres away. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, has galvanised a political shift among some of Australia’s 650,000-odd voting-age Muslims who do not feel represented in Canberra.
“There is no question that the Palestine issue is way bigger than politicians realise,” says Nasser Mashni, the president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (Apan), which is leading the Vote with Palestine campaign.
But the conflict is far from the only issue affecting the diverse community. Healthcare, housing and cost of living are all flashpoints – when Fahmi travels to other parts of Sydney, Watson’s inequalities sharpen, she says.
“Gaza was the catalyst, but the sentiment was always there: we had been marginalised and silenced politically on major issues,” says Ghaith Krayem, the national spokesperson for the Melbourne-founded advocacy group Muslim Votes Matter (MVM), which has hundreds of volunteers working on the campaign and thousands signed up to staff polling booths across 10 electorates on 3 May. “None of that existed 18 months ago and it wouldn’t have worked if there wasn’t, within the community itself, a need that wasn’t being fulfilled.”
More than a quarter of Watson’s population was Muslim, according to 2021 ABS data – the seat has had a drastic redistribution since the 2022 federal election, but without radically altering its population mix or its notional Labor majority of just over 15%. The same applies to neighbouring Blaxland, 31.7% Muslim on the 2022 boundaries and safely held by Labor’s education minister, Jason Clare, now with a notional 13% margin.
Calwell, in Victoria, has a Muslim population of 23.8%, with the ALP’s Kuwait-born Basem Abdo hoping to succeed the retiring incumbent, Maria Vamvakinou. Its boundaries have changed only slightly, and Labor’s estimated margin remains similarly comfortable on 12.4%.
Those three seats are respectively being contested by Muslim independents Ziad Basyouny, Ahmed Ouf and Samim Moslih, who are endorsed by both MVM and the unconnected grassroots group The Muslim Vote.
Sheikh Wesam Charkawi credits that national collective – which he helped set up in Sydney – as sparking the broader groundswell, which Fahmi says is community-led and has women as its centre.
Breaking loyalty bonds
Pro-Palestinian sentiment – which has had a noticeable impact on elections in the UK and the US in the past year – is likely to be concentrated in some of the country’s largest Muslim populations, but Mashni and Krayem both believe it extends well beyond those postcodes.
“Palestine has never had a greater constituency,” Mashni says. “And increasingly, the constituency … is not Arab or Muslim. It is Australian. Palestine is a vote winner. Australians understand the concept of the underdog and will always side with an underdog.”
Muslim Votes Matter aims to upset the status quo in Bruce, Wills (both Victoria), Sturt (South Australia), Cowan (Western Australia), Moreton (Queensland), Banks and Werriwa (New South Wales), as well as Blaxland, Watson and Calwell, with an operation led by polling booth-level data from the past two elections, Krayem says.
In Watson and Blaxland, reports of defaced corflutes on both sides of the contest and threats of violence have marred a campaign that has largely been conducted online. But underpinning disparate and sometimes unaligned groups – some of whom have radical views – is a uniting sentiment: “It’s very clear that Muslims do not feel represented,” says Amin Abbas, a Palestinian organiser and executive board member of Apan.
On the ballot, this translates to what he calls a “more considered” choice as voters try to understand party positions and align them with their own. He predicts a shift from the major parties towards independents and minor parties, but does not expect Muslim votes to go to the Liberal party via preferences, given its pro-Israel stance.
Jamal Rifi, a Lebanese Australian general practitioner in Belmore, wrote in The Australian earlier this month that he “knows” candidates backed by what he called “the Muslim Votes political party” were “helping the Liberal party” and did not represent the broader Muslim community. Both Clare and Burke were more locally engaged than the newcomers, he suggested.
But Krayem says MVM does not support any particular party, with both Labor and Liberal-held seats in its sights, and that it is “highly unlikely” its advocacy would lead to an increase in Liberal votes.
Instead, the group hopes to break the “unquestioning loyalty” some sections of the Muslim community have to certain political parties. The process is as much about building a political advocacy group as it is about raising awareness, he says.
“We’re providing that platform for community to have its voice heard in a way that it chooses to have its voice heard,” he says. “It’s a message to the parties themselves, but it’s also a message to individual members of parliament: you represent your constituents and, if you have ignored a key concern for 18 months, don’t expect that they’re going to support you.”
Whether that message sways results in a meaningful way at this election is not his main focus.
“For us, really, the work will start after the election. We’re not going away. The political establishment has to get used to the fact that we are here and we are going to be loud around the needs of our community.”
‘This is just the beginning’
One of those “needs” is to tackle rising rates of Islamophobia. Nora Amath, the chief executive of Islamophobia Register Australia, says she has tried to draw attention to skyrocketing rates of Muslim-targeted hate without any consistent support from the government.
“This silence is not just disappointing, but really dangerous,” Amath says, referring to the health, social and economic impacts of racism.
“The election is a test. Will our leaders finally treat Islamophobia as the critical issue that it is, or will they continue to look away?”
The community’s secret weapon might be its age. The median age of the Muslim population in Australia is just 28, according to the 2021 census, a full 10 years younger than the general population. Fahmi says it is time for the old guard to step aside.
Amath says she sees young Muslims looking at individual candidates’ values rather than to traditional party allegiances. For the first time, she says, “the Muslim community has been energised to really understand where their votes go, to understand that it has people power”.
Ouf and Basyouny are both drawing from that energy.
“There is no other primary outcome, we are going to win,” Ouf says. “If not, we would have done something that’s never been done, which is marginalise the seat for the first time in its history. This will not be the end for us.”
Basyouny has much the same message. Winning is his priority, achieving a substantial swing a “secondary measure of success”. But he says even if he doesn’t win his team’s efforts will have been worthwhile.
“There’s been more investment in the community the last five weeks than there has been in the last 20 years. This is the first wave of political activation – this is far from over, this is just the beginning.”
Clare, the “kid from western Sydney”, remains determined. “I work my guts out for my community every day and I don’t take anyone’s vote for granted,” he says. “I never have and I never will.”
Burke was contacted for comment.
No matter how votes fall on the day, the fact that Australian Muslims are recognising themselves as a political force is “a big change in and of itself”, says Mashni, who in the past has criticised his community’s lack of political engagement.
“I’m absolutely a believer that my constituency should be engaged in the democratic process,” he says. “And if the Labor party looks like them, they should join it, make it better. If the Greens look like them, join and make it better. If the Liberals look like them, join and make it better. And if they want to run as an independent or support an independent, fantastic: do that.”
By Daisy Dumas
Palestinian leader Abbas labels Hamas ‘sons of dogs’, demands hostage release
(ABC Australia, 24/4/2025)
( https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-24/palestinian-leader-demands-release-of-hostages/105209276 )
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has issued a fiery demand to Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, calling the group ‘sons of dogs’ in a televised speech.
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank said Hamas was giving Israel a reason to continue its relentless bombardment of Gaza, and argued the priority for the militant group should be “stopping the Israeli genocide” in the war-ravaged strip.
“Every day there are hundreds of deaths. Why?” Mr Abbas said in Ramallah on Wednesday afternoon.
“Sons of dogs, hand over the hostages you have and be done with it.”
Mr Abbas said Hamas needed to demilitarise — something the group has rejected when it has been suggested in ceasefire and hostage deal negotiations, arguing it would give Israel an opportunity to taken full control of Gaza.
“It’s necessary for Hamas to end its control over Gaza Strip and also hand over the weapons to the Palestinian National Authority,” Mr Abbas said.
The PA President is the chairperson of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Fatah political party, and has no influence over the management of political rival Hamas.
Hamas ousted the PA in Gaza in 2007, and the PA is seeking a role in the future governance of the strip once the war is over and the militant group has been removed from power.
Mr Abbas’ comments come as Egyptian and Qatari mediators continue their as yet fruitless efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, more than a month after the Israel resumed strikes of the occupied territory.
Since March 18, Gazan health authorities say more than 1,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes.
There are 59 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
Egypt has suggested Hamas hand back its weapons, and that a ceasefire for seven years could be considered.
One of Mr Abbas’ main political opponents, Mustafa Barghouti said his comments were “totally inappropriate.”
“They should not have been said by the president of the PLO, and definitely this will not create anything except more divisions and more anger within the Palestinian people,” Mr Barghouti said.
“The last thing that anybody should accept is to blame the victims for the aggression they are subjected to, to blame Palestinians for what Israel is doing to us.”
Mr Abbas, now aged 89, used his speech to outline his vision for a Palestinian state and also called on Israel to halt its military operations in the West Bank.
ABC/wires
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