Disappointed by Labor victory, Australia’s Jews hope for a new tack on hate crimes
Jewish organizations look to incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to crack down on antisemitic attacks that have proliferated throughout the country
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
Australian Jewish community leaders were largely disappointed after left-leaning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won a second term in elections Saturday, but expressed hope that the ruling party would do more to fight rising antisemitism in the country during the coming administration.
Albanese’s Labor Party defeated Peter Dutton and his conservative Liberal Party in a landslide in Saturday’s vote, strengthening the incumbent party, which Jewish organizations accuse of allowing anti-Jewish hate crimes to proliferate throughout the country.
“The relationship between the Jewish community and the Albanese Government has been under strain,” Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), said in a statement following the election results.
“There are real issues: foreign policy decisions and responses to antisemitism that have challenged a sense of trust. But renewing that trust is in the national interest, and we believe it is both necessary and possible.”
Australia’s Jewish community of some 120,000 has been frustrated by Albanese’s policies regarding Israel and the government’s failures to rein in skyrocketing antisemitism. The country experienced more than 2,000 anti-Jewish incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadruple the number from the year before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault that sparked the Gaza war, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
In recent months, several antisemitic incidents in Australia have sent shockwaves throughout the Jewish world, starting with the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December.
In January, the former home of ECAJ Co-CEO Alex Ryvchin was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, and two cars were set on fire in an attack many believe targeted him. In February, a video of two nurses in a Sydney hospital threatening to kill Israeli patients and saying they would refuse to treat them shocked the nation. Later that month, police discovered a trailer in Sydney packed with enough explosives to cause a mass-casualty event, believed at the time to be intended for a Sydney synagogue. (Police now believe the explosives were planted by an organized crime network in order to throw them off their trail.)
Pragmatic responses
The Jewish community in Australia was shocked shortly after the October 7 attacks when hundreds of rioters outside the Sydney Opera House chanted anti-Jewish slogans while police stood by watching. Since then, government inaction has emboldened elements within the country’s Muslim population and those associated with far-left ideologies to harass and attack Jews with seeming impunity.
Jewish community leaders, including Ryvchin, have railed against the government for failing to take stronger action to prevent these attacks. Following the Labor party’s resounding victory in Saturday’s elections, however, Ryvchin and others stressed the importance of working together with the government to fight antisemitism.
“We will continue to urge the government to stand strong against antisemitism in both word and deed,” Ryvchin said in a statement. “Where we have different views on the best way towards a sustainable two-state outcome to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, we will continue to put our case to the government in a constructive and reasoned manner.”
Leibler likewise expressed optimism that the incoming administration would do more to keep Australia’s Jewish community safe.
“We welcome the pre-election commitments made by the government to increase security funding for the Jewish community, to combat antisemitism, and to support social cohesion,” Leibler said. “Labor has a proud legacy of supporting Israel and the Jewish community, and bipartisan support has long been a hallmark of Australia’s foreign policy. We hope this new term provides an opportunity to return to that spirit of principled consensus and bipartisan support.”
But not everyone put a positive face on Albanese’s victory. Robert Gregory, CEO of the right-wing Australian Jewish Association, called the election results “devastating,” saying that Albanese’s government “is the most anti-Israel and hostile to the Jewish community in Australian history.”
Nuanced relationships
Behind closed doors, other sources within Australia’s Jewish community described a nuanced relationship with Albanese and his Labor Party.
Dutton, the Liberal Party candidate, was strongly favored by many in the Jewish community for his pro-Israel policies and strong statements of support for the community, sources explained. However, while Dutton, who was sometimes likened to Australia’s version of US President Donald Trump for his conservative and anti-immigration views, polled strongly earlier in the election campaign, his voter appeal diminished as Trump’s government layoffs and tariffs caused havoc domestically and abroad.
Other community members said there is reason to be optimistic that Albanese’s government could work better with the local Jewish community the second time around.
After initially downplaying the problem of antisemitism, Labor now understands that it is a significant domestic issue, and has begun to make stronger efforts to fight it, including election pledges of about AUD 100 million ($64.5 million) for increasing security and fighting hatred, one source noted.
In March, Labor pledged AUD 30 million ($19 million) towards the rebuilding of Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue destroyed in December, in addition to AUD 250,000 given to replace and restore Torah scrolls damaged in the Synagogue. The government has also created a team of counter-terrorism police and experts, known as Special Operation Avalite, to investigate threats against the Australian Jewish community.
In recent months, the government has also legislated a ban on the Nazi salute and hate symbols, criminalized doxxing, and introduced legislation to outlaw hate speech.
The source also suggested that Jewish perceptions of Albanese’s government are colored by precedents set by the Liberal government led by Scott Morrison that preceded it between 2018-2022, widely considered the country’s most pro-Israel government ever. Labor’s current policies regarding Israel are in line with those of many European countries, and much more balanced than the policies of the far-left Greens Party, which placed third in Australia’s elections, the source noted.
“Now that Labor doesn’t have to worry about the political threat from the left, it’s possible they will start ruling more from the center,” the source said. “That’s what we are hoping for.”
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