Dreyfus gives universities a new year deadline to make campuses safe

Australian universities have not been safe places for Jewish students over the past year and vice-chancellors must act urgently to ensure they will be safe by the time the new academic year begins, the Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told a Jewish community event this week.

“Jewish students have experienced fear and rejection and discomfort at a level that has never happened before, which we are endeavouring to do something about. The special Envoy for Antisemitism, Jill Segal, is working on this now with the vice-chancellors, who did not respond adequately in any way initially,” Dreyfus said after delivering the annual Colin Tatz Oration, hosted by The Jewish Independent, at Bondi Pavilion on Monday night.

“The vice-chancellors have started to get there, but they're not there. They're not anywhere close to there. I'm hoping that by the start of the next academic year, universities will again be safe places for Jewish students, but they have not been this year.”

The Attorney-General singled out two universities as exceptions to the general inadequate responses to the explosion of antisemitism on campuses. “Some universities have reacted properly to this. I'll single out University of Western Sydney, with Jennifer Westacott getting right down to it, and Monash, which was better because their vice-chancellor, Sharon Pickering, recognised the problem early and acted to end the encampment, push non-students off campus and speak publicly in a way that otherwise, chancellors didn't.”

Dreyfus said the urgency for addressing the problem is why he does not favour holding a judicial inquiry, as some politicians and Jewish advocates have called for. “We need to work with the universities. Judicial inquiry is a term that means a Royal Commission, and royal commissions are not quick. We need action now.”

Dreyfus told the audience that the outpouring of antisemitism since October 7 had affected him on a personal level. “I've experienced levels and forms of attack that I have never experienced in 17 years in the federal parliament. I don't read the comments on my social media at all. Occasionally I get reports from my staff about what appears in the comment section and it's pretty terrible.”

The Attorney-General said a form of coded language had taken hold as a way of circumventing hate laws and accusations of antisemitism. “The label Zionist is used, not in any way, accurately. When critics use that word, they actually mean Jew. They're not really saying Zionist. They're saying Jew because they know that they cannot say Jew, so they say Zionist or words [such as] Zeo or Zio.”

In a Q&A session with Deborah Stone, the editor of The Jewish Independent, Dreyfus was asked whether there was a way to address this loophole. He said some complaints had been lodged under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. “We'll see where they get to. But at some other level, it's about resistance. It's about drawing attention to evil speech like this. It's about calling it out and saying that it's antisemitism, plain and simple.

“The law can only get you so far. It's also about the way public discourse takes place. It's about the way politicians speak about this. It's the way it's about the way the whole of our society talks about this.”

In this context Dreyfus attacked the Greens over their response to the events of October 7. “We have yet to hear a proper condemnation of Hamas from Greens Party senators. It's amazing that I should state that here in Australia in 2024.

“It's led to this bizarre outcome that in the same day, I can be accused by the Liberal opposition of being an appeaser because of some imagined flaw in my, or my government's attitudes to the conflict. And within hours, be accused of being complicit in genocide, which is the phrase used by the Greens political party.

“Both of them are trying to get political advantage out of a dreadful conflict that is occurring in the Middle East, and they should stop.”

However, when pressed by Deborah Stone about whether he thought his ALP colleagues were doing enough to call out antisemitism, the Attorney-General would not be drawn. “That’s for others to judge. I'm not going to criticise my colleagues on this. Some of them are ministers for things far removed from the universities or antisemitism.

“They have to concentrate on what they are doing. I'm not going to say that every single minister in the federal government or every single minister in the state government or every single premier has to speak about this all the time.

“But collectively, we have a duty to talk about this. I don't think it's just members of parliament. I don't think it's just ministers. I think it's everybody.”

The Attorney-General was speaking after he delivered the 2024 Colin Tatz Oration, titled Sisyphean and meaningful: the task of law reform. In his address, Dreyfus emphasised the difficulty of law reform and its importance as a continuous process, and outlined the achievements of the government in law reform, notably in family law.

In 2023 the Albanese government enacted legislation that removed the assumption of shared parental responsibility in resolving disputes and changed it to resolving them in a way that best meets the interests of the child. It also introduced a clause that recognises the impact of family violence in dispute and property settlements.

Dreyfus also highlighted the government’s reform of administrative law, in which it abolished the Administrative Appeals Tribunal because its stature had been run down by the former coalition government’s series of “jobs for the mates” appointments.

The Albanese government has replaced the AAT with a new body, the Administrative Review Tribunal, which starts with a clean slate of merit-based appointments to consider appeals against government decisions.

This year was the fifth annual Tatz oration, in honour of the pioneering scholar in genocide studies, Colin Tatz, who was a founding member of TJI’s advisory board. Previous speakers were Stan Grant, Tanya Plibersek, Michael Kirby and Anne Summers.