Focus Macnamara: Labor hears the pain

From one angle, Josh Burns looks like the ideal candidate for the substantial proportion of Melbourne’s Jewish community who live in Macnamara, the electorate including Caulfield, St Kilda, Ripponlea and Balaclava.

Burns, 38, grew up in Caulfield and lives in St Kilda, went to Mount Scopus College, and played basketball for Maccabi, where he was a rare beast as a 1.91 metre (6ft 3) Jewish boy. Plus he has the advantage of incumbency and being a Labor MP in a safe Labor seat.

But the Labor government’s foreign policy shifts on Israel, combined with substantial feeling that it has not done enough to counter antisemitism, means winning Jewish votes will be difficult for Labor this election.

Offered the opportunity to defend the government’s record on antisemitism and Israel, Burns has plenty to say, but first wants to acknowledge the community’s feelings.

“The pain that the Jewish community is experiencing is real. People have obviously experienced something in Australia that they've never experienced before. My family and most of our community's families came here looking for a safe haven, and that's exactly what this country has been. So, when you experience the levels of antisemitism that we have, you have to acknowledge the real pain.”

Jewish voters don’t decide Macnamara: they make up only 12% of the electorate. But Labor was only 1965 votes ahead of the Greens candidate on first preference votes in 2022, which means every vote counts in a seat that could easily defect to the Greens this time.

Macnamara has been a Labor seat (in its previous incarnation as Melbourne Ports) since 1865. But there is an ironic possibility that Jewish votes shifting Liberal could pull enough votes away from Burns to allow Greens candidate Sonya Semmens to win the seat on preferences.

Burns won a big issue late last week when he persuaded his party to allow him to run on an open ticket, meaning Labor won't preference the Greens in Macnamara as it will do in other electorates. That's a recognition of Jewish distress with the Greens over their hostility to Israel.

But it's likely many Labor voters, certainly from the non-Jewish 88% of the electorate, will still preference Greens.

Burns is painfully aware of the conundrum. “The Liberals have pre-selected a really nice guy. I actually really like him, but he can't win. so if you vote for the Liberal Party, the reality is you are only helping the Greens win the seat,” he says.

“But I also don't just want people to vote for me because they don't want a Green. I want people to vote for me because they know I'm going to fight for them, and they know I'm going to fight for the community.”

Burns has been fighting for the Jewish community. He’s been by the Prime Minister’s side at the Adass Israel synagogue after it was firebombed, and at the Sydney Jewish Museum when the new position of a Special Envoy to Fight Antisemitism was announced. He chaired the government’s inquiry into antisemitism at universities and is pleased at the recent decision by universities over a new definition of antisemitism. He also cites millions of dollars secured in Jewish community security funding, anti-doxing laws and stronger legislation on hate, including online, as examples of things the government has done to address increasing antisemitism.

But he is quick to acknowledge that more needs to be done, most of all in the university sector, the health sector and the creative sector.

“We've tried, I've certainly tried, to be in there thinking of ways in which government needs to respond - and we have. But the level of activity has been unprecedented. So, I would say to anyone who feels like there's more that needs to be done, you're absolutely right.”

The attack on Burns' office in 2024 gave him a personal taste of how threatening antisemitism can be. He says when he first saw the images and thought someone had shot at his office, he felt deeply unsettled.

“But then [I found out] it was done with a hammer, not a bullet, and that it was people who, frankly, were not sophisticated criminals. They were [people] who have had this sort of deluded idea that somehow vandalising my office was going to bring some sort of action towards peace in the Middle East. I mean, it's almost sad that that's what some of these young people were thinking.”

Burns says he hasn’t felt unsafe since, although he “doesn’t love” being accompanied by the Federal Police at all community functions.

Nor has he felt any resistance to strong action on antisemitism from within the government. “That's never happened. The opposite has happened, and we've managed to do a lot. But I do think that it's really important that we don’t just list the things we’ve done, but recognise that there is a lot more work to be done. I'm hopeful that we'll slowly return back to some level of harmony and peace, but it's very fragile, and it will take a long time before that confidence is returned.”

Given the work the government has done on antisemitism, why does he think Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has managed to claim the high ground on the issue?

“Look, I think that Peter Dutton has been clear in his commentary on the Middle East, and the Jewish community's obviously responded to that.”

Middle East policy is clearly the area where Burns finds it hardest to defend the government. He skirts the issue of Australia’s votes against Israel at the United Nations and Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s hardening language on Israel, emphasising instead that Australia has very little influence on the Middle East and should focus its foreign policy on the Asia Pacific region.

“Australia doesn't have leverage to affect the outcome of the Middle East. I think if we had our time over, I would have preferred to have had a position where we actually don't spend as much time talking about the Middle East as we have.

“The conflict in the Middle East gets a disproportionate focus and from an Australian point of view, it's unproductive. It's damaging and divisive.”

Regardless of how Jewish voters feel about Labor’s Middle East policy, Burns hopes they will think more widely about the parties' platforms, aware that Australian governments can do little about the Middle East but can make a great difference to equity and social justice at home.

“I got asked by a couple of our community members, why didn't you just switch sides? There's a really simple answer to that. I'm a Labor person. I believe in the institutions of the Labor Party. My grandparents came to this country after leaving school at age 13, and my parents and their whole generation went to university for free, and there was this whole access to healthcare, access to education.

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"The Labor Party has been the party that has set up the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a whole range of social mobility schemes, a social safety net that we invest in, social housing. There is a societal framework that the Labor Party has helped shape, that I fundamentally believe in.”

He urges Jewish voters who agree with Labor on these issues not to walk away over Israel.

“If you're not happy with something... this is the time that you need to engage the most. To walk away from the Labor Party at a time where people are unhappy is not the right approach.

"We need as many strong and passionate and hard working members of the Jewish community and supporters to stand up and come and be involved, because by walking away, it's only going to make things worse, but by re-engaging, that's the pathway to making it better.”

I can’t leave Burns without asking about his personal life, which has been the subject of considerable communal gossip. His partner is Victorian MP Georgie Purcell, a member of the Animal Justice Party who has been outspoken in her support for Palestinians.

Burns acknowledges the relationship is “an interesting story” but says political differences do not loom large in the couple’s life. “We're both just really normal people. We're both involved in politics, and obviously we talk about it, but most of our life is not talking about politics.”

Even on Israel-Palestine, he says, there is a lot they agree on: “We both desperately want all people in the region to live peaceful lives and to have a hopeful future.”

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