Focus Wentworth: Spender’s testing time

When Allegra Spender decided to contest the seat of Wentworth three years ago, she walked into a fierce attack from the incumbent Liberal member Dave Sharma over her allegiance to Israel, and by extension, the Sydney Jewish community.

Wentworth has the largest Jewish population of any electorate in the country. The seat, which includes Bondi, Woollahra and Vaucluse, has 16% Jewish voters.

At that first election in 2022, Spender weathered the storm, gained solid support from Jewish voters and rode to victory on a platform of climate action, and disenchantment with Scott Morrison and his government’s infatuation with fossil fuels. As an independent, she was seen as a breath of fresh air, someone who could speak her mind.

Half-way into her term, Spender created a prominent profile for herself among the “Teals” who made such inroads into Liberal seats. Then came October 7. Everything she had done in her first 18 months looked like child’s play compared to what she has faced since.  

Since the Hamas attacks of 2023, Spender has been caught between an even more ferocious political battle over who is “the best friend of Israel and the Jewish community”. 

On one side is the Opposition, whose leader Peter Dutton has attacked the government relentlessly over its response to antisemitism since the start of the Gaza war. Jewish communal leaders, outraged at the rise in anti-Jewish attacks, who have swung solidly behind Dutton.

On the other side is the Albanese government, accused by Dutton and Jewish leaders of being weak on antisemitism and betraying Israel as it appeases Muslim outrage over Gaza. Over in the corner are the Greens, having gone all in with the pro-Palestinians early on, and widely seen as beyond the pale. 

Spender started this campaign as favourite to retain her seat against the challenge by the new Liberal candidate Ro Knox. Her outspoken advocacy for Israel and the Jewish community, her proposals on renewable energy, tax and housing have made her a popular and unifying figure. She has also been boosted by an electoral redistribution that shifted 25,000 progressive voters from Tanya Plibersek’s seat of Sydney into Wentworth.

Although Jewish voters account for only 16% of Wentworth, it feels like antisemitism has become the primary battleground for the seat. As the election draws closer, the combat has intensified – Spender has been criticised for voting more with Labor and the Greens than the Coalition, a claim she vigorously rejects.

The battle has also become downright nasty. In March, Spender was accused by Knox of having placed a corflute over a poster of the Bibas family, the Israeli hostages whose mother and two young sons were returned by Hamas in body bags.

Spender’s team refuted the smear, claiming that someone had placed the Bibas poster underneath her corflute after it was put up to make it look like Spender was showing disdain for the Bibas family. Spender’s team even released a time-stamped photo as evidence that the other poster wasn’t there. 

Her team also published an anonymous post from the Jews of Sydney Facebook group that used the juxtaposition of the two posters to trash Spender’s pro-Jewish credentials: “If this doesn’t tell you where Allegra and her supporters stand in relation to the Jewish community (and basic humanity), then I don’t know what does.” 

This barb seems to have forgotten Spender’s constant statements of support for Israel and the Sydney Jewish community since October 7. 

But it does contain an oblique reference to an incident a year ago when Spender was targeted for asking the Foreign Minister Penny Wong to restore funding to the Palestinian aid organisation UNRWA to help channel aid to Palestinian civilians who were in dire straits.  

UNRWA had been outed by Israel as having employed members of Hamas and turning a blind eye to their presence. Spender was accused of betraying Israel, an attack she says was based on a distortion of what she said. “I was really concerned when many countries around the world stopped aid into Gaza and I joined with others, in writing to the government. 

“I wrote at the time to say I believe aid is required. I said I thought that you should find partners that you can trust outside of UNRWA. If you cannot find any partners that can deliver that aid, then what are the conditions under which you could support UNRWA?”  

“I was completely torn because on the one side, I think humanitarian aid is critical; and on the other side I have real concerns about UNRWA.” Earlier this month, she wrote to Penny Wong, urging that Australia stop funding it. 

As the future of Gaza hangs in the balance, she describes US President Trump’s plan to remove Palestinians and redevelop the territory as “ethnic cleansing” and “genuinely shocking”. There has to be a regional solution, she explains. “The idea that Palestinians are going to leave and never come back — I don't think that is a plan.” 

Spender has taken several body blows over the past 18 months but she is instinctively a glass half full person. “It's been a really hard time but I have also got a huge amount of joy from the job, and that is because you meet amazing people, and you get insight into people's lives," she told The Jewish Independent. 

“I’ve learned about the importance of standing up and standing with your community in hard times. I’ve learned that your physical presence is really important, and I’ve learned you’ve got to recognise that your agenda has to move with changes in the times. 

“People often said to me about politics: ‘you can't do everything. Be clear on what you want your contribution to be.’ I think one of my proudest moments will be passing that motion against antisemitism [in February] that the House and the Senate unanimously supported.

“It is absolutely critical during this time to have Jewish and non-Jewish voices from across the political spectrum talking to the community about this, and I see that as my role and my responsibility.” 

The ability to speak your mind is one of the greatest assets of being an independent. But it’s balanced by the limitations on your ability to effect genuine change.

Spender’s private members bill to strengthen hate speech legislation, introduced in February after a summer of antisemitic attacks, is in limbo, destined to be pushed back to the next parliament. It’s a situation she is comfortable about: “Private members bills are primarily an example of how the legislation should change. My goal is to drive the next government of the day to adopt it.” 

That’s in the future. So, what has Spender changed over the past three years? She points to her role in “strengthening legislation through my amendments to climate change legislation, both the original Climate Change Act for sector by sector pathways, and working with the Senate to pull back on some of the IR legislation so that it’s better for smaller businesses, even though I ultimately disagreed with the government and voted against that legislation.” 

She says she is “proud of is having pushed [with others] the setup of a national student ombudsman. It came out of young women facing sexual assault at university, not having a way of complaining or getting proper resolution from the universities.

“When I heard their stories, I said, this is exactly what the Jewish students are telling me, that sense that you can complain but it doesn't matter. That was one of the reasons why I drove the government to get a national student ombudsman, first for sexual assault against women and also for Jewish students."

She also points to her work in pushing the government to reinstate questions about sexual identity in the census as a platform for formulating policy of LGBTQ+ issues, and in pushing the government to create the position of an antisemitism envoy. 

Although it may be hard for Jewish voters to see the election beyond the lens of antisemitism and Israel policy, Spender will be judged more broadly on her advocacy and plans in other public policy areas — primarily climate and tax. 

She has pushed for the provision of greater rooftop solar power to transition households towards more efficient energy usage, and negotiated a "water trigger" in environmental law to assess the impact of gas fracking projects. 

With tax she has released a Green Paper, from which she has proposed a range of measures — including lowering income tax, rebalancing tax settings in favour of home ownership, providing incentives for business innovation to boost productivity, and creating a Tax Reform Commission to address intergenerational tax burdens. 

Beyond these granular policies, in the big picture Spender’s campaign catchphrase is “Your values, Your choices”. She likes to encapsulate those values with a story about a young father she met at the beach. “I asked him, ‘what's important to you?’ He said, ‘I’m a small business owner, I care about the environment. I live in a beautiful place, and I believe that's important. I want to live in a kind society. I want us to treat people decently’.” 

Spender pauses: “I think that the values of our electorate are a combination of those three things — we want to preserve the environment, we want to look after each other — we are a kind community — and we're hard-headed about business.

“I decided to enter politics because I come from this electorate, and I don't think those values have been represented by the coalition.”