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Published: 16 September 2024
Last updated: 13 September 2024
The Australian Group of Eight Universities (Go8) has made a submission to the Senate Committee considering the Bill before Parliament to establish a Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities.
The Go8 submission sets out the position of Australia’s leading universities: ANU, Sydney, UNSW, Melbourne, Monash, Adelaide, Queensland and WA.
It argues that any inquiry should not be limited to examining antisemitism at universities. Rather it should be broadened to incorporate “all forms of racial or religious intolerance and include universities, the media, schools and other key components of Australian society”.
The submission insists that the Go8 rejects all forms of hate or prejudice, including ‘antisemitism, Islamophobia or any other form of racial or religious intolerance’. It points out, rather curiously, that the scenes at the Opera House on 8 October and antisemitic incidents elsewhere in public places did not occur on campuses. The submission does not identify the antisemitic incidents that did occur on campuses. A reading of the submission by the Australian Alliance Against Antisemitism will remedy the omission.
The insistence on regarding antisemitism as just one example, among many, of racism and hatred both minimises and misdiagnoses the nature of the problem.
The Go8 submission is seriously flawed:
The Go8 submission inadvertently illustrates the inadequacy of the responses by some (not all) universities to the problem of antisemitism on campuses. The submission is of little assistance in formulating and implementing effective measures to combat the problem. It is certainly not an answer to the calls for an inquiry into antisemitism on the campuses of tertiary institutions.
The Honourable Ronald Sackville AO KC is former Judge and Chair of Royal Commission. He has written on Anti-Semitism and Hate Speech: (2016) Australian Law Journal 631 and is on the Advisory Board of NIF Australia.
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Comments1
Mark Davis18 September at 11:38 pm
Great analysis and summation of the Go8 position.