Australia’s antisemitism envoy says if the government is prepared to cut funding to childcare centres that fail to keep kids safe from sexual assault, it should do the same for organisations that refuse to address antisemitism.
Jillian Segal has also declined to specifically address the presence of neo-Nazis at anti-immigration marches on the weekend, during a speech at a Gold Coast conference organised by the US-based Combat Antisemitism Movement and during a subsequent press conference.
“I don’t want to comment on any particular incidents as I think this goes beyond any particular incident, this is part of the fabric of our society. We have found that fabric is shredded. Antisemitism is actually shredding it,” Segal said, when asked by reporters about Sunday’s March for Australia rallies.
During her speech, Segal told a crowd of mayors and councillors from across the country that her wide-ranging plan to address antisemitism had been wilfully misinterpreted by critics.
Segal’s recommendations to government, announced in July, would see universities and artists have their government funding withheld as a “last resort” if they failed to take action against antisemitism.
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For the first time, Segal compared this recommendation to the federal government’s threat to withhold funding from childcare centres, prompted by shocking allegations of abuse in early education centres.
“If childcare centres are not complying with the practice that the government has now laid down to keep children safe, then those centres will have their funding at risk,” Segal said.
“That’s all the plan suggests. That if certain institutions don’t exercise practices and procedures to fight antisemitism and indeed do the opposite, then the government should look at their funding.”
When announcing the plan to withhold funding from childcare centres, the early childhood education minister, Jess Walsh, in July called it a “stick” to encourage higher standards.
The plan required new legislation which states the threat would “signal to providers the importance of safety and quality and that additional services will not be approved for a provider with a poor track record in these areas”.
After Segal’s speech on Thursday, she was asked why she did not want to comment on the weekend’s anti-immigration rallies. “I don’t think that’s that point of this conference,” she said.
Guardian Australia has been told a deliberate decision had been made not to provide neo-Nazi groups with a platform or reward them with attention at an event dedicated to improving social cohesion.
But Israel’s antisemitism envoy, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, did directly reference the March for Australia when questioned by reporters. She sought to compare the march to pro-Palestinian protests, and said the Australian government should have a uniform approach to banning marches that discriminate against minorities.
She congratulated mayors for not bowing to pressure to boycott the event from some progressive Jewish groups, unionists and the Greens who argue the Combat Antisemitism Movement has conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The US-based group denies this claim.
Sydney’s Inner West mayor, Darcy Byrne, who faced a campaign to boycott the event from Greens councillors, said he believed it was possible to condemn both antisemitism and atrocities being committed against Palestinian civilians.
“These two principles are not contradictory,” Bryne said. “I believe profoundly that citizens such as myself, who oppose Netanyahu’s vicious regime, also have an obligation to stamp out antisemitism and racism in our own country.”
In a prepared speech, Byrne referenced “Nazis brazenly attacking Aboriginal people on the streets of Melbourne” as an example of why, in his view, the conference was worth attending.
“We are all here because we know that solutions to the curse of racism and antisemitism can, and must, be implemented from the bottom up,” Bryne said.
