The federal government has been accused of breaching Australia's anti-racism laws by failing to apply criticism of alleged human rights violations by Israel towards Palestinians, as part of a legal effort to force a change in foreign policy.
The highly unusual complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission says the government has discriminated against a Palestinian Australian man in statements made during the May 2021 bombing of Gaza by Israel and by lobbying against an International Criminal Court investigation into alleged war crimes.
One human rights expert said the case could set a major precedent if it succeeded but argued it was unlikely to do so.
Australian government's actions 'hurtful'
The complaint has been lodged by Australian Palestinian advocate Nasser Mashni.
He told RN Breakfast his family had experienced discrimination in Australia as a result of their background.
In one instance, his high school-aged son was compared to a terrorist by a teacher at his school.
"One of my children, [after] a violent Islamist attack in Paris, when the teacher was calling the roll and he didn't say he was present," according to Mr Mashni.
"The teacher said oh, your mind's busy, is it still busy with how your brothers were going in Paris over the weekend?"
The school apologised for the incident.
But Mr Mashni believes this kind of discrimination can be directly linked to the language and actions of members of the Australian government.
"It's really hurtful," Mr Mashni said.
"Today, they don't."
The complaint alleges the government has breached Section 9 of the Racial Discrimination Act.
It is now being investigated by the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Mr Mashni is being represented in the complaint by Moustafa Kheir, principal solicitor at Birchgrove Legal.
He acknowledges it is not a typical Section 9 complaint.
"It's different in that it looks into how a government's foreign policy affects its citizens. How a foreign policy can make a citizen feel as though they're not equal within the country," Mr Kheir said.
Complaint could set precedent but has doubters
Joel Burnie, executive manager at the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, said the complaint appeared to draw a long bow.
"I don't believe that Australian foreign policy negatively impacts the life of a Palestinian Australian living in Australia," he said.
He rejected the suggestion that Australia's foreign policy was "strictly tilted one way" when it comes to conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
He also said the government's decision to make a submission in the ICC case was simply an expression of a legal opinion about the court's jurisdiction.
International law and human rights expert Amy Maguire, an associate professor at the University of Newcastle, said it was an unusual complaint.
"I haven't seen anything quite like this myself," she told RN Breakfast.
"The more typical race discrimination complaint would be, for example, where an individual claims they were denied an employment opportunity because of their race or perhaps they were denied entry into a licensed premises because of their race."
She said it was unlikely the complaint would succeed because political advocacy rather than discrimination law was generally how foreign policy was shifted.
"If successful it would set a very major precedent that would fundamentally alter the usual effects of discrimination law on Australian public policy," she said.
