‘Are we going to be safe?’

Federal member for Berowra and Shadow Minister for Education Julian Leeser has urged the Royal Commission to recommend the government legislate to require all universities to adopt a single definition of antisemitism.

Giving evidence last Friday, Leeser described attending the Chanukah on the Green event at St Ives when a rabbi pulled him aside to say shots had been fired at Bondi. His then seven-year-old son overheard adults discussing the shooting.

“He cried inconsolably – the sort of cry that you see when a child is in deep pain,” Leeser said. “He sat with his legs crossed, saying, ‘Dad, are we going to be safe? … How do you know they won’t come for us?'”

The fear had lingered, he said. At a recent bar mitzvah, his son asked how he knew they would be safe, even with a police car outside. “What sort of Australia are we setting up, where an eight-year-old child doesn’t feel safe going to a place of worship?” Leeser asked.

Leeser, who is Jewish, also described antisemitic attacks on his election materials – posters defaced with swastikas and Hitler moustaches in 2019, and a $35,000 banner graffitied and seized by police in 2025.