ECAJ moves to bankrupt Haddad over unpaid costs

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has filed a bankruptcy application in the Federal Court against preacher Wissam Haddad, as it pursues legal costs he was ordered to pay more than a year ago.

The application, filed on October 14 by ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot, seeks substituted service and remains open before the court.

Substituted service allows a bankruptcy notice to be served other than in person, if the court is satisfied all reasonable attempts have been made to find the respondent. Once served, Haddad would have 21 days to pay, after which the ECAJ could apply to have him declared bankrupt, with his assets and income transferred to a trustee.

Justice Angus Stewart found in July last year that Haddad had contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act through three lectures titled The Jews of Al Medina, delivered at Bankstown’s Al Madina Dawah Centre in November 2023. The judge found they conveyed disparaging imputations about Jewish people including “age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist and antisemitic”, and that Haddad had made “perverse generalisations against Jewish people as a group”.

Stewart ordered Haddad and the centre to remove the lectures, later required them to publish corrective notices on their social media pages, and ordered them to pay the applicants’ costs.