Has the Australian Labor Party turned?

By ANY conventional measure, the Victorian ALP State Conference should have been a disaster for the Jewish community.

The conference passed motions condemning Israel as an apartheid state. It endorsed calls for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a convicted terrorist responsible for the murder of civilians. And perhaps most revealingly of all, delegates voted down an amendment proposed by Iranian women from within Labor’s own ranks that sought to condemn the Iranian regime’s repression of women and dissidents.

That last point matters enormously. Because it revealed something deeper than factional theatre. A section of the contemporary activist left now appears so locked into an ideological framework of “anti-imperialism” and anti-

Israel politics that even condemning one of the most misogynistic and repressive regimes on Earth became politically inconvenient.

And yet – despite all this –something important may nevertheless have shifted inside Labor.

For the past two years, Jewish Labor members have entered State Conference under conditions that many older Labor veterans describe as unimaginable. Delegates were screamed at, surrounded, vilified, denounced as genocidal or colonialist simply for being visibly Jewish or Zionist. Last year, Jewish delegates required security escorts. Two years ago, some were physically intimidated and aggressively protested.

This year was different. Jewish Labor Movement stalwart Dean Sherr moved a comprehensive motion on antisemitism. The entire conference hall – left and right – rose in a standing ovation.

That should not be romanticised. Some argue that opposing antisemitism ought to be the baseline expectation of any mainstream political party rather than some heroic achievement.

But politics is judged against trajectories and the trajectory inside Victorian Labor has changed.

I later then moved a motion on respectful conduct around Israel-Palestine discussion within the party. The speech was heard in silence and concluded with applause. More importantly, the motion was seconded by Port Phillip councillor Louise Crawford from Labor’s left faction. Then came perhaps the most symbolically important moment of the conference: a young Muslim delegate rose to support the motion and spoke warmly of his own experiences with Jewish Australians. I crossed the floor to embrace him publicly.

It was political theatre, yes. But good political theatre matters because it signals emotional permission structures. The mood in the room visibly shifted. People noticed.

Delegates approached Jewish Labor Movement members afterward seeking discussion rather than confrontation. One branch secretary invited me to address his branch directly “so we can have a real conversation”.

Yet, applauding a motion on antisemitism while simultaneously passing anti-Israel motions may simply demonstrate the superficiality of Labor’s understanding of antisemitism itself.

Because if delegates can condemn antisemitism by a standing ovation and then endorse motions demonising Israel or calling for the release of convicted terrorists, then many still fail to recognise how antisemitism can mutate through obsessive hostility toward Jewish national self-determination.

We know this contradiction remains unresolved and simply on the two motions passed by what is increasingly being called “the regressive left” – as some Labor figures now privately describe it – conference outcomes would deeply alarm much of the mainstream Jewish community.

But I argue that characterisation is missing something important.

Politics is rarely transformed in one clean moral epiphany. Cultural shifts often precede policy shifts by years. Emotional de-escalation matters. Humanisation matters. The restoration of conversation matters.

Because what changed at this conference was not the activist fringe. The “regressive left” still voted for the Barghouti motion. And they rejected condemnation of Iranian repression put to the Conference from two of their own faction’s members – Iranian women with families still in Iran.

These hard-left haters still carry much of the binary oppressor-oppressed worldview that has poisoned discourse around Israel globally but they did not dominate the emotional centre of the conference and that signifies change.

For perhaps the first time since October 7, Jewish Labor voices were not treated primarily as intruders within progressive politics. They were listened to and applauded.

That does not mean the problem is solved.

Universities remain deeply hostile environments for many Jewish students. Sections of the arts, media and activist sectors remain consumed by a moral absolutism around Israel that frequently spills into antisemitism. And within Labor itself, the ideological battle over Zionism, antisemitism and progressive identity is far from over.

But politics is also about coalition-building and emotional momentum. The truth is that many ordinary Labor delegates are exhausted by the rage, maximalism and imported tribalism that have engulfed parts of the movement since October 7. Many instinctively understand that reducing Jewish Australians to avatars of global evil is morally grotesque, even if they remain deeply critical of the Israeli government.

That instinct surfaced at this conference. And perhaps that is the real significance of what occurred. Not that Labor has “turned.” It has not, but perhaps a growing number within Labor are beginning to rediscover an older Labor tradition of pluralism, solidarity and the difficult art of democratic coexistence.

After the past two years, even that represents a meaningful beginning.

Adam Slonim is an ALP life member, podcaster and businessman.