Jillian Segal is confident she will receive the support needed from government to implement her plan to combat antisemitism, but she has cautioned it is a multi-year plan that requires a whole of society approach to try and educate people about antisemitism.
Australia’s antisemitism envoy sat down with The AJN this week to talk through each point of her plan, describing the response to it as “enormous” since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke joined her at its launch last week.
“It’s been very positive from the Jewish community and I’ve been really heartened by the support from all major communal organisations commending me on the plan and offering their support,” she said.
“So it’s excellent that it seems to have hit the needs of the community, but some of the responses from the media online have been extremely disappointing. There’s been a lot of misrepresentation of the plan and also attacks against me as a way to try and discredit me and hence discredit the plan. I suppose that is a sign that the plan is really needed.”
When Albanese was asked by The AJN at the press conference why it took another arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue to adopt some of the plans, he simply replied, “Well, it didn’t.”
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