Kooyong candidates face Jewish community
Antisemitism, UNRWA funding and Gaza refugees hot topics at candidates forum for the seat of Kooyong.
Antisemitism, security concerns and potential political alliances dominated discussions at Thursday night’s candidates forum for the seat of Kooyong, hosted at Bialik College with approximately 300 people in attendance.
The event, organised by Zionism Victoria with support from the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia, featured incumbent independent MP Dr Monique Ryan and Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer.
There was security in attendance, but it was not needed as the audience was largely quiet and respectful.
Dr Ryan faced pointed questions regarding her willingness to negotiate with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament, a key concern for Jewish voters following that party’s controversial positions on Israel.
“I will not be negotiating with the Greens, because we are not in any way, shape or form, aligned,” Dr Ryan stated.
She clarified that as an independent, she would only negotiate with major parties that could potentially form government.
“The Greens are a political party that has never had the ambition to become a major party. They are not a potential party of government, and so there would be no situation in which I would need to negotiate with them,” she added.
The issue of Gazan asylum seekers entering Australia proved a hot button topic, with Hamer criticising the current government’s approach.
“The cause for concern here is not the humanitarian visas… It’s actually the fact that we had 2,601 people into this country on tourist visas from Gaza,” she said.
“In that case, the proper checks were not done, and they were actually those people were referred to ASIO and flagged by the department. If people are genuine refugees, genuinely asylum seekers, they should go through the proper processes, and they shouldn’t be coming to Australia on tourist visas”.
Dr Ryan defended stringent processing measures already in place.
“No refugee who leaves Gaza does so without very stringent processing. And the initial processing is done by the Israeli government, and it’s pretty stringent.”
Both candidates acknowledged the rise of antisemitism as a critical issue.
Hamer cited examples of community concerns, noting she has met some Jewish Australians who have developed an escape plan to leave Australia if the situation gets too bad.
“And that escape plan, even more worryingly, is to go to Israel. And the fact that people might say that I can’t live here in Australia, and I would rather live somewhere that is close to a war zone where there are little terrorists that want to destroy them just a few kilometres away is really, really deeply troubling for me.”
Dr Ryan conceded failures in addressing antisemitism, stating, “I think we’re probably all being shocked by the rise of anti-semitism in the last 18 months… I think that that reflects a failure of leadership immediately after October 7 from our political leaders.”
When asked if she would join calls to defund UNRWA, Dr Ryan stated she would feel comfortable with cutting funding completely “if I had comfort that there were other means of getting aid into Gaza.”
The forum concluded with both candidates emphasising their commitment to strengthening social cohesion in the electorate, which has seen its Jewish population increase to around 6-7% following electoral redistribution.
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