Melbourne man launches legal action against Greens
Menachem Vorchheimer is accusing the party of engaging in or authorising anti-Jewish incitement at rallies.
A Melbourne Jew is taking legal action against the Australian Greens party and its leader Adam Bandt through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Menachem Vorchheimer is accusing the party of engaging in or authorising anti-Jewish incitement at rallies where chants such as “all Zionists are terrorists” have been heard.
“I’m suing them under the racial and religious tolerance act for either engaging in conduct or authorising and assisting others to engage in conduct which incites hatred, ridicule and contempt for Jews,” Vorchheimer told The AJN.
He argues that as official endorsers of these rallies, the Greens bear legal responsibility for the conduct at these events.
“The Greens have branded themselves and associate themselves, welded themselves, if you were to use those words to the rallies. So therefore the conduct at the rally is conduct for which they’re responsible,” Vorchheimer explained.
When questioned about whether this could be seen as an attempt to limit political speech, Vorchheimer said that established case law provides clear boundaries.
“There is free speech, there’s freedom of political debate, but those freedoms and those rights are not unlimited. They don’t give someone the right to seriously vilify someone on the basis of their race or their religion.”
He claims the Greens were placed on notice on multiple occasions regarding the controversial chants, yet continued their involvement in the rallies without distancing themselves from such language.
“I think it’s reprehensible that a political party will feel it’s appropriate to label members of any segment of any community as a whole, as terrorists,” Vorchheimer said.
Drawing comparisons to historical persecution, he expressed concern about the normalisation of such language.
“By allowing such language to become normalised, we’re dehumanising a segment of our population, the Jewish community, and I don’t really see a large distinction between this type of dehumanisation and what we saw under Adolf Hitler.”
Vorchheimer said he has secured assistance from senior counsel including KCs and other legal professionals who are “very, very confident” in the merits of the case.
At time of publication, Adam Bandt and the Greens party had not responded to questions about the case from The AJN.
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