Tone deaf

For months, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry has been calling on Australia’s major parties to preference the Greens last on their how-to-vote cards.

After all, the extremist Greens have downplayed and enabled antisemitism, promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories against Jews in general and blood libels against Israel, baited and gaslit our community, all while having the gall to try and tell us what is and what isn’t antisemitism.

Any kind of preference distribution to them other than dead last is a tacit endorsement, something that Labor Member for Macnamara Josh Burns at least understood when he announced earlier this month that he is running an open ticket.

But it seems his party colleagues didn’t get the memo. In seat after seat, ignoring the ECAJ’s pleas, Labor has directed its second preferences to the Greens.

This includes in Jewish Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’s seat of Isaacs. Dreyfus, of all senior government ministers should have known better.

This is no less than a betrayal of our community.

The government and Dreyfus will point out the steps they have taken to combat antisemitism and increase the safety of Jews and indeed all Australians. And it is true that anti-doxxing legislation, minimum sentencing, banning Nazi symbols and establishing a federal task force to investigate antisemitic hate crimes are all positive developments.

But these achievements just make Labor’s preferencing of the Greens even more puzzling. We have not always agreed with the government on the speed of its response to antisemitism or what to do about it now, but the above measures at least suggested it understood the problem.

Senior Labor figures will also argue that these preferences will not end up being distributed so everything is okay. But they fail to see that it is the symbolism that has done the damage: They have legitimised the Greens and in turn their divisive agenda.

Of more concern is that with a hung parliament still a likely potential outcome on May 3, can we really be assured Labor won’t do a deal with the Greens? Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has himself preferenced the Greens second, has said several times he won’t do a deal.

But actions – not words – speak volumes, and this preference deal shouts from the rooftops that we should all be very, very worried.