Victorian Green targetted as anti-Semitic

VICTORIA’S Jewish community has thrown cold water on a bid to out a Greens candidate as insensitive to anti-Semitism and terrorism issues.

Brian Walters, who is standing for the party in the marginal state seat of Melbourne in the November 27 state election, found himself in the eye of a political storm this week.

According to The Age, ALP figures, including former Victorian secretary Stephen Newnham, contacted senior members of the Jewish community pointing out Walters’ record on
sensitive issues.

The AJN was among the media organisations handed a dossier outlining some of Walters’ history.

The former Liberty Victoria president saw his role as a barrister come under the blowtorch, as critics panned him for providing legal counsel to alleged Nazi war criminal Konrads Kalejs.

But Jewish Community Council of Victoria president and barrister, John Searle, pointed out Kalejs was entitled to a presumption of innocence and, moreover, under Victoria’s legal code, barristers were not free to pick or choose cases they are assigned.

“The bar has a ‘cab-rank’ principle and a barrister is virtually obliged to take on a case if it’s in an area of his expertise and capability,” he told The AJN. “You do not necessarily ascribe to a barrister the beliefs of his client.”

The dossier also recalled Walters’ defence of the swastika as a historical symbol, which he believed should override its more recent association with Nazism.

It included an article he wrote in 2005, which said banning the swastika would deliver Adolf Hitler a legacy of “propriety over an ancient symbol of goodness”.

Melbourne lawyer and former Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Nina Bassat, while refusing to criticise Walters personally, told The AJN this week that any defence of the swastika was unjustified.

“There is a sufficient number of survivors in Victoria for the swastika to be a symbol that causes them a great deal of pain,” she said.

Melbourne Ports federal MP Michael Danby panned Walters’ representation of Kalejs, and accused The Age of “campaigning” for the Greens.

Opposition frontbencher David Davis described Labor as “an administration that works on lies and smear”.

Walters did not respond to attempts by The AJN to contact him. However on Monday, he told ABC radio’s AM program: “I think that it is a particularly nasty smear having regard to 20th-century history to call someone anti-Semitic.

“I think it is always a cheap shot but sometimes people will think because a barrister acts for a certain client, therefore they must sympathise with everything that client does.”

PETER KOHN