WA friends become political opponents
NEITHER candidate is Jewish, but the race for the marginal electorate of Mount Lawley in Western Australia’s forthcoming election certainly has a kosher flavour to it.
NEITHER candidate is Jewish, but the race for the marginal electorate of Mount Lawley in Western Australia’s forthcoming election certainly has a kosher flavour to it.
Labor challenger Bob Kucera is the former president of the Friends of Israel of Western Australia – he stepped down to focus on his campaign – while the incumbent government MP, Liberal’s Michael Sutherland, is its patron.
Both have also had a long association with the Jewish community.
South African-born Sutherland, a former Perth deputy mayor, has held the seat since it was recreated in an electoral boundary redistribution in 2008.
“All the main Jewish facilities are in the electorate – the main synagogue, Perth Hebrew Congregation, the Carmel School and Maccabi sports grounds,” he said. “The Jewish community in Perth, a lot of them have lived in Mt Lawley and Menora [a suburb in the electorate] for many years.
“And a lot of South African Jews are now living in Yokine, which is another part of my electorate, and Dianella … I’ve had a long association with the Jewish community, not only here but in South Africa where I was in politics as well.”
As well as being patron of the Friends of Israel of Western Australia, Sutherland, who has visited the Holy Land twice, is also a co-convenor of Western Australia’s Parliamentary Israel Friendship Group.
Kucera, who was Yokine MP from 2001 until that electorate was abolished in 2008, told The AJN he had “unfinished business” after not being preselected for Mount Lawley in 2008.
The former police commissioner said he had enjoyed a close relationship with the Jewish community for 40 years. “I also inaugurated the Parliamentary Friends of Israel long before my opponent was ever in Parliament,” he said.
Although he has stepped down from the chairmanship of the Friends of Israel, Kucera remains active on its board. “It’s actually a passion, and a belief in the State of Israel that drives me on,” he said.
“From a political perspective, being supportive of the State of Israel can often lose you as many votes as what it can gain you, bearing in mind that the Jewish community is but one sector of the community, but it’s a sector that I believe in.”
Jewish Community Council of Western Australia president Tony Tate said the Jewish community “could not ask for two more sympathetic candidates”.
“Both of them during their pervious terms of office have shown great empathy with the Jewish community and have worked very hard to get government support for our activities,” he said.
GARETH NARUNSKY
ALP candidate Bob Kucera
comments