Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, November twenty two. Australia has no capacity to
Speaker 1: make wind turbines on shore thanks to cheap Chinese imports
Speaker 1: which have destroyed the local industry. That's the claim from
Speaker 1: Manufacture at Kepel Prince, which is mothballing its plant because
Speaker 1: it says it can't compete with heavily subsidized foreign steel imports.
Speaker 1: That exclusive is live now at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dou A heartfelt plea to tackle anti Semitism from the
Speaker 1: nation's most prominent judge, Michael Lee of the Federal Court
Speaker 1: has shared his family's deeply personal story in a powerful
Speaker 1: call to action delivered on Thursday night. That's today's story.
Speaker 1: Justice Michael Lee is a titan of Australian law. He's
Speaker 1: the erudite, funny, razor sharp judge who presides over the
Speaker 1: biggest Federal Court defamation trials. Today, we're bringing you something
Speaker 1: a little different from the judge a thoughtful, deeply personal
Speaker 1: speech he made on Thursday night to a dinner hosted
Speaker 1: by the charity Jewish House. Jewish House in Sydney's BONDI
Speaker 1: started as a drug and alcohol crisis service, and now
Speaker 1: it serves the whole community, not just people of the
Speaker 1: Jewish faith, with crisis accommodation and support for people experiencing homelessness,
Speaker 1: domestic violence and mental illness. The judge started by HARKing
Speaker 1: back to a speech he gave twelve years ago at
Speaker 1: one of Sydney's synagogue'es, we've used a voice actor to
Speaker 1: bring you his words.
Speaker 2: I remarked that when I was a boy learning public
Speaker 2: speaking at a Marris Brother's school, I was confident that
Speaker 2: there were a number of opening words of a speech
Speaker 2: that I would never utter. One form of opening words
Speaker 2: was I proudly accept your nomination for President of the
Speaker 2: United States. Another equally unlikely were the words I opened
Speaker 2: with on that occasion, being welcome to my son's bar
Speaker 2: Mitzvah for justice.
Speaker 1: Lee raised a Catholic in the western suburbs of Sydney.
Speaker 1: The story of Jewish experience is now deeply personal.
Speaker 2: I was introduced to the richness of the Jewish lived
Speaker 2: experience through my wife's family. When I came into Penny's family,
Speaker 2: I was accepted immediately and was welcomed into the light
Speaker 2: and richness of a cultural and spiritual heritage I have
Speaker 2: grown to love. Incidentally, Penny was also welcomed with open
Speaker 2: arms and love. And when I told my father I
Speaker 2: had fallen in love with a girl who was Jewish,
Speaker 2: his response was to say, well, thank goodness, she is
Speaker 2: not a Methodist.
Speaker 1: Penny's family were the Landers, a Sydney Jewish family of
Speaker 1: long standing. Her grandfather, Abraham Lander, was born in Belfast
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh two to a family of Russian Jews
Speaker 1: who'd fled the Pograms that is a wave of terrifying
Speaker 1: persecution that swept Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: After coming to Sydney with his widowed mom, Abe Lander
Speaker 1: won a scholarship to study law at Sydney University, and
Speaker 1: he became the state MP for the seat of Bondai,
Speaker 1: representing labor. He was a prominent voice in support of
Speaker 1: one of the Jewish community's great causes in the post
Speaker 1: Second World War era, the creation of Israel. Through the
Speaker 1: United Nations General Assembly. Abe Lander rose to be a
Speaker 1: new South Wales Cabinet minister, with portfolios including Labor and housing.
Speaker 1: Abe's son, David Penny's father was also a lawyer and
Speaker 1: rose to be New South Wales as ombardsman and Chief Magistrate.
Speaker 1: Lee said his beloved father in.
Speaker 2: Law suffered the sort of establishment anti Semitism so common
Speaker 2: in those days, particularly as the son of a prominent
Speaker 2: Jewish minister living in the eastern suburbs. In his autobiography,
Speaker 2: he tells the story of being acutely embarrassed as a
Speaker 2: young man when the fact of him being blackballed from
Speaker 2: joining an exclusive Palm Beach surf club became a newsworthy scandal.
Speaker 2: As it happened, he was put up at around the
Speaker 2: same time as a man who later was exposed as
Speaker 2: a notorious sex offender. Unlike David, the pedophile sailed through
Speaker 2: the election process.
Speaker 1: For this family just getting on with life. The reality
Speaker 1: of antisemitism came crashing home after October seven, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: when her maass fighters swarmed from Gaza into Israel, massacring
Speaker 1: civilians and taking hostages, including babies and elderly women.
Speaker 2: The revelation for both of us since seven October is
Speaker 2: the stark and discomforting realization that despite living our whole
Speaker 2: lives in this country and thinking we knew it so
Speaker 2: well we do not now recognize an aspect of it.
Speaker 2: Connected to this was the realization that some people we
Speaker 2: thought we knew well did not understand or did not
Speaker 2: want to understand a more complex narrative than that presented
Speaker 2: by simplistic and historically flaw declamations on social and some
Speaker 2: other media. Nor were they empathetic to the trauma the
Speaker 2: events of last year and its consequences have occasioned.
Speaker 1: Lee calls it the growth and mainstreaming of antisemitism, and
Speaker 1: his speech is an attempt to suggest how we might
Speaker 1: as a community first understand and then tackle it. Critical
Speaker 1: to that is how we balance two important values, the
Speaker 1: right to free expression and the right to live free
Speaker 1: of antisemitism. It's apparently the only kind of racism that
Speaker 1: has to explain itself. Lee points out that freedom of
Speaker 1: speech is not explicitly written into Australia's constitution, but it
Speaker 1: is rather understood by the courts to be implied. The
Speaker 1: Commonwealth has anti discrimination laws, but they don't explicitly ban racism.
Speaker 1: What the Racial Discrimination Act says is it is unlawful
Speaker 1: to do an act in public that is reasonably likely
Speaker 1: in all circumstances to offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate another
Speaker 1: person or a group of people, and the act is
Speaker 1: done because of the race, color, or national or ethnic
Speaker 1: origin of the other. Lee notes that in the recent
Speaker 1: case of a school student who sued the State of Victoria,
Speaker 1: the Federal Court's Chief Justice found the state vicariously liable
Speaker 1: because the school principle had failed to respond adequately to
Speaker 1: anti Semitic bullying.
Speaker 2: But the law has gone and will only go so far.
Speaker 2: No one in this room would be under any misapprehension
Speaker 2: as to the scope of the present problem. When one
Speaker 2: compares the nation in which I was born with the
Speaker 2: nation I now see around me, one must conclude that
Speaker 2: what has occurred over the last half century amounts to
Speaker 2: what might be described as a soft revolution in values
Speaker 2: within numerous institutions, including the university's unions, the arts, and schools.
Speaker 2: In universities, it can be seen in courses focused on
Speaker 2: what is described as critical legal studies, but is most
Speaker 2: evident in the social science, history, and education faculties. It
Speaker 2: is a world where the difference between fact and opinion
Speaker 2: seems increasingly blurred or obliterated. It is a world which
Speaker 2: so often simplistically divides mankind into the so called oppressors
Speaker 2: and the oppressed, and wallows in ahistorical criticism of the
Speaker 2: achievements of Western civilization, the rule of law, and Judeo
Speaker 2: Christian ethics Influenced by this narrative from the start, it
Speaker 2: is unsurprising that many students now seem to use school
Speaker 2: and university to proclaim rather than to learn.
Speaker 1: So that's the problem. What does Justice Lee think is
Speaker 1: the solution? That's after the break. It's not a secret
Speaker 1: that it's on university campuses where anti Semitism has been
Speaker 1: at times most visible of all, in encampments of tense
Speaker 1: daubed with anti israel slogans, in protests on the large
Speaker 1: scale you don't tell me again, and the small scale,
Speaker 1: like the Jewish professors who find themselves sitting behind locked
Speaker 1: doors to protect them from abuse and harassment from the
Speaker 1: students who are supposed to show respect. Lee says university
Speaker 1: leadership is part of the problem, pointing out there were
Speaker 1: no encampments at Western Sydney University, where he happens to
Speaker 1: be on the board of the Whitlam Institute, a think
Speaker 1: tank and public museum devoted to the legacy of former
Speaker 1: PM Goff Whitlam. Western Sydney University, Lee points out, has
Speaker 1: the largest Muslim population of any UNI in Australia, but
Speaker 1: it's had a strong stance against anti Semitism and no encampments.
Speaker 1: In May. Western Sydney UNI's chancellor Jennifer Westcott wrote this
Speaker 1: in an opinion piece for The Australian.
Speaker 3: Western Sydney University's position is simple. It is guided by
Speaker 3: its principles. Our Charter of Academic Freedom supports the right
Speaker 3: of staff and students to academic freedom and freedom of speech.
Speaker 3: It requires that freedoms and rights be exercised responsibly, with
Speaker 3: zero tolerance for anti Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, hate speech or intimidation.
Speaker 1: Western Sydney Uni a side. Lee is concerned anti Semitism
Speaker 1: has flourished in higher education, where the CEOs, teachers and
Speaker 1: politicians of the future are right now being formed.
Speaker 2: What this community and all non Jews of goodwill need
Speaker 2: to confront is a deep and profound challenge. How to
Speaker 2: educate and communicate effectively with a generation exposed to a
Speaker 2: system producing an apparently significant number of future leaders whose
Speaker 2: lack of a traditional Western historical education is matched by
Speaker 2: their sense of self righteousness and their willingness to sprout slogans.
Speaker 2: This is a worrying combination, further exacerbated by access to
Speaker 2: a bulcanized legacy media and social media, resulting in preconceived
Speaker 2: notions being reinforced by the like minded. There are no
Speaker 2: simple answers, but that does not mean that one must
Speaker 2: despair justice.
Speaker 1: Lee referenced a former President of the United States, George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 1: referring in his inauguration speech to one thousand points of light.
Speaker 3: I've spoken of a thousand points of light of all
Speaker 3: the community organizations that are spread like star throughout the
Speaker 3: nation doing good.
Speaker 1: Bush was talking about those in the community spread like
Speaker 1: stars doing some good. Lie says the Jewish House, charity
Speaker 1: for which he made the speech, is a very bright
Speaker 1: star in that firmament.
Speaker 2: Every person of goodwill can be a point of light.
Speaker 2: Each can do their best to combat the dark forces
Speaker 2: that have emerged in our own way. Each of us
Speaker 2: can confront ignorance and play some role in pointing out
Speaker 2: and combating anti Semitic prejudice and any conduct contrary to
Speaker 2: legal norms prohibiting discriminatory conduct when we encounter it. Let
Speaker 2: me conclude on a personal note. In a speech made
Speaker 2: on twenty eight November nineteen forty six to the Legislative
Speaker 2: Assembly of New South Wales, Abe Lander, in responding to
Speaker 2: instances of anti Semitic rhetoric that were then occurring in
Speaker 2: this state, said I shall treat any attack on the
Speaker 2: Jews as an attack upon my wife and my children.
Speaker 2: Although unlike Abe, I cannot say I spring from your
Speaker 2: faith over the sweep of almost eighty years, I can
Speaker 2: say I feel exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: Those are the words of Justice Michael Lee, spoken by
Speaker 1: a voice actor. You can read more of the speech
Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot Com dot A. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us on the front. Our team is Jasper League,
Speaker 1: Kristen Amiot, Leat Zammaglue, Tiffany Dimak, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Combs
Speaker 1: and me Claire Harvey.