Following the viral video that appears to show two (former) nurses and Bankstown Hospital threatening to kill Jewish people under their care, independent NSW MLC Mark Latham offered his comments about the mistake Australia made importing ideological hatred from the Middle East.
It comes shortly after the Labor-led federal government, in collaboration with the Coalition, passed controversial Hate Crime legislation with mandatory sentencing that sparked a debate about the limitations of free speech and whether this was an appropriate (and fair) response to rising antisemitism.
This is what Mr Latham had to say in NSW Parliament:
One of the hardest things in politics is to accept the limits of government and Parliamentary power.
And in the case of antisemitism, and these problems that have come to Australia essentially out of the Middle East, we are dealing with hatreds that are ingrained and clearly part of the existence of these people for thousands of years. Thousands of years…
The idea that we are going to roll that back with some protest laws in front of a synagogue, or some tougher penalties for graffiti, or we are going to try to define hate speech and the incitement to hatred really does not understand the extent of the problem.
I think there is an element of delusion here, driven by TV cameras and the need to make a response. And also, quite frankly, the power of the Jewish Lobby.
No one in this Chamber has spoken more comprehensibly and consistently in favour of the State of Israel whenever we have ventured into foreign policy, but I think Bob Carr is right in saying that the Jewish Lobby is strong and sometimes you find in government when you have a knee-jerk reaction to appease that lobby you cause unintended consequences for everyone else that represent poor law and poor public policy. And I think that is what we are seeing in the reaction of the Minns government.
The truth is, after October 7, the people peddling the antisemitism were given an escort down to the Opera House by the police. There was no policing of the street blockage laws, the protest laws, they were escorted down to the Opera House and they were chanting, ‘Kill the Jews!’ This government did nothing about it.
There was a police report [that said] they were saying, ‘Where are the Jews?’ Yeah. As if. They were chanting, ‘Kill the Jews!’
And it is the broken windows effect.
I know the Premier beats his chest now and he gets favourable coverage that he is being strong on these issues, but the problems started that night down at the Opera House.
Clearly, the radicals that we are talking about received a message, ‘Oh, this is alright… We get a police escort down there for an illegal protest. We can chant kill the Jews, and nothing happens to us!’
Since then, in NSW, there have been scores of illegal protests, none of which have been policed according to the law.
If you consistently send a message to a community that you can get away with anything, well, in the end they try anything.
And that stuff out of Bankstown Hospital today… Do you think we have the power of a Parliament and a government to wind back those hatreds … it is contrary to every principle of civilised society. It is frightening to think that the people in Bankstown and South-West Sydney might have to use that hospital could be treated that way. It is absolutely horrific.
