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July 20, 2026 \u2014 12:48pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said Australia should consider banning protests outside synagogues and Jewish schools by introducing laws similar to those that apply to abortion clinics.<\/p>\n Appearing before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion<\/a> on Monday as part of its hearings into security measures, the federal MP said the Jewish community in Australia has been under \u201cconstant threat\u201d since October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n Dreyfus said Jewish schools have now \u201chardened\u201d the exterior of their buildings because of threats against them, and told the commission it should consider recommending new laws \u201canalogous to the restrictions on protest activity around abortion clinics\u201d as part of its eventual report.<\/p>\n \u201cNo other religious group in Australia, in going to worship, has to walk past guards. The Jewish community does, in response to a real and assessed risk. No one would wish for this, but it has been necessary, and sadly continues to be necessary,\u201d Dreyfus said.<\/p>\n Related Article Speaking of his own personal encounters with antisemitism, the member for Isaacs told Commissioner Virginia Bell that in 2024 he was approached by a man in the street who said: \u201cYou are a genocidal Zionist, you should be ashamed of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had never experienced that form of abuse,\u201d Dreyfus said. \u201cNo one had ever hurled abuse at me because I am Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n About a month later, his electorate office in Melbourne\u2019s south-eastern suburbs was vandalised, with signs painted saying, \u201cWho does Attorney-General Dreyfus serve?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt invokes all of those old antisemitic tropes about dual loyalties and treachery to Australia, all of which are false. It\u2019s a deeply wounding attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Dreyfus also said he had been called a \u201ckapo\u201d \u2013 a reference to Jews who had cooperated with concentration camp guards during the Holocaust \u2013 on social media by Jewish Australians. He said he believed it was because he had been constrained in what he could say publicly by cabinet solidarity.<\/p>\n \u201cI found those attacks from some Jewish Australians particularly difficult and painful,\u201d Dreyfus said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Having served as the federal first law officer between 2022 and 2025, Dreyfus also told the commission that Australia should again consider legal changes to beef up hate speech laws, establishing a national gun registry, and imposing new restrictions on social media \u2013 including a right for Australians to sue social media companies for abuse that appears on their platforms, without having to risk paying the costs.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia can show the way here on legislating rules … and establish an enforceable duty on the social media platforms,\u201d Dreyfus said.<\/p>\n Related Article Pointing out the huge wealth of social media companies compared with the relatively small budget of the eSafety commissioner, Dreyfus said that a \u201cprivate right of action might assist in enforcement of this digital duty\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something that pushes the cost onto social media platforms at an early stage, and says you\u2019re going to pay the whole cost of this … it can\u2019t just be left to the safety commissioner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rather than individuals suing for damages, the law could require the social media companies to take down offending comments, Dreyfus said.<\/p>\n Counsel assisting the commission Richard Lancaster, SC, opened the commission\u2019s fifth hearing block on Monday, saying synagogues had been forced to cancel events and services, and observed a \u201cshrinking of Jewish communal life\u201d because of ongoing security issues that included \u201cindividuals who waited near the synagogue gate, shouting abuse of those who attended\u201d.<\/p>\n He also quoted a school principal who said students were sitting exams with the equivalent of \u201c20 per cent of their brain switched off\u201d because they were so preoccupied with security measures.<\/p>\n That was \u201cthe bandwidth that has to be directed to dealing with the impacts of antisemitism and the consequential physical measures\u201d, Lancaster said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat principal and others are right to say that no Australian community should face these conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n Lancaster said this hearing block would contain four categories of evidence \u2013 the experience of Jewish Australians under these conditions, the government funding for security, the role of police, and the role of Jewish communal security groups.<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2a8cd9dc36a510a5215bbb8505ad593fbfbac9e2.jpeg\")
Former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n![\"Professor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8393293b3839da68c6492cb9680cd7735b2ebdfd.jpeg\")
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Michael Bachelard<\/a> is a senior writer and former deputy editor and investigations editor of The Age. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta, has written two books and won multiple awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 20, 2026 \u2014 12:48pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-811457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}