Just not kosher. The diabolical dilemma facing Jewish voters in Macnamara

Jewish Australia’s relationship with the Albanese government is, to put it mildly, complicated.

Nowhere is this more acutely felt than in Australia’s most Jewish electorate, Macnamara, currently held by Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns.

Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns faces a battle in his seat of Macnamara.Credit: Justin McManus

With early voting now open, electors in Melbourne’s bagel belt suburbs of Caulfield, Elsternwick and Ripponlea are weighing what message to send, if any, about the government’s response to October 7, the war in Gaza and the corrosive forces that have spun off into their communities.

Like the abysmal conflict still raging in Gaza, there are no good choices on offer.

To understand the prevailing Jewish sentiment towards Anthony Albanese and his government heading into this election campaign, this column sought the views of Peter Wertheim.

Wertheim is one of the co-chief executives of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a peak body which represents about 200 Jewish schools, synagogues, sporting clubs, and cultural organisations. As an organisation, it has been a vociferous critic of the federal government’s tepid response to antisemitism unleashed by the war.

Wertheim is also one of the few Jewish community leaders with a direct line to the PM. As a former Slater and Gordon lawyer whose clients included trade unions and the Labor Party, and an honorary solicitor for the Aboriginal Legal Service and East Timor Relief Association, he has a long-standing relationship with the ALP, Albanese, and social causes dear to the party’s true believers.

In 2011, Wertheim and Albanese forged an alliance against a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign by the Marrickville council.

For Albanese, the issue was partly personal, as the local mayor was trying to oust his wife at the time, Carmel Tebbutt, from her state seat of Marrickville. Having spoken to Albanese about it over the years, Wertheim has no doubt that Albanese’s stance against the BDS was principled and sincere. “I think he understands that demonising an entire nation is racist and wrong in every way and no way to end a conflict,” he says.

When asked to articulate how Jewish communities feel now towards the PM and his government, Wertheim says there is no black and white answer.

“We have been heartened by many of the measures taken by the government, but at times we have felt disappointed by what we see as hesitancy and inconsistency in the government’s messaging,” he says.

In the credit column for the ALP, Wertheim points to $57.5 million in federal government grants to boost community security, the appointment of a special envoy for antisemitism, the passage of stronger anti-incitement laws and the banning of Nazi salutes, symbols and memorabilia.

In the column against, he cites the government’s reflexive bracketing of concerns about Jewish hatred with Islamophobia, positions taken at the UN which appear to absolve Hamas of responsibility for the war in Gaza and the ALP’s preferencing of the Greens, a party whose parliamentarians have at times refused to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organisation and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

Since the campaign began, Albanese has ruled out a power-sharing arrangement with the Greens but resisted calls from Jewish groups to preference the Liberals ahead of the Greens in all seats. In Macnamara, Burns won dispensation from Labor HQ to provide how to vote cards without preferencing either the Liberals or the Greens, a step which this week triggered reprisals from the Greens.

When pressed on whether he considers Albanese a true friend to Jewish Australians, Wertheim offers a careful response: “It’s the role of any prime minister to be a real friend to all Australians. I believe we have a good, mutually respectful relationship with the PM, as we do with the opposition front bench.”

Wertheim’s equivocation goes to the heart of the Jewish dilemma in Macnamara, where Jewish voters represent about 12 per cent of the electorate.

The battle for Macnamara is, on paper, a genuine three-way contest between the ALP, the Greens and the Liberal Party. But, in the absence of a spectacular shift in voting behaviour in a seat held by Labor for more than 100 years, only the ALP or Greens can win.

Once preferences are distributed so that only three candidates are remaining, it is almost certain that Liberal candidate Benson Saulo will have the most votes. The Liberals have led at this stage of the count at the last four elections and should again on May 3, particularly if Jewish voters abandon Labor and the Greens.

It is also near certain that the seat will be won by whichever party is in second place at this stage.

In 2022, Labor led the Greens at this point of the count by just 594 votes. That ensured that Greens preferences lifted Burns comfortably above the Liberals. Had the Greens been in second place at that stage, they would have won off the back of Labor preferences.

Tony Lupton, a former Labor state parliamentarian, has teamed up with Michael Danby, a former Labor MP for Macnamara who preceded Burns in the seat, to campaign against the Greens. Their main objective between now and polling day is to explain to prevaricating Labor voters the vagaries of preferential voting.

“How much of a warm feeling do you want to get in the polling booth compared to the hangover you’ll have the next day when the Greens get elected?” Lupton says.

“I never say that the Liberals cannot possibly win Macnamara but the overwhelmingly likelihood is that, if Josh Burns finishes third, the Greens will win. For people who are thinking they will vote Liberal to punish the Labor Party, that would be their nightmare scenario.”

This electoral conundrum is causing Jewish voters more anxiety than a Woody Allen screenplay. Two Jews, three opinions, the old joke goes. In Macnamara, there are three candidates, two possibilities and neither is remotely kosher to most Jews.

Chip Le Grand is state political editor.

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