The Greens are playing with red paint over Gaza. It could stain their hands

The two men in black balaclavas, carrying hammers and spray cans, approached Daniel Mulino’s electorate office while Australia slept in the early hours of last Friday. They walked down the main street of Sunshine, on the western edge of Melbourne, without another soul in sight. They sprayed red paint randomly over the windows of the federal Labor MP’s office, then painted slogans over the footpath. Then they smashed the glass.

Their calling card was a disturbing flourish. They painted an inverted red triangle on the front of the office. This is a deeply divisive symbol that has been used by Hamas for years and is viewed by some as a way for the terrorist group to signal future targets.

Following the two men was an accomplice who filmed the attack, so the video could be uploaded to social media as propaganda. Their post claimed, falsely, that Mulino and Labor had voted with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition against recognising the state of Palestine. And they said this: “We, his constituents, opposed to genocide, paid him a visit.”

The smashing of sheet glass is nothing compared with the deaths in the Middle East, where 1200 Israelis died in the Hamas attack on October 7 and an estimated 35,000 Palestinians have died in the subsequent attacks on Gaza. Even so, the vandalism brought a hint of overseas violence to the streets of Australia.

And that is a problem for Greens leader Adam Bandt and his party. He does not want to hear it, but he and the party are using inflammatory language, and outright falsehoods, for political ends.

Other electorate offices are being targeted in the same way. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles have had their offices vandalised. So have several Labor backbenchers: Ged Kearney, the former ACTU president who holds Cooper in Melbourne; Lisa Chesters, who holds the seat of Bendigo; and Peter Khalil, the former defence expert who represents Wills in Melbourne.

This is the essential background to the moment in parliament when Anthony Albanese called out the Greens for their claims about the war in Gaza. The clash this week was a pivotal dispute, and a moment to remember because it was about the danger of importing the incendiary hatreds of the Middle East into Australian life.

The sequence, in short form, was this. Independent MP Sophie Scamps asked Albanese a question about the need for social cohesion in the light of the war in Gaza. It was a good question that reflected concern about Israeli and Palestinian deaths and the tone of Australian debate.

The prime minister, clearly angry about the attacks on electorate offices, blamed the Greens for spreading misinformation and said it was time to stop inflaming tensions. Dutton rose, in the usual way, to endorse these remarks. But the opposition leader went further, and harder, with an attack on the Greens and a warning about antisemitism.

Bandt was incendiary. He accused the government of being complicit in the invasion of Gaza after the October 7 attacks. He said Labor was complicit in genocide. He attacked the government for not calling for a ceasefire. When he said the Greens were a party of peace and non-violence, Labor and Coalition MPs jeered in derision.

This was not the response Scamps had expected on social cohesion. She was dismayed at the angry argument. But the parliament erupted for a reason. The attacks at the end of last week were an inflection point that took Labor MPs to new levels of concern about the way they are being targeted.

Worse, the vandals in the night use the same claims the Greens make during the day. The truth is that nobody in the government encouraged the Israeli invasion of Gaza, nobody has endorsed genocide and Foreign Minister Penny Wong has repeatedly called for a ceasefire. Bandt was demonstrably wrong.

The government has not voted against Palestinian statehood. Labor and the Coalition refused an attempt by the Greens to put a motion about this to parliament last week, but that was a procedural vote on the business of the day. The government supports a two-state solution, which means Palestinian statehood. Wong has suggested this should happen without Israel dictating the terms.

The problem for the Greens is that some of their members are actively supporting protests that get out of control. One former Greens candidate, Campbell Gome, addressed a protest that disrupted a forum Kearney held on April 30. Kearney said staff members were shoved and injured.

In fairness to the Greens, there is no evidence they have incited violence or encouraged anyone to attack electorate offices. Even so, Bandt sent this message on social media in April: “to everyone holding this government to account with their marching, calling, blockading: we are with you and we will keep pushing.” Those blockades prevent constituents from getting to see their MPs. And they turn electorate offices into targets.

The anxiety is not confected. In Britain, two politicians – Jo Cox and David Amess – have been murdered in the past decade. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw told parliament last week about a big increase in threats and harassment towards Australian politicians. The police received 279 reports about this problem in 2021. It has surged to 725 reports so far this financial year.

Those numbers are a warning to all sides to stop the inflammatory language, so Albanese and Dutton have to be careful. So does Dreyfus, who claimed on Wednesday that Bandt was encouraging the criminal damage, riotous behaviour and sometimes violent behaviour. He went too far. The Greens have not endorsed criminal damage or violence. Bandt has threatened to sue Dreyfus.

Bandt, however, is hitting the accelerator in a race to inflame. He called a press conference in Parliament House on Thursday morning at which he said Labor had backed the invasion of Gaza, supported genocide and only wanted a temporary ceasefire so it could be followed by more bombs being dropped on Palestinians. He said the government supported slaughter.

False claims like these would be dismissed quickly if they were uttered by Clive Palmer, the mining billionaire who runs the United Australia Party. For another contrast, consider the way Dutton has been excoriated for his language about migration. The Greens, however, seem to think their self-righteous fury entitles them to a different standard. In truth, their falsehoods are more dangerous than Palmer’s because they have a larger political base and a bigger platform. They generally benefit from a more tolerant media.

The false claims in that Parliament House press conference will reverberate in the world outside. The vandals in Sunshine made the same false claims as the Greens, so the danger is easy to see. In a single mad moment, the idea that a federal MP is voting for slaughter can be used in a warped mind to justify an attack. Let’s hope that never happens.

The Greens are playing with red paint. If they are not careful, it will stain their hands for good.

David Crowe is chief political correspondent.