Steven Lowy: ‘Australia is sleepwalking into a social spiral’
Steven Lowy is shedding a lifetime of restraint to call out the ‘deeply disturbing’ things he is witnessing as a Jewish Australian - and the chronic leadership deficit in the face of it.
Steven Lowy says he has lived a blessed Australian life: a former co-chief executive of Westfield Corporation, respected across our business and civil life, a son of Holocaust survivor Frank Lowy, a community leader known for his privacy.
But Steven Lowy has now chosen to shed a lifetime of institutional restraint and speak out on the malaise afflicting Australia that threatens its multicultural values and social harmony.
“I am deeply disturbed by many things that are happening in our country,” he tells The Weekend Australian in an exclusive interview. “I am concerned and very sad that Australia is now sleepwalking into a period of extremist politics and a social spiral.
“We’ve seen levels of anti-Semitism that I have not seen before in my lifetime in this country.
“I want to remind the Australian people where these issues can lead if these events are not challenged and questioned. It is beyond any of us to influence what’s unfolding in the Middle East. But we can influence what our life is like here in Australia. When protests morph into support for a barbaric terrorist group like Hamas, or when they say that Israel should be wiped off the map ‘from the river to the sea’, then those of us who believe in Australian values should speak up, loudly and often.”
One reason Lowy has chosen to speak out is because he believes Australia suffers from a chronic leadership deficit – in public and private institutions – where leaders have chosen to ignore or deflect the eruption in anti-Semitism or pretend this will not damage the entire Australian society.
Lowy agreed to be interviewed coinciding with his receiving an honorary doctorate last Thursday from the University of NSW in a ceremony where he delivered an address on the theme “Responsibility and Values” – with his father, Frank, 93, in attendance.
Steven Lowy told The Weekend Australian he saw his university address and interview as a departure from anything he had previously said in public life.
“I feel this is my responsibility,” Lowy said. “I might upset a lot of people, but I feel this needs to be said. Good people need to speak up when we see what is happening in Australia.”
Lowy spoke as a prominent Jewish Australian, as a proud Zionist, as someone deeply concerned about the loss of innocent life in the current war – but, above all, he spoke as an Australian whose entire life and upbringing has been in this country, as someone who has believed in Australian values and now sees those values being attacked from within.
For many Jewish Australians, this is a profound shock.
Lowy told Inquirer: “I am deeply concerned not just by the threats to Israel but concerned about the Jewish world. I am the son of a Holocaust survivor. I see the fragility of things through the eyes of my parents, particularly my dad. He survived the Holocaust, but he is now living through what is a mini-Holocaust. Israel is now under existential threat from very serious foes. The diaspora Jewry are living through a time they have not lived through since 1945.”
He sees Australia suffering numerous failures arising from the Middle East crisis – a reluctance to recognise the threat to Israel’s existence from its enemies, the inability of many people in Australia to disagree without personal demonisation and the damage to Australia’s moral and political order from the anti-Semitism unleashed by the Greens political party.
“We can disagree with each other, without collectively demonising a people based on race or religion,” Lowy said in his university address. “We can choose to see Jewish people not through the prism of anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism, or as victims of this centuries-old curse. It should not be seen as a matter ‘left wing or right wing’. It never used to be.
“We can choose, instead, to see Jewish people for what they contribute to Australian society across the board” – from having the first Australian-born governor-general, Sir Isaac Isaacs, to our most celebrated soldier, Sir John Monash, to the role of Jewish Australians “in all facets of society including medicine, education, politics, science, sport and yes, the arts”.
“It is a sad fact that there has generally been lukewarm denunciation of anti-Semitism, at best by the leadership of many of our institutions. Belated apologies and ‘reviews of policy’ from the leadership of Sydney University, Sydney Theatre Company or Belvoir Theatre Company have done little to give me any confidence that genuine leadership is being restored.
“The fact is until such time as that occurs many Jews will no longer feel welcome or, worse, feel threatened in these places. When it really mattered, these institutions were incapable of living out their stated beliefs in equality, decency and the pursuit of truth. Half-hearted rejection of anti-Semitism is never enough, as history as shown all too well.
“I say all this as a proud Australian. Persecution of any minority cannot be tolerated and is simply un-Australian. It may start with the Jews but it won’t end there.”
Lowy said the crisis in the Middle East over Israel was being mobilised in a campaign where anti-Zionism was increasingly driven by anti-Semitism.
The deficit Australia faced was both political and moral. There was a threat from extremism and fragmentation in our politics. Lowy warned that historic policy achievements by both Coalition and Labor governments would be compromised in future if extremist parties such as the Greens got an influence over domestic and foreign policy – a warning about the risks arising from the 2025 election.
Lowy said: “It’s the actions and statements from the Greens that lead to incredibly disturbing concerns for our society from a moral perspective. The Greens’ rhetoric is staggering as they mask their real agenda behind climate change, the environment or a social conscience. The moral concerns following the events of October 7 and the atrocities that occurred – you saw a different response from the Greens with their rhetoric contributing to anti-Semitism in this country. The deputy leader of the Greens won’t even say that Hamas is an organisation that shouldn’t exist. Where do you go with this?
“You have a globally recognised terrorist organisation, recognised as such by Australia and every other reasonable country. We saw what barbaric activities that took place on October 7. Yet it seems that barbarism has already been forgotten. It’s not even a year and it’s forgotten. We even had a professor at Sydney University who was teaching the students that it didn’t happen.
“This is abhorrent from an Australian perspective. These are not the types of organisations that Australians have supported in the past.
“There was another Greens MP referring to Jews using their ‘tentacles’. This is not about fairness or equality – it is leading to extreme and divisive politics that are not in the interests of the Australian public. I feel compelled to speak on what I believe is the slide in our values. We need convinced leadership to bring Australia back to some sort of norm where this type of social behaviour doesn’t overwhelm our country.”
Lowy said he believed in a two-state solution, but this was possible only if the Palestinian leadership recognised Israel’s right to exist. He said the current loss of Palestinian life was “devastating” and he deplored its scale – but the conflict had been caused by the unprovoked October 7 assault on Israel by Hamas.
“The Israeli government is far from perfect,” Lowy said. “I question many policies of the current leadership in Israel – Israelis and diaspora Jews are their fiercest critics.”
He said there were about 15 million Jews on earth, about the same as in 1938. They equated to just 0.2 per cent of the global population; in Australia it was roughly 0.5 per cent of the population. While Christians live in many countries and Muslims are a majority in 49 countries, the situation facing Jews is completely different.
What happens to Jews if the campaign of Israel’s enemies were to succeed? Lowy said: “I am a proud Zionist and believe that Israel is the only guarantee the Jewish people have for survival.” Think about that – “the only guarantee”.
He told this paper: “You can be a Jewish Australian, a Christian Australian, a Muslim Australian, it shouldn’t matter. But it does matter right now. It does matter. When one meets somebody, one is thinking: does this person think the same of me today as they did before October 7? This is a terrible thing to be thinking, I can tell you.
“The Jewish community is very disturbed right now. Because before October 7 they wouldn’t even have thought about this. Now they think: do I have to be careful about what I say? I didn’t have to be careful yesterday. But this is now the mindset. It needs to be stopped and reversed, otherwise this country will suffer greatly.
“Adherence to our Australian values is not guaranteed. They are fragile and can be lost very quickly if we are not careful.”
Lowy appealed for a return to strong, conviction leadership: “There should be zero tolerance in Australia for what happened after October 7. Yet we have seen these levels of anti-Semitism being tolerated. My family has experienced this personally. We’ve seen it at a lot of our institutions and it’s very disturbing. I think those people who have followed the Greens know very little about the issue, the context, the history, and go to the extreme of supporting a barbaric terrorist organisation like Hamas.
“Why is this taking place now?”
Lowy is wired into Australian society at a high level. He sees a leadership deficit in the country across many of its vital institutions.
“Leadership is about conviction,” he said. “Leadership is not about popularity. It is about doing what is fundamentally right for the country or for the institution. And we are seeing this slipping in Australia now. We live in an age of a conviction deficit. And once you create a little crack, you give licence. We are now paying a high price for that.”
Lowy said being born in Australia had been “a blessing for me personally” – his generation was the first in his family born into “safety, security and privilege”. He described the world of Sydney in the 1950s and ’70s as his family experienced it: “I didn’t grow up in a world of identity politics. My dad will tell you he was embraced, a Hungarian Jew coming to Australia with no money, eight years later he floats a public company with his partner. That happens because the society is tolerant.
“Rarely did I encounter anti-Semitism. At Sydney Grammar School, I wasn’t a Jewish kid. It didn’t matter if you were Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or otherwise. We weren’t specifically taught ‘Australian values’. We just lived them every day unconsciously.
“But things are changing before our eyes. It would have been inconceivable to me just a year ago to feel compelled to even mention anti-Semitism or erosion of Australian values in a speech like this. But here we are. In Australia, in 2024. Post-October 7, anti-Semitism is with us again, as it has been in every century for the past 2000 years or more.”
Lowy said he believed the current levels of anti-Semitism were reversible – but only with leadership. “I grew up with politicians like Neville Wran, Bob Hawke, John Howard and Paul Keating – leaders from different sides – but we saw them tackle tough issues with conviction. It doesn’t feel like that today.
“Things will only be reversed with recognition of the problem, with the enforcement of laws where laws are broken, with enforcement by police and courts with political backing for enforcement. If the situation is not changed, where does that lead us? Am I here because I’m Jewish or because I can contribute to society?”
In his interview Lowy lamented that Israel was now a source of foreign policy conflict between Labor and the Coalition. He regretted the loss of bipartisanship. Indeed, his main political theme was the need to preserve the strength of Labor and Coalition as governing parties against the rise of minority extremism, the Greens being the worst danger.
Looking on the hopeful side, he said: “If you look at leaders today you see strong conviction from Chris Minns, the NSW Labor Premier, and Peter Dutton, the federal Coalition leader. Israel doesn’t have to be a left or right issue.” Yet Lowy knows Australian policy towards Israel reflects core values and those values are being diminished. He would never say it, but while Penny Wong is Foreign Minister, having driven Australia’s deep foreign policy realignment against Israel, there is no prospect of any bipartisanship.
Lowy repudiated the basis of current Australian foreign policy: “Australia’s voting behaviour in the UN is not consistent with a negotiated two-state solution. It’s trying to impose one. A two-state solution needs to be supported and negotiated. But that can only happen when the Palestinian people are free – free from groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. While I wouldn’t say Australia’s position is intended to reward, a by-product of it is rewarding the barbarism that has taken place and continues to take place.”
I asked Lowy how he felt, a year later, given no cabinet minister from the Albanese government had visited the sites in southern Israel of the October 7 massacres – a moral failure of calculated intent. He answered: “That does disturb me greatly.”
“I’ve personally been to Israel six times since,” Lowy said. “I’ve visited the south, one week after October 7. I personally saw the atrocities that had taken place. I think one has to see this first-hand to fully understand the evil that Israel had to deal with on a daily basis. There was evil everywhere, whether it was the burning of bodies, the beheading of bodies, the burning of babies, the hostages, the atrocities towards women from the Nova festival where nearly 400 were slaughtered or taken hostage in the most barbaric of circumstances.”
He reflected in sorrow at the inadequacies of Australia’s response in the arts and universities, saying many institutions “are probably populated by people who don’t have an understanding of how to deal with these issues”.
He said: “We need people who have the courage of their convictions, so if the institution goes one way, then they can just leave. You saw this with the Sydney Theatre Company when a couple of board members left fairly swiftly. They had courage but the institution itself did not have courage.”
Lowy suggested that a way of rekindling Australian values in young people was to revive the idea of national service, civil or military.
“I don’t see this being discussed as an agenda item,” Lowy said. “But I’ve seen examples around the world where it is very good for the country. It would help to unite and bind our society. It means serving the country, whether it’s in education or aged care homes or the disability sector.
“There are so many areas where young people can contribute. Surely we can find ways to direct the energies of young Australians to worthwhile projects. We need to do more than pay lip service to Australian values on Australia Day or Anzac Day.”
Lowy quoted British philosopher, teacher, author and former chief rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks saying that anti-Semitism survived because it mutated like a virus. “In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries they were hated because of their race. Today, Jews are attacked because of their nation-state – Israel.”
Sacks said denying Israel’s right to exist had become the new anti-Semitism. Lowy said the truth of this statement was revealed at the UN: “In 2023 the UN General Assembly passed more than double the number of resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined.”
“Why is that?” Lowy asked Inquirer. “These are reasonable questions to ask. Israel is held to a different standard to any other country. Today Israel is probably the only state that is being questioned for its right to exist.”
Much of Israel’s behaviour is dictated precisely because it faces an openly declared threat to its existence – yet this central truth along with the monumental hypocrisy of the UN is virtually eliminated from most public debate and official pronouncements about the Middle East crisis.
Lowy said: “The UN’s Human Rights Council Social Forum is currently chaired by Iran – a country that wants to be the dominant power in the Middle East and destroy Israel; funds and trains terrorists and subjugates its people.
“Even our language is being hijacked. Words like apartheid, genocide and colonisation are being weaponised to demonise Jews around the world and object to even Israel’s right to exist.
“Israel is clearly not an apartheid state. It is one of the most pluralistic societies on earth. The term ‘genocide’ was developed by the Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin in the wake of the Holocaust to define the crime of extermination of a race. It is now being deployed against Israel as it fights a just war against a merciless foe.
“It is countries like Iran and its surrogate terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that openly advocate genocide of the Jewish people and use Palestinians as human shields. Why do they not protect their own people? And why does the media not give this the prominence it gives to criticism of Israel?
“Hamas is not interested in fighting for a Palestinian state, only killing as many Jews as possible and taking Palestinian civilians with them while they do it.”
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