Election 2025: Jewish chief slams Mark Dreyfus over vote-swapping deal with Greens in safe Labor seat

Australia’s peak Jewish body has launched a scathing attack on Labor’s most senior Jewish minister over a preference pact made with the Greens in his safe Victorian Labor seat of Isaacs.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Picture: Martin Ollman

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The nation’s peak Jewish body has questioned how an eminent Jewish Australian like Mark Dreyfus could commit to a vote-swapping deal with the Greens, condemning the Labor Attorney-General’s pact with the anti-Israel party as “disappointing” and ­“difficult to comprehend”.

Mr Dreyfus, who sits on a comfortable 9.5 per cent margin, has instructed his supporters to preference Greens candidate Matthew Kirwan, despite previously criticising the party for inciting potentially violent anti-Israel protests outside MPs’ offices and failing to condemn Hamas.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s co-chief executive, Alex Ryvchin, said both major parties should be united in ­“marginalising the Greens for what they have done to our communities and our country”.

“It is bitterly disappointing that a senior member of the government and an eminent Jewish Australian could see fit to instruct his supporters to put a ‘2’ next to a party that has done more to vilify the Jewish community than any party in Australian history,” he told The Australian.

“Mr Dreyfus has previously shown a keen understanding of how extreme anti-Israel rhetoric is in fact anti-Semitism no matter the euphemisms or political code it comes wrapped in.

“It is difficult to comprehend how a person who knows this could uplift and legitimise the purveyors of this anti-Semitism.”

The Attorney-General’s how-to-vote cards will direct voters to put the Greens candidate as their No.2 pick, despite his backing of the Palestinian Advocacy Network, his attendance at an anti-­Israel protest outside a Labor minister’s office, and his demands for sanctions on Israel.

The how-to-vote card only states Mr Kirwan and the other candidates’ names and does not mention their parties.

Mark Dreyfus’s 2025 federal election how-to-vote card.

The Attorney-General’s vote-swapping pact with the Greens in Isaacs comes despite fellow Victorian MP Josh Burns – who is also Jewish – refusing to direct preferences in his inner-Melbourne seat of Macnamara, where there is a significant Jewish voter base.

Mr Dreyfus led efforts to outlaw doxxing and Nazi symbols in Australia, and has repeatedly talked about the strain the domestic anti-Semitism crisis has had on him and other Jewish Australians.

He is also the most senior Labor MP to have visited Israel in the past year. He visited the sites of October 7 massacres and faced the fury of the Israeli government over Labor’s pro-Palestinian voting ­record in the United Nations.

Last June, Mr Dreyfus faced a legal threat from Greens leader Adam Bandt after he accused the anti-Israel party of backing violent protests outside the offices of MPs.

Matthew Kirwan at a protest outside of Clare O'Neil's electoral office in April 2024. Picture: Instagram

“I think that the Greens political party, and particularly the ­leader of the Greens political party, have got something to answer for here in the way that they have been encouraging criminal damage of MPs’ electorate offices, encouraging really riotous behaviour, sometimes violent behaviour, that has been occurring outside electorate offices,” Mr Dreyfus told the ABC at the time.

And in September, Mr Dreyfus attacked the Greens for the ­repeated failures to condemn the actions of terror group Hamas. “We have yet to hear a proper condemnation of Hamas from Greens Party senators. It’s amazing that I should state that here in Australia in 2024,” he said in Sydney.

Mr Dreyfus with Israeli Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Sharren Haskel. Picture: X

Mr Kirwan, who previously served as a Greens councillor for the City of Greater Dandenong, attended several pro-Palestine rallies last year, including a protest outside Clare O’Neil’s Oakleigh electoral office in Melbourne’s southeast.

“Many in Isaacs are personally affected by the Palestine situation or are people seeking asylum living in community detention. Only the Greens are serious about global justice issues and stand by the oppressed,” Mr Kirwan’s official website states.

The Greens candidate for Isaacs last week called for “targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel”, and an end to Israel’s “illegal occupation and apartheid”.

Mr Dreyfus was contacted for comment.