Victoria Police gives job of hunting down anti-Semitic vandals to local cops

Victoria Police is leaving the job of hunting down anti-Semitic vandals responsible for a spate of attacks on political offices to local police.

Victoria Police is still treating a spate of anti-Semitic attacks on electorate offices throughout Melbourne as individual investigations led by local cops, as raids escalate, with vandals setting fire to the inner seaside St Kilda shopfront of Jewish MP Josh Burns.

Six vandals attacked the Labor MP’s electorate office around 3.20am on Wednesday, lighting two fires, smashing windows, spraying red paint and daubing the slogan “Zionism is fascism” on Mr Burns’s photo.

Despite pro-Palestinian vandals attacking up to a dozen federal and state electorate offices in the wake of the October 7 terror attacks on Israel, Victoria Police confirmed it was yet to call in or establish a dedicated taskforce to lead the investigation.

Asked by The Australian whether it could confirm how many attacks on electorate offices were being investigated, how many arrests and charges had been laid and whether calling in a specialist taskforce was being considered, Victoria Police said: “These incidents are investigated by local crime investigation units; we do not have overall stats.”

Asked specifically about May’s vandalism of former opposition leader Bill Shorten’s office in Moonee Ponds, Victoria Police said: “There’s no update on this incident; the investigation remains ongoing.”

Mr Burns, the Labor MP for the heavily Jewish electorate of Macnamara, has described the attack as dangerous. Police have confirmed the vandals set fire to two telecommunications pits and the facade of the electorate office.

“It was clearly politically motivated by having the graffiti on the outside of the office. This was ­really ugly behaviour. It was dangerous and it put residents’ lives and livelihoods at risk,” Mr Burns said.

“I want to remind people what the office actually is and what it is there to do. My staff are there to look after their community; to provide access to government and government services, whether it be the NDIS, whether it be immigration, visa issues, Centrelink, whatever it is, my team are here to help.

Red paint sprayed inside Mr Burns’s electorate office.

“And at the moment … they can’t be in the office, it’s not safe in the office, it’s still a crime scene. And it’s a reflection of eight months of my team turning up to work and being abused and being screamed at, and I’ve got really good people working for me … who have no role in a conflict on the other side of the world.

“And their place of work has been smashed in by really dangerous idiots. It’s a reflection of the sort of conduct of political debate right now. We’re in Australia … We’re in multicultural Melbourne. This isn’t respectful right now.

“This is a dangerous escalation of people trying to bring a conflict on the other side of the world to our streets, and it needs … to stop, because it’s dangerous.”

Since October 7, there has been a string of anti-Semitic attacks on electorate offices with windows smashed and shopfronts sprayed with red paint, leaving taxpayers facing a repair bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Labor MPs Peter Khalil and Daniel Mulino and the offices of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus have also been damaged by vandals.

Mr Burns. Picture: David Crosling

Anthony Albanese has been locked out of his Sydney electorate office for most of this year because of pro-Palestinian protests.

Australian Federal Police told a Senate estimates committee hearing this month that 725 threats against MPs had been reported so far this financial year, compared with 279 in 2020-21.

Jewish former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has called on the nation’s political leaders and law enforcement to do more to protect the community

“The attack on Josh Burns’s office was despicable and dangerous and one that requires more than words of condemnation,” he told The Australian.

“We need more action from our political leaders and law enforcement to protect the community. Our leaders must step up and wrest control back from the mob, a mob that has had free rein since October 7 to act in a violent, hateful, un-Australian manner.

“It is after all not just the Jewish community that is under attack, it’s Australia’s social co­hesion that is under attack and the very values that underpin it.

“This is Australia’s fight and it’s a fight we must win.”

The Prime Minister called the attack on Mr Burns’s office an “escalation” of previous acts.

“We’ve got to dial this down,” he told the ABC. “The people who were responsible for this attack should face the full force of the law; it is very distressing for Josh and for his staff.”

Jewish community leader Dvir Abramovich described the attack on Mr Burns’s office as “another sickening and evil act of anti-Semitic vandalism”.