Fine unis that fail to crack down on ‘racist’ pro-Palestine encampments: Coalition

The federal opposition is calling for the forcible break-up of pro-Palestine university tent protests and new laws to fine universities that do not sanction misbehaving protesters.

Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson and senior frontbencher Michael Sukkar said the encampments should be forcibly broken up by police.

Members of a Jewish rally against antisemitism at the University of Melbourne face off with the pro-Palestine student camp.Credit: Sherryn Groch

Henderson has called for the police to move the demonstrators off publicly owned land, but university chiefs have prioritised de-escalation and believe that sending in authorities would only heighten hostilities.

Labor minister Bill Shorten has also demanded that university vice-chancellors enforce codes of conduct to protect Jewish students.

Shorten and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton both told this masthead that vice-chancellors must do more to foster a safe campus atmosphere, as anti-war activists mirror US protest encampments at top universities across Australia.

“The higher education regulator must be given powers to fine universities which fail to enforce their own codes of conduct and keep people safe on campus,” Henderson said, recommending the enacting of “time and place” protest rules that allow demonstrations at agreed times.

The Pro-Palestine student camp faces off a visit from Israel supporters and Jewish students at the University of Melbourne last week.Credit: Darrian Traynor

“By allowing terrorist slogans and chants, the Group of Eight’s claim that ‘we have little recourse to their use’ shows Australia’s elite universities don’t have the moral courage to keep Jewish students safe.”

There have been flare-ups between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Israel-supporting counter-protesters – including a stand-off between the two groups at the University of Melbourne on Thursday.

However, local protests have not led to significant outbreaks of violence, and the pro-Palestine demonstrators have not occupied university buildings in their campaign against the Israel military’s operation that Hamas says has killed 34,000 people.

But some Jewish student groups have raised concerns about displays of flags associated with terror groups, chants on violent uprisings, alleged harassment and intimidation, and public statements such as that of a key Australian National University protest leader who claimed the Hamas terror group “deserve our unconditional support”.

The University of Melbourne student encampment in protest against the war in Gaza.Credit: Simon Schluter

Shorten said university chiefs were straddling a tricky line between upholding the freedom to protest and standing up for the rights of Jewish students made to feel answerable for the actions of a foreign government.

“Freedom of speech is not unfettered, and it doesn’t give a right to bully and coerce and intimidate,” he said.

The former Labor leader pointed to reports he had received about activists photographing students in class if they refused to stand up in support of the Palestinian movement. In another case, a tutor advised a student to skip class if they felt uncomfortable with it being held alongside an encampment.

“What’s the point of a code of conduct if some people think they’re above the law? It can’t be a selective code of conduct,” Shorten said.

Dutton has argued that the protests are “racist”, and says Jews are being targeted in a way that would not be accepted for other minority groups.

“These people are highly paid individuals running profitable institutions and for them to wash their hands of these protests is an absolute disgrace,” Dutton said of university chiefs.

But protest leaders have denied claims of antisemitism and say their action is aimed at Israel’s war policy and getting rid of links between Australian universities and Israel.

In a sign of drastically divergent political opinion on Israel’s brutal military campaign, Greens leader Adam Bandt challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to back the protests and said that breaking them up would be anti-democratic.

“Social movements throughout history have had a place on campus, and these brave students are drawing attention to an invasion backed by Labor that has killed tens of thousands of civilians so far,” he said.

Albanese met Jewish leaders in Sydney on Friday to discuss their community’s safety. “Students must feel safe at university classes,” he said in a statement after the meeting.

The feuding over campus demonstrations represents the latest outbreak of local tension stemming from a Middle Eastern war that has seen Labor under attack from the pro-Israel Coalition on its right flank and the Palestinian-supporting Greens on its left.

Revelations that western Sydney teenagers charged with terrorism after the Wakeley church stabbing were discussing murdering Jews have heightened anxieties within the Jewish community about the threat posed by radicalism.

Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.Credit: Justin McManus

Fuelling their sense of alarm is a push by Australia’s top Palestinian advocate, Nasser Mashni, to grant a visa to Palestinian liberation hero Leila Khaled, who hijacked planes in the 1960s and has celebrated the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Facebook owner Meta has intervened to block posts about Khaled’s planned Australian speech at an event alongside Mashni, who recently spruiked Australia’s university protesters in an appearance on Iranian state TV.

University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott said incidents being investigated included allegations that a driver spat at university staff while making an unauthorised delivery to the encampment, slogans being graffitied on building walls and protesters blocking City Road.

Scott said he was “shocked” by vision from a children’s excursion organised by an external group and held at the camp last week when children were heard chanting slogans calling for “intifada”. But he cautioned that terms such as intifada, which means uprising in Arabic, and other anti-Israel slogans did not necessarily constitute conduct breaches.

“Over the years you can go back to the Vietnam War, the conscription debate – there have always been strongly held views and intense debates,” he said.

“That’s part of who we are. Our instinct is never to pre-emptively shut down free speech and debate and the right to protest.”

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.