‘Lost his voice’: Dutton criticises Jewish MP over government’s antisemitism response

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has singled out Labor MP Josh Burns, claiming he has failed to challenge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on behalf of the Jewish community as the partisan divide deepens over the response to the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue last week.

Dutton on Monday unveiled his policy response to the attack on the Adass Israel synagogue, which police are now treating as a terrorist incident, announcing a law enforcement antisemitism taskforce and legal changes that would allow a non-citizen to be deported for antisemitic conduct.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says Labor MP Josh Burns (right) has lost his voice speaking on behalf of the Jewish community.Credit: Justin McManus, Dominic Lorrimer

But in an unusually direct attack on a backbench MP, Dutton, referring to the fact Burns temporarily lost his voice last week, said: “Josh is a nice guy, but Josh lost his voice long before the weekend.”

“When people were brought in from Gaza, people who hadn’t had the security checks undertaken on tourist visas, that’s when Josh Burns should have been speaking. Josh Burns should have been speaking up when the protests took place at the Opera House,” he said.

Burns, who is Jewish and whose seat of Macnamara contains the Adass Israel synagogue, said he “couldn’t care less” about Dutton’s attacks as he was focused on serving his community.

Burns has been one of Labor’s most pro-Israel voices. He has criticised the Albanese government’s decision to vote for greater rights for Palestine at the United Nations and travelled to Israel to express solidarity following the October 7 Hamas massacre. As a result, his federal office has been a target of anti-Israel protesters.

“This has been my life, my world, my community – my office was attacked – and I’ve spent every day, working as hard as I can in my community, standing up for them,” Burns said.

“It doesn’t serve the Jewish community to be arguing amongst ourselves. It doesn’t serve the Jewish community to be fighting amongst the political class.”

At the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked the synagogue attack to what he called the Albanese government’s “anti-Israel sentiment”, further straining relations already tested by Australia’s UN voting record on Palestine and recent denial of a visa for a former Israeli cabinet minister.

Defending his record on tackling antisemitism, Albanese said at the weekend his government had banned the Nazi salute and symbols, appointed the nation’s first antisemitism envoy and passed anti-doxxing legislation following the release of details from a Jewish community WhatsApp group.

Dutton promised on Monday to match the government’s $32.5 million commitment to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry over the next 18 months to increase security for Jewish communities, but said the funding would have no “strings attached … unlike the Albanese government who have restricted funding to unarmed guards only”.

Liberal frontbenchers including Jane Hume and James Paterson continued their criticism of Labor’s response to the synagogue firebombing.

“I’m really not sure what took the prime minister 72 hours to find the words to condemn it in such clear terms,” Paterson, the opposition’s home affairs spokesman, told ABC’s RN Breakfast.

Ahead of the formal police terrorism declaration, Albanese said on Sunday it was his personal view that the attack was an “act of terrorism”.

Speaking on Seven’s Sunrise, Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said the attack was “truly shocking”, and that “antisemitism has no place in Australia”, before lambasting the Coalition for saying it wanted change but failing to support bills before the parliament.

On Sunday, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus hit back at Dutton for wrongly claiming the government had not passed anti-doxxing laws when it did so last month without the Coalition’s support.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.