Brisbane councillor ordered to repay $20,000 for pro-Palestine newsletter
By Tony Moore
Brisbane’s LNP councillors are demanding Greens councillor Trina Massey repay the $20,000 cost of a six-page community newsletter that had two pages of pro-Palestine content.
The 18 LNP councillors voted that Massey repay to the council the money used to produce, print and distribute her Spring 2024 newsletter.
Labor’s five councillors abstained, while fellow Green councillor Seal Chong Wah voted that Massey not be required to repay the money.
Gabba councillor Trina Massey has been asked to repay $20,000 to the council.Credit: Trina Massey
If Massey were to repay the money, it could come from her own pocket, or from party funds. She said she was considering her legal options before making a decision.
The newsletter contained two pages of pro-Palestine material written by academic and rapper Dr Jamal Nabulsi and included quotes from QUT Indigenous affairs academic Dr Amy McQuire.
The pages included a story from a Palestinian refugee, who was paid $200 for the contribution, while Nabulsi was paid $2800 for writing and compiling the two pages, councillor Fiona Cunningham said.
It included a timeline from the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of Palestine in 1516, through to what was described as an Israeli genocide in the present day, adding that Palestine would be free “within our lifetime”.
On the second page, Nabulsi wrote that “Israel is a European colonial state built on stolen indigenous land, much like Australia”, and criticised mainstream media coverage of the violence in Gaza.
The newsletter went to the 37,754 voters in Brisbane’s inner-city Gabba ward, which overlaps state and federal seats held by the Greens’ Amy MacMahon and Max Chandler-Mather.
At a media conference on Tuesday, Jewish West End resident Yanir Seroussi said he had received a council newsletter “full of lies about Israel”.
“It makes me feel very unwelcome, and frankly scared,” Seroussi said.
“My neighbours read this and go ‘this is what Israelis are like, this is what Zionists are like’. It might lead to worse, like attacks, terrorists and so on.”
He said Greens representatives in his area had refused to speak with the Jewish community since Hamas launched a surprise offensive into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1000 people and taking hundreds of hostages.
In the 11 months since, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run health ministry.
Massey said she had provided the newsletter content to Brisbane City Council and asked if any content should be removed before it was distributed.
She said the newsletter content was left as “her responsibility” and invoices were paid.
“They saw everything. So at any point this could have been escalated to [finance committee chair] Cunningham,” she said. “This is not a case of me not going through council procedures.”
Massey insisted the Middle East dispute was a local issue, and non-party political in a diverse, multicultural inner-city area.
She said Jewish people worked in her office, and viewed the newsletter as an education piece to broaden community knowledge.
In Tuesday’s council meeting, deputy mayor Krista Adams said the newsletter was “absolutely inciting antisemitic hate”.
Labor opposition leader Jared Cassidy said content guidelines for all newsletters needed to be reviewed urgently, including the administration’s Living in Brisbane newsletter.