Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and spokesperson for Anti-Racism and Higher Education has responded to Anthony Albanese's backing of the Special Envoy's Plan to Combat Antisemitism and continues to call for urgent funding for the implementation of the National Anti-Racism Framework.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi said:
"It's a real shame that rather than urgently funding the full implementation of the National Anti-Racism Framework (NARF) to stamp out all forms of racism, the Prime Minister has backed a plan that will silence and punish voices raised against the genocidal state of Israel.
"It's been months since the completion of the national anti-racism framework and we haven't heard a peep from the Prime Minister about fully implementing it, but he has jumped on a Trump-like plan to attack universities and further crack down on their staff and students.
"Conflating criticism of Israel with racism and hate speech is not only wrong, it is downright dangerous.
"The calls to withhold funding from universities are dangerous. We have seen from Trump's America where this path leads - where student expression is banned, and universities like Harvard are punished for permitting protests against genocide. The report's call for investigations into 'foreign funding' of protests, just echoes Trump's conspiracy theories used to justify extreme intervention into independent universities.
"Anti-racism work should not have a hierarchy, racism is racism. It is harmful for all those who bear its brunt including First Nations people, Muslims, Jews, and Palestinians.
"I call on the Prime Minister to drop the double standards, end this trip into authoritarianism and get serious about tackling all racism.
"It feels like we're living in a fever dream, where Labor and Liberal are so focused on covering up Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people that they're are determined to stop and stifle criticism and condemnation of these atrocious actions - all in the name of a thinly veiled effort to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism."
