Liberals drag Question Time into anti-Semitism stoush

Liberal frontbencher Michael Sukkar rose to his feet in the chamber, but he did not rise to the occasion.

Instead, the Manager of Opposition Business — on only his fourth sitting day in that job — sought to shut down Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus while he was speaking about his personal experiences of anti-Semitism.

“I move the member no longer be heard,” Mr Sukkar said into a chamber already filled with emotion.

What followed was 19 most unedifying minutes.

The Coalition’s tactics committee frequently parks the questions that draw the longest bow with Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.

So it was on Monday when she asked Mr Dreyfus to “detail the benefits of mandatory sentencing” after it was reported he had been steamrolled by the Prime Minister into accepting them in the hate crimes bill that became law over the weekend.

Mr Dreyfus, the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors, started detailing what the Government has done to combat anti-Semitism, to much heckling from the Opposition.

“In the past few months, I’ve stood in the shadow of the main gate at the Auschwitz death camp. I’ve stood on the field where a music festival in Israel was turned into a blood bath, and I’ve stood in the ruins of a burnt-out synagogue in my hometown,” he said.

“But those opposite have taken every opportunity since the 7th of October 2023 to politicise the trauma and the experiences of the Jewish people.

“I do not need the Leader of the Opposition or any of those opposite to tell me what anti-Semitism is or how seriously I should take it.”

This prompted Mr Sukkar to rise to his feet and interrupt.

But rather than raise some lesser objection, he leaned into the Liberals’ penchant for the nuclear option and forced the House to vote on shutting Mr Dreyfus up.

The shock of the move was visible on the faces of ministers.

“You’re disgusting,” Mr Dreyfus spat across the dispatch box.

It had shades of the move late last year by Peter Dutton to stop one of his shadow ministers reading out a speech by Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns, who had lost his voice due to illness, after the fire-bombing of a Melbourne synagogue.

After the vote, Mr Sukkar continued to dig down, demanding the Attorney-General withdraw “unparliamentary language” that, after several minutes, it became apparent was the accusation of having politicised anti-Semitism.

“There are few more disgusting accusations that could be made in this House,” Mr Sukkar said.

Anthony Albanese and Mr Dutton weighed in, as did independent Zali Steggall who has long been concerned with lifting the tone of parliamentary debate.

Eventually, Speaker Milton Dick put down his foot, giving the microphone back to Mr Dreyfus but warning him “to be careful with his language”.

The atmosphere charged but silent, Mr Dreyfus resumed his speech of 19 minutes earlier.

“I’m the son and the grandson of Holocaust, of a Holocaust survivor. I went to the commemoration of the … 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a place where a million Jews were murdered, a place where my great-grandmother was murdered on the 13th of October 1942,” he said, voice catching.

“And I say to members of this House that we’ve had a wave of anti-Semitism in this country right now. What we need is unity. We need bipartisanship.”