Federal Budget 2024: Funding boost for deradicalisation and anti-Semitism programs

Bethany Hiatt
The Nightly
Programs aimed at stamping out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in schools will get a boost in the Federal Budget.
Programs aimed at stamping out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in schools will get a boost in the Federal Budget. Credit: LUKAS COCH/AAPIMAGE

As concerns grow about rising anti-Semitism in the wake of university campus protests against the war in Gaza, measures aimed at improving social cohesion in schools will receive an extra $4 million over two years in the Federal Budget.

Budget papers show that provider Together for Humanity will expand its reach into under-represented jurisdictions and communities.

It would also increase activities aimed at addressing all forms of discrimination in schools – “in particular anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”.

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The initiative to combat discrimination in schools aims to “strengthen intercultural and interfaith understanding”.

However, WA will receive nearly 50 per cent less funding than NSW and Victoria for a national program for individuals deemed to be at risk of being radicalised to violent extremism.

The government will provide another $700,000 to WA this year as it expands its Living Safe Together Intervention program into country areas and online - while NSW and Victoria will each get $1.1 million.

Deradicalisation programs have been in the spotlight since it emerged last week that a Perth teen who was shot by police in Willetton after he charged at them with a knife had been enrolled in a similar intervention program for two years.

WA will also receive $500,000 to enhance its capability to support high-risk extremists in custody and in the community in disengaging from violent extremism, compared with $600,000 each for NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

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