Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
The Election Special with Jack Pinczewski and Dean Sherr
Are you interested in how Jewish Australians are approaching the upcoming federal election? If you answered YES, then this is the episode for you.
Join Tami, Dash, (former advisor to Anthony Albanese) Dean Sherr and (former advisor to Malcolm Turnbull) Jack Pinczewski as they have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and Jewy election topics.
For more visit The Jewish Independent
Tami and Dash on Instagram: tami_sussman_bits and dashiel_and_pascoe
Hey Dash.
Speaker 2:Hi Tammy.
Speaker 1:Dash, aren't you meant to be getting ready for your overseas trip? You told our listeners last episode that you'd be away for a few weeks.
Speaker 2:And I still intend to be away for a few weeks. But yes, look, I just couldn't resist one last episode because I managed to secure two people that I've been wanting to talk to in the lead-in to the upcoming federal election. I managed to get the former advisors to Anthony Albanese and Malcolm Turnbull, two young Jewish men, to agree to an interview, and we felt it would be worthwhile bringing, to our Shame to Admit listeners the Jewish Labor and the Jewish Liberal position ahead of the federal election on the 3rd of May.
Speaker 1:Dash, you got your democracy sausage ready.
Speaker 2:I do yes, with onions on top.
Speaker 1:Great, let's get to it. Let's get to it. Are you interested in how Jewish Australians are approaching the upcoming federal election?
Speaker 2:If you answered yes, then you might be too ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1:Join us as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy election topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast. Ashamed to Admit.
Speaker 1:Dean Sher Jack Pinczewski. Thank you so much for joining us in the Ashamed to Admit studio.
Speaker 3:It's a pleasure to be here, thank you. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Dean. Jack, with the federal election just a few weeks away on Saturday, May the 3rd, we wanted to bring two distinct Jewish perspectives on Australian politics a shame, to admit. Just to kind of help set the context for the conversation, Dean, can you start by giving a bit of an overview on your political background and experience? And then, Jack, I'm interested to hear more about your story.
Speaker 4:Sure. So I got involved in politics basically straight out of high school. I did a you could call it an internship, I suppose in Michael Damby's office when I was in year 11. I went up to Canberra for a sitting week and volunteered in his office for a bit, and then I got a part-time job out of high school.
Speaker 2:Sorry, Dan, I'm just going to interrupt for our international listeners. Michael Danby, the erstwhile Michael Danby, longtime member, Labor member of parliament and ardent supporter of the state of Israel, former member of parliament in the seat of McNamara and Melbourne Ports, which takes in largest chunk of Australia's, of Melbourne's Jewish community. Sorry, back over to you.
Speaker 4:No, please, yes, yeah. So I worked for Michael sort of on and off while I was at university. While I was studying, mostly part-time. I did a stint full-time in the 2016 campaign. I worked together with Josh Burns in Michael's office for a year, which Josh for the international listeners, Josh went on to succeed Michael as the Labor candidate and then MP for the seat when it was renamed from Melbourne Ports to McNamara. I then worked for a state MP, Philip Dalladakis, when he was a minister in the Victorian government for a couple of years, and then I went off to run Josh Burns' first campaign. I worked for him for the first term that he served, from 2019 to 2022. We got him re-elected a bit more narrowly in 2022.
Speaker 4:And then Labor came into power and I got a job in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's office, so I was a media advisor in his team for a little bit over a year. I was living in Canberra but I was between two cities. I had a home in Melbourne and a partner at the time living in Melbourne, and so I made a decision that it was time for a change and time to rebalance my work life. So there was some life and not all work, so that was the sort of personal reason to come back and I joined the sort of consulting world which is a familiar way for political staffers to re-utilise their limited skills and experience. Yeah, so I've been involved in Labor since I was 18, pretty much, and I'm now 32. So it feels like a lifetime.
Speaker 4:I remember the first branch meeting I think one of the first branch meetings I went to when I joined the party, which was in the years of the Gillard government, and there were then tensions with the Jewish community. Foreign Minister Bob Carr was pressing Julia Gillard. Julia was a strong supporter of Israel but there were others in the caucus and the government, especially the foreign minister, who wanted to sort of change foreign policy and so the Jewish community was upset about some of those shifts and Labor was sort of tearing itself apart in government at that time. Anyway, the leadership tensions between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and one of the more experienced branch members in the Caulfield branch of the Labor Party, which you can imagine is a pretty Jewish branch, said to me well, gee, if you're joining the Labor Party now, you'll last the distance and I suppose a lot of the problems that he was alluding to at the time, especially in the Jewish community, probably pale in significance or in comparison to the tensions that exist today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, jack. For some people it might be surprising to learn that the Labor Party has been the natural home historically for most Australian Jews. Certainly in the middle to perhaps latter part of the 20th century. Times have changed very much since then. I'm interested what was your draw and attraction to the Liberal Party and tell us a little bit about your experience as a political insider.
Speaker 3:So I'm a Sydney Jewish man born and bred. I left home to head down to study at the Australian National University. While I was there I met an awful lot of people who are involved in politics. It's just easier to be involved in formalized politics when you are down in the nation's capital, and some of these people also ran the Jewish Student Society. It had fallen into abeyance by the time I'd arrived there, but I'd sort of gone to these people. Oddly enough, a lot of political characters helped run it and I restarted the Jewish Student Society there at ANU.
Speaker 3:After a chance meeting with the Israeli embassy there, I was offered a job and started working for the Israeli embassy down in Canberra. I did that for two years with Yuval Rotem, who is probably familiar to some of your listeners Australian listeners as the former ambassador to Australia, but some of your international listeners might know him as the immediate past head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel. So I got a great political internship in that respect. After university I came back up to Sydney and found a job with a consultancy which wasn't really motivating me intellectually and an offer came up to work with Malcolm Turnbull. I joined the Liberal Party prior to starting with Malcolm Turnbull because of an understanding that I'll come to later.
Speaker 3:But the point is, I always knew that the most important thing you can do in a democracy is be politically active and engage in politics. In a democracy is be politically active and engage in politics. The Liberal Party sort of appeared to me to be simultaneously both more predisposed to my interests and my concerns. So the priorities that I had and I felt that this would be a natural way, a natural home for me to have politically. I started working for Malcolm Turnbull in the beginning of 2013 and stayed with him until August 2018, when things sort of came to a screeching halt Inside Malcolm's office. I did a variety of things. I was running the electorate office eventually, I worked in his media team. I worked in his international and national security team Nothing senior, I should add. When that came to a halt, I traveled for six months and then went to state politics where I worked for the leader of the government in the state upper house here in New South Wales and did that for a couple of years. And now I work for an international financial technology firm.
Speaker 2:Dean, let's bring the conversation to recent times and to the current political climate. You've told me about some of the challenges you faced, being both Jewish and a Labor Party member and activist. What specific tensions have you experienced since October 7th? Have you experienced since October 7th and tell us how have you gone, maintaining your commitment to the Labor Party but also being a member of a Jewish community, when we know that many Jewish people and certainly Jewish organisations and leaders have been furious with the Labor Party and with the Prime Minister really since October, the 7th 2023.
Speaker 4:The tension between the Jewish community and the current Labor government is really intense and, you know, I think, certainly from the voices that come out the loudest, it's a very strong anger and I think, like you feel it on a personal level. I think about, like, different wars gone past and the ways in which we engage them. And you know, the way of the world right now is like we live everything throughout Instagram feeds, right, but like I think you just see, like friends and family sharing stories all the time about how angry they are at Labor and the government and you know, sometimes it's things that are that are reasonable concerns and other times it's seeing people saying, oh, you know, labor's abandoned Israel. Anthony Albanese hates Israel, he's an anti-Semite. You know, like I worked for Anthony Albanese, I know him. I don't think he is an anti-Semite. You know, like I worked for Anthony Albanese, I know him, I don't think he is an anti-Semite.
Speaker 4:But certainly, you know, the community has been looking for reassurance and support in a way that they felt they haven't gotten it, and the opposition has offered what a lot of people want, which is that sort of unwavering support, that elevating the issues of anti-Semitism and support for Israel to the sort of daily political cycle and I've written a few articles for the Jewish Independent about it and I've always been careful that, like I don't want to be someone who says just, you're wrong and you're wrong to think this or feel this way, because the way that the Australian Jewish community feels is very legitimate, given the experiences that we've all gone through since October 7. But I think for me, like it's important not to lose sight of, like I have a lot of friends who I met in my oldest days through the World Union of Jewish Students, like who were student leaders at the time in you know Europe, in the UK, in Germany, in France, in America even there was a guy in Turkey. Like I've seen what they've been posting since October 7, as well, and like there's nothing kind of there's unique aspects to what Australian Jews have gone through, but there's also common experiences and I think Jewish communities right around the world are feeling this as well. So I think Australia is still one of the best places in the world to be Jewish and one of the safest places, and I think we need to be active and engaged citizens, which we always have been, but we don't want to become kind of insulated or stuck in a corner where we're just part of the conservative establishment or just part of the Liberal Party, which is not, again, not to disrespect the Liberal Party or not to attack them for supporting the Jewish community, it's just to say like we have to be engaged with the progressive side of politics as well.
Speaker 4:Labor is one of the two parties of government it's the party that's in government right now federally and in most states Victoria and New South Wales where most of the Jewish community of Australia lives. So like we have to have a relationship with that party as well. And as you said in your intro, dash, there's a long and proud history of Jewish Australians being involved in labor and getting elected to parliament for labor, and so you know, I want to stay involved with those people and to work with those people. And I think, like every Jewish person who feels ideologically that they're more a Labor person than a Liberal person, like I want Labor to listen to them, but I also want them to feel like they can still be engaged with Labor and hopefully vote Labor.
Speaker 2:Jack, I'm interested in your experience of the post-October 7th climate. Obviously, you are a member of and affiliated with, the Liberal Party. As Dean said, peter Dutton has been unequivocal, unconditional in his support for Israel and for his really pushing of action on anti-Semitism, at least in his rhetoric. I'm interested in, given that you're from that side of politics, how you've looked upon all of this and a response from you to what you've just heard from Dean's perspective.
Speaker 3:I might just start with the response to what Dean said first, because it's fresher in my mind. I don't look at what's happening inside the ALP with any degree of relish. I'm not one of those people who's in politics for the blood sport. I think it is. It is I say this in sorrow, more in sorrow than in anger but the quavering of the ALP over the last 18 months has been incredibly heart-rending to see. As a Jewish Australian, to think about how we have gone from a position where, for instance, as Dean mentioned, julia Gillard, who was a strong supporter of the state of Israel and of the Jewish community in Australia, to an ALP which now has a foreign minister mentioning Israel in the same breath as Russia and China, is deeply disturbing to me. Again, I say this more in sorrow than in anger, but I ask myself how did it get here? I think in large part. Dean. I mean, I would say Dean is part of the solution to this problem in that he is actively engaged in this party.
Speaker 3:One of the things that I think we should probably say right off the bat here and I think Dean would agree with this is that political parties are amalgamations of their members. They represent the interests of their members. They represent the values of their members. It's things you are able to change the policy platforms of political parties through joining, having those discussions, having those arguments. I mean, how do you think the ALP changed from a position where it was staunchly pro-Israel a period of not even 40 years ago to the position that they find themselves now? And you would actually identify specific individuals who have joined the party or engaged in the party's processes to bring those outcomes in.
Speaker 3:So you know, I don't think that the ALP, I don't believe that there's too many members of the ALP who are institutionally anti-Semitic, but I think that the instincts of the ALP are not as finely honed in this respect as they should be. And I mean that in the sense that, like when something like anti-Semitism at universities, which has been a persistent problem in Australia since the 7th of October, when something like that comes up, the instinct of the Labor Party wasn't to get on top of this stuff immediately, you know, insist that the Education Standards Authority and other regulators get involved here. It was to sort of deny that it was as big a problem as we thought it was and only sort of after a concerted campaign and I would call out the work here specifically of Julian Lisa, who's been fantastic in this sort of area to bring this matter to the attention of policymakers and ministers. Did they actually start looking into this issue and looking at it more systemically than sort of casual glances? You know, I should sort of come back to your question. It's not a difference in respect necessarily of like these people are anti-Semitic.
Speaker 3:I don't think that's the case for an awful lot of the Labor Party. I think the issue is is that the Liberal Party instinctually understands what's going on here with Jewish Australians a lot better, and I think that's partially because there's more Jewish people who are members of the Liberal Party and that we can have an argument about why that is. You know, there's an awful lot of people in my part of the world who are members of the Liberal Party, but then it's historically been a liberal seat not at the moment. So it could be economic or it could be simply that we're seeing the development of the way in which migrant communities sort of migrate from the Labour Party towards the coalition after the second or third generation, and those are sorts of more academic arguments or academic discussions to be had. But if you ask me what my experience has been inside the Liberal Party. It has been much, much more supportive.
Speaker 3:As a Jewish person, I won't say there hasn't been things that have concerned me. I was at a pre-selection not six months ago where one of the people putting their hand up for pre-selection it was a state pre-selection as well, by the way. It didn't make much sense to me that he would do this, but they had said that they were, you know, for Palestinian independence, which you know you can be for or against. But to put it up as a thing in state pre-selection, I think was a deliberate dog whistle and I don't think people really responded well to that inside the room. So these are the sorts of things which you would find differently. If a person went to an ALP pre-selection and said I support Palestinian independence, it's likely to be a vote winner.
Speaker 1:Dean, would you agree with that?
Speaker 4:Well, I think it depends where you are in the country. Like I live in McNamara, which is this unique electorate. I wonder if, like the Jewish community, realises just how strange and unique this electorate is, that we have this like 10% Jewish character and in a sense, not that different to Wentworth, where you have a strong Jewish community in a seat that well, wentworth was, as he said, historically a safe liberal seat and now it's held by a teal independent but, like McNamara, has been a labor seat since it was called Melbourne Ports in the 1900s and it was a working class electorate. But now it's a sort of affluent, progressive, educated inner city electorate with lots of young people, lots of renters, all of which sort of point to it being a progressive seat. But then you also have 10% to 12% of the electorate who are Jewish.
Speaker 4:So Jewish issues, anti-semitism in Israel, play a big role in this seat, and that was the case when Michael Danby was the MP and obviously it's been the case especially since October 7. All of which goes to say you're right that the Labor Party membership as a whole have a more ideologically pro-Palestine perspective than the membership of the Liberal Party, and it would be different if you're in the Corfu branch of the Labor Party which has a lot of Jewish people who've been members of the party for a long time. You know, josh Burns' campaign, just as Michael's campaign before, has become a bit of a breeding ground for sort of student leaders for more, just to get involved in politics and youth movements, which is great.
Speaker 3:They absolutely should Look. I think, dean, you and I would probably be on a unity ticket here when we'd say the most important thing that people can do is join the political party that you know most aligns to their views. You know, if they're young and they're Jewish, I would encourage them to look at every political party, with one or two exceptions, because I may not be welcome there, but political parties being amalgamations of their members. If they join and they stick with it and they have those discussions with people and they demonstrate that there's a constituency here that is being ignored by the party or that there's a constituency that is going to be there and be involved. And it strikes me as interesting that you go to a pre-selection or you go to a party meeting. You get to decide the direction of the party. These parties are institutional inside Australia, despite reports of their demise. You get to choose the direction that the party moves in. You get to select the candidate that goes into and becomes, you know, the member of parliament. And what concerns you is what should concern them. If they're a half decent politician, they will listen to the people who are around them, who control their pre-selection and who drive the policy that comes out of the parties.
Speaker 3:I think that the most important thing that you can do, especially in a country like Australia where society hasn't broken politics isn't broken yet. You can see it's sort of fracturing in some respects but the most important thing you can do is join a political party. It is astonishing to me that there is an awful lot of people in our communities. You want to complain about what's going on with politics in Australia, yet my message to you is go out and do something about it.
Speaker 3:If you're worried about the ability for your family, your children, your grandchildren to live in this country, the most effective thing that you can do is join a political party. Be involved in the political process. Hand out how to votes go letterboxing, show up to events. Make your issues the issues of politicians. Now, I know that means a lot of Jewish people may be predisposed towards the coalition parties, but I'm hoping this message reaches potential Labour Party members as well. You know it might seem daunting, it might seem difficult, but there are people like Dean out there who can help you get involved in these sorts of organisations, and they are the only thing that is going to change systemically politics in Australia. There's nothing else.
Speaker 2:Dean Jack, I'm interested in what you both make of the fact that the share of the votes that the Labor and Liberal parties have been getting really for the last three, four decades has been declining and we are now at a point where the primary vote that Labor and Liberal will likely get at this next federal election will be, if not, the same as what we would expect for all the other third parties and independents combined. So Australians are increasingly choosing not to vote with Labor or Liberal but are dividing their loyalties across a whole range of small parties, micro parties, the Greens and independents. Really interested in what you both make of that and also what that might mean for Jewish community interests Because, as we know, and no doubt one of you will get to it, we have seen a radically different approach from the Australian Greens to issues that are of great concern to the Jewish community.
Speaker 4:I mean, I've thought about this a lot. I think for me there was an interesting moment when Fatima Payman, who was the Labor senator in WA, she was elected third on Labor's ticket in WA because Labor did incredibly well in WA the last election and she quit the party, basically to cross the floor on a motion, I think, to recognise Palestinian statehood. Labor voted no because Labor doesn't support Senate motions dictating foreign policy to itself. Obviously, labor hasn't yet recognised Palestine as a state. But you know, payman quit the party. She said she wanted to be able to speak her mind and I saw in that moment a lot of the commentary and a lot of the like social media, the TikToks, the reels that you see from influencers in the kind of progressive world and from young people about like, well, why won't Labor let this woman speak her mind? And even just like, putting the issue aside like, labor has a long tradition of collective decision making. It's a party that was born from the trade union movement that was sort of you know, and the concept of a trade union is that workers band together. They're stronger together, they work together to use their collective power so that their bosses can't exploit them to get better pay and working conditions. And the Labor Party similarly believes that, like you join the party, you debate in internal forums, you debate in the caucus room or at the party conference policies, but you know, when you present a united front against your opponents the conservatives, the liberal and national parties and, yes, increasingly the Greens and other parties as well All of this kind of goes to say that, I think, like the world's changing, younger generations, even progressives in younger generations, don't necessarily have an appreciation for that concept that, like a movement is stronger if people put aside their differences, present a united front.
Speaker 4:And, like you know, labor currently represents a majority in the parliament and that includes seats like McNamara, where I am. It includes another like a historic liberal seat in Higgins, which has been abolished, but, like you know, the people of Torak and Malvern and Armidale who had never voted Labor in their lives or never elected Labor in their lives. And it also represents, you know, rural mining communities in the Hunter Valley and you have these different communities. Some of them are affluent and concerned about climate change and some of them have historically built their towns around coal mining. And trying to bring all those perspectives together and present a united front and an agenda that appeals to and looks after the interests of all these different communities around the country.
Speaker 4:That's, I think, a big part of what it means to be in a major party. So one of the trends that I think is like I just think young people are looking for politicians to be a lot like the influencers they follow on Instagram or TikTok like to be unfiltered, to be authentic, to represent what they think and what they believe, and they can't kind of get it into their heads that there's actually inherent value in a major party being representative of different communities that have very different views and trying to. You know, like that's what governing is about, right? I just think that, like, as there's more choice and more diversity and people are less tied to like, younger generations don't have the same views. They consume media differently, they think differently. Our attention spans have all been shortened by social media and the internet, and people don't read the newspaper like they used to, that watch the six o'clock news the way they used to. So the whole world's been disrupted, right, and I think it's just natural that that's impacting politics as well.
Speaker 2:Jack, what do you think about that fragmentation and, as a Jewish man that is actively involved in your party, what does it?
Speaker 3:concern you. So, look, I think there's a couple of things we have to understand structurally about the way that voting is conducted in Australia. The first is that there's a compulsory distribution of preferences. It's not necessarily who you put first, it's who you put last, which is in a compulsory distribution of preferences model, means that your vote is never going to go to the person you preference last. It'll go to the person you preference second last. Last It'll go to the person you preference second last. And that's a very, very important point, because a person who, for whatever reason, is upset with the Labor Party might vote for a variety of progressive parties before the Labor Party, but give their second to last preference to the Labor Party and their last preference to the Liberal Party, knowing full well that their vote is never going to go to the Liberal Party and potentially elect a Liberal candidate. How then does that square with the perpetual loss of Liberal seats over? I should point out the last, like it's close to 15 years, 15 years, 12 years at least? There's been a sort of a progressive drip away from Liberal Party seats, starting with country seats like Indi Mayo, moving into inner city seats, warringah. I think a large part of this is the Liberal Party base, and I mean this not in the sense of the party membership, but I mean this in the sense of the people who vote for the Liberal Party. It's a reaction of the Liberal Party base to the individual personalities and some of the policies that the Liberal Party has been bringing forward, and it's disappointing to see that An awful lot of the people who lost their seats at the last election would have been the sorts of people to rein in the more excessive elements of the Liberal Party. You know, as we operate in opposition, that said, it's the will of the people. They have made that decision. It's not enough to simply say, well, they're misguided or they're mistaken. But I think, if you look at the macro concerns people tend to, if they know they can vote as a protest against a major political party, knowing that their vote will still elect the member of the party that will form government, they can do that. But your vote is your vote. If enough people decide that they wanted to vote for a specific independent or minor party candidate, they'll get up. That's how it is. That's how the system works. How does it make me feel? Well, look, I think and I do have to touch on this. I do think I've got some opinions about how the Greens have acted, specifically since October 7. But it's let's just say it's the reaping of a crop which was fertilized well before October 7. Say it's the reaping of a crop which was fertilized well before October 7.
Speaker 3:We are dealing with a Greens political party and I know that that's a specific talking point that both the ALP and the Liberal Party use. They are a political party which are deeply anti-Semitic. In my view, they are a party which has the language of progressive anti-racism, whilst being some of the worst racists I have ever seen in Australian politics. There is no other party in Australia, to my knowledge, that has literally demonised Jews, and I use that word. I don't like using the word literally, but when a state member of parliament, jenny Leong, sits in front of a crowd of people, it's not private thoughts, this is public expressions and says that Jewish people have tentacles and those tentacles reach into progressive areas.
Speaker 3:No-transcript, awful pro-former mea culpa that came afterwards was pathetic and the silence from Greens leaders state and federal was deafening. It was the most shameful event I have ever seen in Australian polity. You know it was the sort of thing that you would see out of 1930s Germany, it's all those sorts of things. And the point about anyone thinking that the Greens are simply an environmental movement and it's, you know, this is just social justice or you know, progressive. It's not. It's sustained and systemic and it sits inside the Greens, it exists inside the Greens as an almost article of faith. You know, I note that just yesterday it appears that the Greens are starting to comb the ranks of those, you know, anti-israel activists that were active on university campuses to fill out their candidate lists. It doesn't surprise me. It does not surprise me. Candidate lists it doesn't surprise me. It does not surprise me and I think that the point is is that people are waking up to this.
Speaker 3:In the last local government elections, which aren't a great analogue for federal elections, but the Greens went backwards in places that they have traditionally been very strong in. The Greens actually have a huge vote in seats where Jewish people tend to hang out. So they have a higher vote in Wentworth, a higher vote in McNamara, a higher vote in Kingswood Smith On the leafy North Shore of Sydney. Their vote is in excess of their state average, which is about 11%. All those seats that I've mentioned, all those areas that I've mentioned. They're in the mid to high teens and if I was the Greens and I was running their campaign God help me I would be deeply concerned about the way in which their radicalism has led them to a point where people are rejecting them at the local government level which they have been. They're losing seats at the last state local council elections and they should. There should be a political consequence to anti-Semitism.
Speaker 2:And yet, jack, the irony is that they may well be elected in McNamara, in the seat that we've been talking about, the Jewish seat in Melbourne that Dean lives in and that is currently held by Labor's Josh Burns. The irony is, they may well knock Labor out and finally claim that seat. They've been knocking on the door of that seat for the last few elections, and this could be the one, couldn't it, dean?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So they got very close in 2016, which was Michael Damby's last election, and they got pretty close last time as well. And the Greens' pathway to win the seat is for Labor to finish third and for them to get Labor's preferences. So the irony is and the Jewish independents covered this Deborah Stone's written about it. There have been a number of other pieces going around the community in the Jewish news as well. The sort of irony is that the Jewish community's anger at Labor could mean that Josh Burns, the incumbent Jewish MP, loses votes to the Liberals and if he falls behind the Greens, then the Greens make the final two and the majority of Labor voters. Anthony Green, erstwhile ABC election expert, for those who aren't familiar with him, he's estimated that even on an open ticket which Labor's running which is a pretty historic thing to not recommend preferences at all in McNamara I don't know of Labor ever doing that anywhere before.
Speaker 2:Just on that, Dean, was that a bad call by Josh and his team to not put the Greens last and to leave it as an open ticket?
Speaker 4:It's a complicated question and I think I don't want to sound crass about it, like I think the strategy in preferences is always about winning right, and I say that in the sense of, like, josh Burns' goal is to get re-elected, but also Josh Burns getting re-elected stops the Greens from winning.
Speaker 4:So it's kind of a double-edged sword, I think, with preferences, because I was just driving down Carlisle Street this morning getting my morning coffee before I came back to join this call and I see there are some posters that Extinction Rebellion have put up accusing Josh Burns of helping the Liberal Party win the election because he's not preferencing the Greens.
Speaker 4:So the difficulty is that you can alienate progressive voters and if you lose votes to the Greens because you've sent a signal that you'd prefer the Liberal Party to the Greens and that alienates Labor's left flank because of course only 10% of McNamara is Jewish and probably you know, the majority of Labor voters in this seat are more of the sort of progressive St Kilda, elwood, south Melbourne, south Bank types, not necessarily Caulfield, balaclava, bagel Belt types.
Speaker 4:If it's just about taking a stand against the Greens but that actually helps the Greens win, then I don't think it's worth doing. So I think the open ticket is kind of a way of saying well, the voters will decide and that's the democratic way of doing it. And you know, like we have to respect what the voters think but like we can't necessarily tell people Obviously how to vote are just recommendations. But you can't necessarily convince a progressive Labor voter to put the Greens last just because you say they're anti-Semitic Outside the Jewish community. I think in seats like this most people will be voting on the usual issues climate change, housing, cost of living, the economy. They're not going to be thinking about anti-Semitism or Israel.
Speaker 3:So all of which goes to say, like I would say, that social cohesion is something that people are concerned about. You know, when you're seeing anti-Semitism in the way it's formulated itself in Australia, they would be concerned about it. I would agree with you in the sense that, like running an open ticket, is a signal. I would also say that putting the grains last is a stronger signal. The particularities that Josh has in his seat are not entirely familiar to me. I am a Sydney Jew. The point is that Josh has in his seat are not entirely familiar to me. I am a Sydney Jew. The point is that people's vote is their vote. You know you can recommend stuff to them and I would recommend to every one of your listeners, if they are listening, if they are planning on putting the Greens anything other than last.
Speaker 3:I think that's wrong, I think, at this election. I believe that there are systemic problems inside the Greens and I think that they should go backwards in terms of seats. Now, another problem I think we're sort of focusing on here is, you know what is it that? The Jewish community? What influence does the Jewish community have electorally? Well, you know we like to talk about Jewish seats. The reality is, is that even in Wentworth, which is the most Jewish people in the country. It's still, you know, a long minority. I mean even with a generous interpretation of, you know, vos Mastah Yidden, you're looking at maybe 20% of the seed.
Speaker 1:I think 16%, the last figure I saw.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean, look, there's historic underreporting of Jews in the census. There's historic underreporting for a lot of different reasons and that one would suggest that it might be one in five at the most. And you know, it is to my chagrin having one run and one elections here at all three levels in this part of Sydney. Yeah, jewish stuff is important, but there is a whole lot of people out there you know, four in every five who are not Jewish and don't necessarily think the way that we do.
Speaker 4:If people are worried about the Greens winning the seat and this is the kind of message that Josh and other people have been making is like putting the Greens last is not necessarily enough, because if Labor gets less primary votes than the Greens, the overwhelming likelihood is the Greens will win. So if you are and obviously I hope people vote for Josh Burns because he's been a good representative of the community and he's stuck his neck out a lot over the last three years, and particularly since October 7, for the Jewish community and for Israel in a way that few others have done. But if that doesn't get you over the line, like voting one for Josh and then putting the Greens last is actually the most strategic way to ensure that the Greens don't win.
Speaker 3:We talk about strategic voting. Fortunately, we don't have that really here in Australia because we don't use a first-past-the-post system. You know, I would say everyone should be voting one Liberal, and that's naturally where I'm coming from. I'm shocked to hear that. Jack, yeah, I know right, hey listen.
Speaker 2:it's remarkable, jack. Let's talk about Wentworth. So currently held by the independent member, allegra Spender, who beats the previous Liberal Party member and former ambassador to Israel, dave Sharma, the Liberal Party is back again throwing the bus at this seat. They have really, really campaigned very hard to win this back. They've got Roe Knox in and I'm obviously down in Melbourne so I can't see it, but I understand that Wentworth certainly the Jewish part of Wentworth at the moment is just awash with blue. The Jewish community has really come out in strong support of Roe Knox.
Speaker 3:Look just on the campaign here at the moment. Yes, it's obviously a much more active campaign than we're used to seeing. I mean, I remember when I was running campaigns here it was, you know, against people who were sort of very well-meaning, but there wasn't any serious opposition. Now it's a marginal seat. That's how it's categorised. I would say it's a marginal seat. That's how it's categorised. I would say there's a couple of things, just in relation to the redistribution, that have probably made it much harder for the Liberal Party to win. The redistribution pushes the seat into Woolloomooloo, which is a lot more, you say, in a city. There's a different socioeconomic. Well, there's a lot of public housing there. Essentially, yeah, there is a lot of public housing. It makes it more difficult for a liberal candidate to win. I think the uh. When I ran the campaign in 2013, the only booth we didn't win was willamaloo, so that was a. Again, it's a very hard booth in respect to the liberal party. I am upset by a specific narrative that's coming out about the teals that they're somehow doing politics differently. All I see with teals is is the same politics but in a different color. And what do I mean by that?
Speaker 3:The decision that allegra spender took this term of parliament. Which energized the jewish community more than anything else was her decision to, along with other teal members, write to the foreign minister about the funding for the UN Relief Works Agency, unrwa as it's otherwise known, and this decision, I think, was the wrong decision. I think it didn't understand exactly. I mean, I think it's the wrong decision to fund UNRWA, given what we know now about its personnel and what it's been doing in respective schools.
Speaker 3:I think the decision to sort of write in support of this organisation deeply upset the Jewish community. The sort of fig leaf that was given to the Jewish community was well, you know, we're just concerned about humanitarian relief. Well, unrwa doesn't provide as much humanitarian relief as you know, the World Food Programme, for instance. So I think this is a, it was a misstep by Allegra Spender that took place about a year as much humanitarian relief as the World Food Programme, for instance. So I think this is a, it was a misstep by Allegra Spender that took place about a year ago and it only was overturned, like she only renounced her position on this, you know, less than a month ago in the lead up to the election. And again, it goes to instincts, the instincts of the Teals, it appears, aren't in alignment with the Jewish community.
Speaker 1:Dean, I picked up something earlier on in the conversation, when you said that Jewish Australians have accused Anthony Albanese of being anti-Semitic and hates Israel, and then you said I know him and he's not anti-Semitic, but you didn't say he doesn't hate Israel. Was that you choosing your words carefully or you just forgot to add that?
Speaker 4:bit. No, I don't think he hates Israel either. I don't think Penny Wong hates Israel, believe it or not. I think they are both obviously more critical of Israel than you know. The Jewish community feels very defensive of Israel all the time, but obviously especially so since October 7.
Speaker 1:I know you were on a bit of a texty-texty basis with Albo. I saw him yesterday, did you?
Speaker 4:Actually, as it happens, okay, nothing to do with the Jewish community, but he visited a social housing site that one of our clients built with federal funding.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you bumped into him. We waved to each other Okay, you don't cuddle.
Speaker 4:No, well, it was just enough that we kind of acknowledged each other from across the hall.
Speaker 1:Are you his token Jewish friend, or does he have a few?
Speaker 4:I think there are a few. I don't know if I should name names. There are some Jewish community leaders that I've spoken to who've been speaking to him a lot as well.
Speaker 1:You wrote a piece for the Jewish Independent in defense of Anthony Albanese. He read that piece, I believe, and he contacted you afterwards. He did. What did he say?
Speaker 4:Well, he did read the piece. So it was a piece about the October 7 one-year anniversary event in Melbourne which he attended. It was a very long event but he came early, he stayed, he sat through the whole thing and there were a few people who objected to him going, who signed petitions that he shouldn't be invited, there were people who kind of heckled him not that many and there was a comment made on the stage about the government's failure of leadership and things which got some applause. So I wrote an article saying we should be appreciative that the Prime Minister of Australia wanted to spend four or five hours of his time on the eve of a sitting week listening to our stories and our experiences since October 7, listening to, you know, relatives of hostages, relatives of people who were killed in the October 7 attacks. That's a good thing that the prime minister wants to listen. And yeah, he, this is an exclusive for the Ashamed to Admit podcast.
Speaker 4:Anthony Albanese read the Jewish Independent and he called me just to say thank you. I won't necessarily go into the whole conversation Conversations should remain private but he was appreciative of the sentiment and it was important to him that he went to the event and he understood that there was anger in the community, but he still thought that it was the right thing, as Prime Minister, for him to be there with the Jewish community on the anniversary of October 7. Conversations I've had with him like he genuinely does care about the rise of antisemitism in this country and we can criticize whether he's done enough or whether the government's done enough, but he's not an antisemite, trust me.
Speaker 3:I don't think there's many elected politicians in Australia who are antisemites. I can't say there are none.
Speaker 2:Okay, prediction time. Who wants to go first?
Speaker 3:I'll just say minority government. You know, but you can't dictate which way things are going to go once negotiations start for a minority government.
Speaker 2:Right, so you think it could be a minority government Labor, minority government Liberal?
Speaker 3:Look, it would be the independent members, not just the Teals. By the way, that there's other independent members like Dai Lei and Andrew Wilkie and Bob Catter. They're going to play their cards close to their chest. I think they're all going to be led in negotiations by Andrew Wilkie because he's been there before and he was extremely disappointed by the Labor Party back when he endorsed them first in 2010. But it's going to be a hung parliament and that's going to be incredibly frustrating. My prediction is for the next term of parliament to be a lot more confrontational than we've seen.
Speaker 2:Okay, Dean Sher, you're a bit more optimistic than Jack.
Speaker 4:If I was a gambling man and I was a month ago, because I think Labor was about $2.60 with sports bet and I thought that's worth a bit of a bet and they're now about $1.30. So and the Liberals have blown out to something like $4, $5. So the polls nationally are moving towards Labor. I think the latest ones have been either 52, 48 or 53, 47. So I think Labor will hold government. Whether that's minority or majority is still unclear. I think majority is back in the conversation now that it maybe didn't seem like it was a month ago.
Speaker 4:But I think it's sort of just notable that the Jewish community is experiencing this election very differently than the rest of the population. I think Peter Dutton's struggling with the broader population, but he's clearly still resonating with the Jewish community, and I think we'll see the Jewish community get in strongly behind the Liberal Party in the seats that we've spoken about. But I don't think that that's going to make that much of a difference. I suspect Allegra will hold Wentworth, precisely as Jack said, because the redistribution probably dilutes the Jewish community's influence even more so, and I think either Labor or the Greens will win McNamara. I'll still pick Josh Burns to win it, but I certainly don't think the Liberals will. I think it'll be interesting to see how that all washes out, and how does the Jewish community engage with what I think will be a second term Albanese government All right On that note, it's been great hearing your perspectives and your experiences.
Speaker 2:I really have appreciated what I've heard today.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to thank you for that conversation. I only tuned out three times and I thought, if we're going to be here for an hour, I was thinking, you know once every five minutes, but three times in an hour. Can someone do the maths?
Speaker 3:20 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty good, pretty good.
Speaker 3:I would have hoped you hadn't tuned out at all, but I mean that's. I guess politics isn't everyone's everything.
Speaker 1:Dean Sher Jack Pinchewski. Thank you so much for joining us in the studio for this a shame to admit election special.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, Tammy Sussman Dashiell, Lawrence, Dean Sher. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the election special episode of Ashamed to Admit, with me Tammy Sussman.
Speaker 2:And me, Dash Lawrence.
Speaker 1:This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 2:If you like the podcast, forward it to a mate. Tell them it's even more enjoyable than a democracy sausage.
Speaker 1:As always, thanks for your support and look out for me and Dash's fill in next week. Thank you.