The Australian Laminating Party (ALP)

This week has certainly been full of excitement, fear, jubilation, shock and hopefully for some of us a chance for self reflection.

Australia’s amazing results in the swimming pool at the Paris Olympics are testament to hard work, adequate funding for competitors and make us all proud that a small nation of only 25 million people can hold our heads high at what we achieve.

On the other hand we witnessed the results of the disastrous NSW ALP conference. The state ALP conferences recognize and adopt formal policy positions within the party that eventually through a whole lot of negotiation factional warfare make there way up the food chain for the Prime Minister and cabinet to implement. This year the NSW labour party branch which holds significant sway on policy development adopted some very anti Israel policies. Calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state whilst simultaneously issuing statements and platitudes against anti semitism and Islamophobia. It is clear that Penny Wong has been providing coaching in the art of hypocrisy to the wider party. The adoption of these policies is a major cause for concern because the labour party has now abandoned a bi partisan policy on Israel.

Unlike the prime minister who was “surprised” during the week when learning that the CFMEU has been infiltrated by criminal elements, I am not surprised the ALP has turned so against Israel.

Penny “Rub salt into the wounds” Wong who is always looking for relevance in the competition for the Muslim/Trotsky vote was keen enough to levy sanctions on some random Israeli “Settlers” for their involvement in breaches of international law. As an Australian citizen I wonder why our own Foreign Minister would find it necessary to levy sanctions against some randoms in Israel and not the Chinese involved in radar pinging our divers, influencing politicians or stealing industrial secrets. The folly of this move is that the individuals sanctioned in Israel would most likely not feel the impact of Wong’s decision and instead of looking like some big player in foreign affairs has made Australia look irresponsible and stupid in the eyes of its allies.

Back to the middle east we learn that both a top military commander Fuad Shukr was killed in Lebanon and barely 24 hours later the head of the Hamas Ismail Haniyeh was blown up in an attack on the apartment where he was staying at 2AM. The police have a saying “Nothing good happens after 2AM” and it appears in this case they are not correct at all.

Israel has been routinely criticised for civilian casualties by our Government and their supporters have screamed Genocide.  No matter what Israel does or how Israel responds, they still want to eliminate the country.  However Israel’s strategy this week has been to use precision targets to take out terrorist leaders.  No civilian collateral.  No mass bombing to get their target. Simply a mind boggling amount of intelligence and military precision to deliver justice for the victims of their terror. Ridding the world of pure evil like these two terrorists is what I would term in the Australian vernacular as a “Bloody good start”.

While all this was happening our very own opposition leader in waiting Peter Dutton made a trip to the middle east to show solidarity with the people of Israel following the Oct 7^th attacks on a sovereign democratic nation. Peter Dutton’s travel planner clearly understands the basics of foreign diplomacy and arranged a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, President Chaim Herzog as well as visits to the Nova music festival and meetings with other government officials. He is determined to rebuild Australia’s relationship with Israel because he understands what is at stake.

If a politician can grasp the big foreign policy issues, then there is a very good chance that the things that affect the local population think cost of living, environmental, industry and business policy will get proper attention rather than a headline grab on the nightly news, if elected.

The problem with Thursday night is you can be mistaken for believing with only one day left in the work week and thing looking up for Israel we may just end on a high in time for shabbat. Sadly Israel faces the threat of retaliation over the deaths of Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh. At least I can smile watching the Iranians reaction  which has the same odour as Penny Wong’s hypocrisy and in a moment of dark humour offers some level of comfort.

Back home in Australia a news story has broken about a Jewish man being refused service at Officeworks.

The story reads that the local man went to get a page of the Jewish newspaper laminated and the staff member at Officeworks felt uncomfortable with the content and request and subsequently refused the man service. It seems like the smallest little insignificant event in comparison to everything else that has happened this week but I believe it is an earthquake moment for all of us in Australia.

First some business basics, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission, you’re breaching anti-discrimination law if you refuse service to a customer based on certain attributes, such as their age, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status, race or disability. However you are able to refuse service based on dress code requirements, disruptive behaviour, legal requirements, safety reasons and of course the ability to pay for the service.

The case looks compelling and I am sure justice will prevail. The problem is what does justice look like and does it change anything on the ground. At the time of writing this article Officeworks had thanked him for the feedback for the experience in their store, and offered a $100 gift card, while the employee in question has attended discrimination training and also  undergone “education through the Melbourne Holocaust Museum”. In any other company afailure to serve a customer due to personal political preference would be regarded as a code of conduct breach and a sackable offence.

How does a staff member feel so empowered to undertake an action such as this and think they could get away with it ?

The business through no real fault of it’s own has to take responsibility for the employees lack of human decency but the shareholders and business will ultimately wear the financial burden.

Spending time in self-reflection can help build greater self-awareness. Self-awareness is a key component of emotional intelligence. It helps you recognize and understand your own emotions, as well as the impact of your emotions on your thoughts and behaviours. Personally I find it a useful tool to analyse and assess a series of events to see the holistic side.

There are some in our community who will reflect on the NSW ALP conference and tell us that nothing has changed. That labour is still a friend for Israel and the local Jewish population. The number of backers in the ALP is dwindling and while there is some support remaining, the hard left is snuffing out the flame of support. The shared Judeo Christian values mean less today to the Trotsky mob in the ALP than in the past. Time to recognise the change and what it means.

Far too often our community leaders miss the significance of the events affecting the person in the street. The staff member at Officeworks clearly did not care about the blowback from their actions. They believe they operate in an environment where they are so empowered they can take the law into their own hands without real consequences. Who can blame them. What real consequences have been levied on the university protestors and the organisations backing the protests ? NONE

What identity based groups LGBTQI+, feminist groups that aligned with the protests and by default Hamas actions have felt any consequence or loss of standing because of their actions ? NONE

Circa 1930 onwards we had the brown shirts, SS, Gestapo and Third Reich to discriminate against Jews and lead our brothers and sisters to the gas chambers.

As our Asian neighbours often remind when we have the luxury of holidaying in their countries  its “Same same but different” and that is exactly where we find ourselves 300 days from the Oct 7^th invasion.

Today we will only need the staff in the shops to refuse to serve us based on our religion, the university professors refuse to excuse Jewish students from sitting exams on holy days, the university protestors from baring entry to campus to take us on the path towards destruction, the student guild to pass resolutions condemning our homeland for fictional crimes, the next gen of middle management who are sympathic supporters of Hamas who will refuse our kids and family the good jobs, the politicians who refuse to see context in light of Oct 7^th and continue to make vile anti-semitic statements under the cover of parliamentary privilege.

That is all we need to empower the useful idiots to carry out the violence. That is why the first reaction of the man at the centre of the Officeworks debacle as stated in the Australian was

“The man said the experience has “definitely” left him considering moving to Israel.”

Many of us are feeling this way since Oct 7^th. Self reflection on events is telling us all what we have to face and consider even if it is inconvenient and in stark contrast to how we see our future.

May Hashem bless Israel for the difficult days ahead and bless us to make the right decisions for our families.