Victorian Government Stokes Division with Proposed ‘Social Cohesion’ Antiprotest Laws

Following the early December 2024 arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne, the Victorian state government, led by Jacinta Allan, went on to announce that in response, it’s going to introduce new laws “to confront antisemitism, deal with dangerous and extreme demonstrations, protect religious worship, and restore social cohesion”.

Victorian Labor plans to introduce laws related to protests in early 2025, which will prohibit terrorist organisation flags and symbols, along with “glue, rope, chains, locks and other dangerous attachment devices”, as well as the wearing of masks.

Allan is to further outlaw demonstrations close by places of worship and make the provision of grants reliant upon the taking of a social cohesion pledge.

There are incongruities in the reasoning for these laws as they seek to solely confront antisemitism when Islamophobia has too been an issue, and while they’re in response to a firebombing and antisemitism, the measures are then being associated with the need to monitor protests, and as the Palestine rallies have been the most prominent of late, they’re the ones being linked to the crimes.

Most major party leaders have been spruiking ‘social cohesion’ as a quick fix for the domestic fallout that’s a result of Israel’s attempt to wipe out the entire Palestinian civilian population living within the walled-in Gaza Strip. And the biased manner in which both major parties have dealt with the mass slaughter and the local issues related to it have simply deepened social divisions.

So, the cynical take out on the street is that what Labor Party leaders mean by their continual spouting of the social cohesion mantra, and is now further being laid bare in law via Allan’s proposed social cohesion package, is that a cohesive Australian society is one where no criticism of the Israeli state occurs, while neither does any expression of Palestinian solidarity.

Dangerous conflations

“The disgraceful social cohesion laws that they’re introducing in Naarm stem from the disgraceful antisemitic attack and burning of the synagogue,” Palestinian organiser Amin Abbas told the protesters at the 22 December 2024 Palestine Action Group rally on Gadigal land in Sydney. And he added that the movement in Melbourne has condemned the attack in “the strongest possible terms”.

“Jacinta Allan and the Victorian government have chosen to conflate that attack with the Palestinian movement, saying that any attack on Jews is associated with the Palestinian movement,” continued Abbas, who has been a key speaker at the Free Palestine rallies in Naarm over the past year.

The conflating of the synagogue fire with the Palestinian protests is simply the latest episode in a campaign of demonising and criminalising the pro-Palestine movement in an attempt to stop it raising the alarm in respect of the genocidal settler colonial landgrab being perpetrated by Israel.

Abbas made it certain that since October 2023, the Free Palestine movement has been clearly making the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. However, the majors have been conflating anti-Israel sentiment, which is political in nature, with antisemitism or prejudice against a religion.

“These social cohesion laws are a threat to our democracy,” Abbas underscored, “when they say that you are not allowed to carry locks or wires or ropes, making us protesters the problem, not the weapons manufacturers who drop bombs on the children of Gaza.”

Manufacturing division

Allan announced the laws, alongside Victorian police minister Anthony Carbines and multicultural minister Ingrid Stitt on 17 December, outlining that the package is designed to, amongst other things, “stamp out extreme and radical influences in public protests”, which again seems to imply that these demonstrations, which involve strong Jewish participation, are antisemitic.

“Victorians have witnessed extreme, dangerous and radical conduct in numerous public demonstrations over the last year,” the Victorian Labor government statement reads, and it then goes on to suggest that “hate and antisemitism thrive in these environments”.

But at this point, it should be noted that hate and antisemitism don’t take place at Free Palestine demonstrations, as many Jewish people are in the crowd, and the sentiment invoked is rather political opposition to the atrocities being perpetrated by Israel, in the name of the political doctrine of Zionism that advocates for the establishment of a Zionist state upon the land of the Palestinians.

According to Victorian Labor anti-mask laws are needed, just two years after the pandemic, as face coverings are being used to conceal the identity of people allegedly “committing violence and vilification” at protests, and masks are further being used by activists to shield themselves from pepper spray.

So, premier Allan is being clear that if a Victoria police officer sprays a constituent in the face with capsicum spray, that individual ought to cop the chemicals square in the eyes.

And the newly proposed laws are further coming on the back of the November introduced Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-Vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024, which includes new antivilification offences, strengthening of civil protections against hateful conduct in public, an extension of the attributes that vilification applies to and the provision of a vilification remedy.

A pledge for the multicultural elements

The Allan government is further introducing a “Victorian-focused ‘social cohesion pledge’” that will only apply to multicultural organisations if they’re seeking government grants, and there will be “consequences if the pledge is broken”.

However, Victorian Labor is unclear in its announcement as to what might constitute a multicultural organisation, as it would seem that only some cultural organisations are to be considered multicultural, and it’s not likely that dominant Anglo Christian/post-Christian organisations will fall under this classification and then need to take the pledge.

So, questions as to which organisations will be made to take the social cohesion pledge remain.

Will the Islamic Council of Victoria be classed as a multicultural organisation? Is the State Zionism Council of Victoria in need of the pledge? And as the Catholic Church has its origins in Italy, is it an ethnic enough organisation to be required to take this pledge to help it “reject division and promote peace”?

“It is shameful for the government to call on us to sign pledges of social cohesion as if we’re going to be holding hands with the Zionists and running in the fields singing Kumbaya,” Abbas continued, as he addressed the 63rd consecutive weekly pro-Palestine rally in Hyde Park North.

“Shame on the Jacinta Allan government to think that removing masks is going to be the right way forward with social cohesion,” he added in ending. “The problem isn’t the masks. The problem is that IOF soldiers are coming back from serving in Israel and are not getting sanctioned or gaoled.”

Main photo: Palestinian organiser Amin Abbas addresses the 63rd consecutive weekly Free Palestine protest on Gadigal land in Sydney’s Hyde Park North