Opinion
When uni students endorse terror, it’s time for political intervention
David Crowe
Chief political correspondentThe sight of a university student pledging “unconditional support” for a listed terrorist group takes the argument about campus protests well beyond a relaxed discussion on youthful ideals. A few weeks ago, it might have been possible to shrug off the protests as free speech with no consequences, but the camps are now a political test for all sides.
Seven months after Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and murdered an estimated 1200 people – and committed rape and torture against women – it seems unfathomable that a young Australian could have any sympathy for the group. Yet, that is what Australian National University student Beatrice Tucker declared last week.
At the pro-Palestinian encampment at Monash University on Wednesday, a clash developed with security when pro-Israel supporters attempted to storm the stage where speeches were being conducted.Credit: Justin McManus
“I actually say that Hamas deserves our unconditional support,” she told the ABC in Canberra. Tucker said she disagreed with the Hamas strategy, but she would not condemn the October 7 attacks. Bear in mind the government has classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation for years. Yes, the Palestinian side says more than 34,500 of its people have died since Israel went to war in Gaza. The killing is horrific. The fact remains that Hamas engages in terrorism.
Hundreds of protesters are now camped on university lawns in support of Palestine and against Israel, while vice chancellors wonder about how to respond and Jewish community leaders demand action to break up the camps. Australia has not seen the violence of protests in the United States but tempers are raw. It is not hard to see the fury could turn into fighting.
The immediate political dispute is transparent – and simplistic. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton calls on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to do something but at the same time, he blames university leaders for letting the protests continue. The Coalition’s education spokeswoman, Sarah Henderson, says Labor must ban hate speech on campus.
That leads to one big question: how? It was only three years ago that the Coalition government, in a flurry of anxiety about conservatives being shouted down in university lecture halls, passed a law to enshrine academic freedom and free speech on campus. The education minister at the time, Dan Tehan, gained cross-party support for the law after getting former High Court judge Robert French to examine the problem.
One advocate for that law, Henderson, even quoted English philosopher and politician John Stuart Mill on the case for allowing more speech, not less. “When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens,” she told the Senate. “Our government understands that freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our democracy.”
That government made no move to insert a ban on hate speech into the Higher Education Support Act because it wanted to enshrine freedom of expression. The main speaker concerned about vilification was Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi. “Hate speech is unacceptable on our campuses and everywhere else in society,” she said.
This merely proves what everyone knows about politics. One person’s free speech is another’s threat to society. Do not expect consistency in federal parliament. The Liberals were in a panic about free speech when they were in power – and some of them even mounted a failed attempt to scrap elements of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which makes it an offence to offend someone on the basis of their race. Now they want tougher powers to forbid remarks they do not like.
A pro-Palestinian march in Melbourne’s CBD on Tuesday.Credit: Justin McManus
The protest slogans have clearly gone beyond polite debates about free speech. Some of them call for violence. The chant for an “intifada” uses the key term for the waves of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis in recent decades. It is true that many interpret the term more broadly, but the link to those attacks is indisputable.
The demand that Palestine should be free “from the river to the sea” is not just a call for a Palestinian state. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the global organisation that counters the vilification of the Jewish people, it is an antisemitic call that encourages the destruction of the state of Israel.
If only the previous government had banned hate speech when it had the chance.
This does not absolve the university chiefs from their responsibility for what happens on campus. One option is to suspend a student who declares support for Hamas, on the reasonable grounds that anyone who endorses a terrorist organisation is a threat to others. Another option is to check on protesters who are not students – and ask them to leave the campus. University officials are already working on these sorts of steps.
There is no mystery about what is happening. Outsiders are joining the protests because university lawns offer an easier base than a city park. It only takes a quick Google search to establish that many of the most vocal protesters are members of Socialist Alternative. “We stand for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a world socialist system,” this group says.
Peaceful protesters? Maybe not. The nexus between the Palestinian cause and hard-left ideology has been around since the Cold War. Some of the protesters still believe in Leon Trotsky’s vision of revolutionary Marxism, years after the failure of every communist experiment. No law can ban delusion.
The question for anyone who demands action is simple: what law would you use? How can it be suddenly illegal to shout “intifada” at the University of Melbourne when nobody has been charged for saying it outside the State Library? What makes this chant an offence on the University of Sydney lawns but not in Hyde Park? Existing law gives police the power to charge people for inciting violence – and it is not for university chiefs to lay those charges.
Five years ago, the University of Sydney sacked one of its academics, Tim Anderson, for putting a Nazi swastika over the Israeli flag. Jewish community leaders called Anderson’s action a clear case of antisemitism. The university did what it could – and the Federal Court ruled that Anderson was unfairly dismissed.
This helps explain why the Group of Eight universities has written to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to seek advice on the legal authority to act against people who shout “intifada” or “from the river to the sea”. There is an obvious risk that university authorities could try to sanction someone and lose in the courts. While the universities have codes of conduct, these only work if they have power in federal or state law. Even trespass laws may not be up to the task because university grounds are regarded as public spaces.
Those who want the police to use force to break up the camps should be careful what they wish for. The Trots would love a clash on campus. And some conservative observers seem to want the same thing. The mutual interest is in heightening the conflict, rather than defusing the protests.
One logical step is to move fast to ban hate speech. The Coalition is now calling for the reform, while Labor has promised to put the draft law to parliament. Dreyfus has not put a time frame on when he will reveal the bill, which means Labor will be exposed to claims that it is taking too long on a pressing problem. There is now a very strong case to make the change as soon as possible.
Universities should be open grounds for free speech, not platforms for antisemitism and violence. University vice chancellors have to act, but they can only act within the law. And they do not write the law. That’s what politicians are for.
David Crowe is chief political correspondent.
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