Labor MP Josh Burns criticizes Greens leader over comments on Jewish community

Labor MP Josh Burns has accused newly elected Greens leader David Shoebridge of being prejudiced against Jewish Australians and placing them in “good and bad” categories based on their positions on Israel’s bloody war in Gaza.

The assertion came as the NSW senator’s history of controversies was circulated by internal Greens critics and political opponents in Canberra, and as Anthony Albanese suggests Shoebridge’s hardline approach will turn off Greens voters.

On Thursday, the new leader said the rare contested ballot of Greens MPs this week showed the hunger within the party to respond to what he views as overlapping social, economic and environmental crises producing “searing anger” among voters.

“I see that as a real sign of strength in the party and a sign of deep eagerness across the whole team to get in and make this fight real,” he said on the ABC.

Shoebridge was on Wednesday asked about his relationship with the Jewish community.

He said the party had “really strong connections with much of the Australian Jewish community here, working alongside Jewish Australians who are fighting a genocide”.

He added: “And we will continue to champion their voices, to be solid allies with them.”

Shoebridge then urged the media to “listen to their cries for justice like we do”.

Burns, who represents some of Melbourne’s Jewish community, said he thought Shoebridge’s response was “pretty shocking”.

“Instead of saying something that was unifying and acknowledging that everyone deserves to feel safe and to be included in the Australian political landscape, Senator Shoebridge decided to give an answer that said that he has relationships with some [who] agree with him on his perspective of the Middle East.”

“People shouldn’t be judged just based on whether or not they agree with David Shoebridge… The Jewish community should not be put into categories of good and bad based on their views of what is happening in the Middle East.”

“That is not progressive leadership, that’s prejudice.”

Speaking later on News24, Burns acknowledged Shoebridge had not explicitly said there were good or bad Jewish people. But he said the Greens leader’s instinct was to “isolate” members of the community.

The prime minister opened Labor’s attacks a day after the NSW senator was elected to succeed Larissa Waters, critiquing Shoebridge’s aim to “replace Labor” instead of the “rise of a far-right wing party”.

Pointing to the interpretation that the Greens’ obstructionist approach was to blame for losses at the last election – a view not shared by Greens strategists – Albanese said Shoebridge “sounded a lot like some of the people who didn’t win their seats”.

Shoebridge, 55, has been scrutinised in the past for pushing the envelope in his political activism. He has described himself as a “radical socialist” and hails from the NSW hard-left faction associated with Lee Rhiannon.

He was the only Australian politician to attend an event at the Chinese embassy in Canberra marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II. The embassy was not allowed to hold the event in Parliament House. The ABC reported Shoebridge’s attendance and said analysts viewed the event as propaganda to buttress its claim over Taiwan.

Shoebridge has faced scrutiny in the past for his links to fringe elements of the pro-Palestine movement.

He posted on Instagram in July about Labor “gagging the truth” about the Bondi massacre. The post related to a former ASIO undercover agent, known as “Marcus”, who claimed he warned authorities about the Akrams family years before. ASIO insisted that “Marcus”, who was refused a visa to appear at the antisemitism royal commission, was unreliable.

Many comments on the post claimed explicitly that the Bondi massacre was a hoax.

“Mossad false flag event,” one user said, drawing 255 likes. Another saying “Get Israel out of our politics” received nearly 1000 likes, while another – “We all know it was a Mossad operation” – received 245 approvals.

Shoebridge’s office disabled comments on the post a few weeks ago when this masthead alerted it to nature of the remarks. This masthead is not suggesting Shoebridge supported the views of the commenters, only that they remained online for many weeks.

The volume of comments underlined Israel’s reputational damage since it responded to the October 7 Hamas attacks by entering Gaza and killing at least 70,000, including combatants. The UN has labelled it a possible genocide. However, the comments also display the conspiratorial views of some elements of the left.

Albanese’s key ally in the Jewish community, Peter Wertheim, singled out Shoebridge in his submission to the royal commission. Wertheim, the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said Shoebridge had made a false claim about government funding for security upgrades that Wertheim said spurred a series of responses that “inflamed antisemitism”.

“The senator did not check the accuracy of this statement,” Wertheim wrote. “The sequence of social media commentary [was] illustrative of how misinformation and disinformation can play to and stoke antisemitic sentiment.”

A vehement critic of the US alliance, Shoebridge appeared at the Pine Gap intelligence facility in July with David Milner, a political commentator who runs news website The Shot.

A few weeks later, Milner wrote in an article that Labor was “beholden to the Zionist lobby” and subservient to a “cadre of genocidal paedophiles”, going on to name the “Epstein class” of “vampiric corporations”.

After writer Sami Shah wrote in Crikey that The Shot’s recent pieces were practical “demonstrations of antisemitism”, Milner called Shah a “liberal Zionist coward”. Milner was contacted for comment.

Shoebridge’s office did not respond to detailed questions about this story, including whether he endorsed Milner’s views. A party spokesman said: “This is a collection of allegations that are grossly inaccurate, false and wilfully misleading.”

This masthead has reported extensively on Pauline Hanson’s ties to extremists including a neo-Nazi associate, and the rebranded National Socialist Network’s pledge to support One Nation at the election, as hardline forces capitalise on a crisis of faith in mainstream parties across the world.

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