Why we must oppose the royal commission
The royal commission is a central element in a reactionary campaign by the core sections of the Australian ruling class to cynically take advantage of the Bondi terrorist attack to push society sharply to the right. It needs to be stridently opposed.
This orchestrated McCarthyite assault on the Palestine movement, on the left, on workers, on basic democratic rights and anything seen as vaguely progressive with week after week of wall-to-wall media coverage is the most concerted right-wing campaign in Australia for decades.
It is a systematic and extremely well organised attempt by the capitalist class to push the major institutions of society—the state apparatus, political parties, the trade unions, the courts, the universities, cultural institutions and so on—further to the right and to greatly strengthen the powers of the police and the security apparatus. They have blamed the murderous actions of two ISIS inspired gunmen on the hundreds of thousands of decent people who took to the streets to oppose genocide.
They want to use manufactured charges of antisemitism against opponents of the genocide in Gaza to severely curtail free speech and the right to protest and to create a harsher more authoritarian climate in society. This sets a very dangerous precedent for the future for campaigns by workers to defend their living standards, to oppose the threat of war between the US and China, to stand up for Aboriginal rights or any progressive cause.
This is not simply a campaign by Zionist forces, far-right figures like Pauline Hanson and the reactionary Murdoch press. The whole of the ruling class has joined forces in a concerted fashion—CEOs and the big business organisations, all of the mainstream media, military figures and the Liberal Party.
They choreographed demands from judges and lawyers to churches to Olympians and other supporting stars and cultural figures to ex-Labor MPs, plus the Teals and an array of small l liberals and do-gooders like David Pocock, with the likes of Lidia Thorpe trailing in their wake.
The Minns Labor government in NSW, a longstanding bitter opponent of the Palestine movement, also played an appalling role by rushing through draconian anti-protest laws, strengthening police powers and announcing its own scapegoating state based royal commission.
The trade union leadership, which has for decades refused to stand up for workers’ living standards and basic rights, played a notably despicable role. They consistently refused to mobilise workers to support the mass movement against genocide.
Then, in the wake of Bondi, the supposedly left-wing Victorian Trade Hall Council Secretary Luke Hilakiri denounced pro-Palestine protesters and rank-and-file workers active in Trade Unionists for Palestine. He declared that “they just need to back off” because they had supposedly “made all the points they need to make about Gaza”.
The Albanese government has strongly backed and armed Israel throughout its war on Gaza and denounced pro-Palestine protests as antisemitic. Then, in the wake of the Bondi attack, Albanese invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who a UN Commission has charged with “inciting genocide”, to tour Australia.
Albanese also promised to fully implement the outrageous anti-democratic demands of Jillian Segal, the far-right special envoy on antisemitism. Segal called for defunding broadcasters, universities and other public institutions that don’t ban criticism of Israel; Zionist oversight of the entire media; and compulsory pro-Israel “education” in schools.
However, all of this was nowhere near enough for the mainstream media and the rich and powerful who run this country. They demanded the government launch a full throttle McCarthyite witch hunt.
So when Albanese initially drew the line at calling a federal royal commission into antisemitism they unleashed an all out barrage of attacks to force the Labor government to fall into line and implement the ruling class’s full agenda. The capitalist class clearly is out to discipline Labor and humiliate Albanese to show who the real power in this country is.
Albanese has officially caved to the ruling class’s demands. This simply further confirms that we can’t rely on Labor governments to protect, let alone advance, the interests of workers and the oppressed.
However, Albanese agreeing to a royal commission will not in any way bring this concerted right-wing campaign to an end. The capitalist establishment is determined that the royal commission will not limit itself to the motivations and actions of the two ISIS inspired terrorists. Behind the spurious rhetoric of combatting “antisemitism” the royal commission will be turned into a ferocious assault on the left and on democratic rights.
They want to curtail pro-Palestinian voices, have the dangerously broad definition of antisemitism proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance recommended by the royal commission, and severely undermine the right to protest.
We need to stand our ground and resolutely oppose this ruling class offensive.
