The internet adage “pics or it didn’t happen” refers to the fact that, since about 2010, almost nothing important has happened in a public space without someone pulling out their phone and taking a photo or video of it. 
And yet, if we are to believe a SafeWork NSW report, details of which were published by the Australian, pro-Palestine activists at Sydney University managed to burst into lecture halls chanting antisemitic slogans and carrying banners that read “Jews not allowed”, without a single photo or video of these alleged incidents in existence. 
Similarly, no-one thought to snap a pic and post about the time when, according to the report, Sydney University student activists “put up a billboard with all the names of Hamas terrorists on it” at a protest.
The report also claims that the eight-week Gaza solidarity encampment, which began last May, created “a workplace of fear, anxiousness and a fear of retribution towards Jewish workers and students because they were Jewish people”. Multiple reports and investigations into the encampment, including this one, have failed to provide any evidence of this. But if you repeat something often enough, it can start to seem true. 
The SafeWork NSW report is the result of an investigation instigated by a complaint from 23 staff and students claiming that Sydney University had breached its responsibility to provide a safe working environment for Jewish employees. SafeWork, the government agency tasked with regulating workplace health and safety, concluded based on interviews with the complainants and two site visits that the university “failed to take reasonable actions to manage, reduce, and eliminate active antisemitic conduct on campus”. 
But the report contains no credible evidence of antisemitic activism linked to the Palestine solidarity campaign. The main examples from the report, which the media have used to try to slander pro-Palestine activists at Sydney University, fail to provide this. Some are clearly fabricated, as in the above examples, which have not been corroborated with any evidence. Others are stock standard features of the campaign to support Palestine: posters and flyers advertising rallies and campus meetings, “Gaza will be free” tagged in the campus graffiti tunnel and the slogan “Palestine will be free” being chanted at a campus protest. There is not a shred of antisemitism in any of this.
That these gestures of staff and student support for the Palestinians form the basis for “psychosocial harm” to employees at Sydney University is a politically charged false assertion. 
In putting together this report, SafeWork makes a mockery of the idea of workplace health and safety. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that the agency is known for taking a soft touch approach to bosses who endanger their employees’ lives at work. In 2022, SafeWork NSW was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/workplace-safety-scandal-auditor-general-launches-six-month-investigation-into-failings-20221013-p5bphh.html">investigated</a> over allegations that workers had experienced injury and even death on sites where inspectors failed to follow up complaints adequately due to political interference.
While serious infringements of workplace health and safety have gone unpunished, and the number of workers fatally injured at work continues to <a href="https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/media-centre/news/key-work-health-and-safety-statistics-2024">rise</a>, the government agency tasked with regulating this is instead being misused as a weapon to come after pro-Palestine activism on university campuses. 
On this front, SafeWork is only following the lead of many other institutions that have tried to stifle Palestine solidarity under the guise of combating antisemitism. 
State Labor Premier Chris Minns spent months linking a “<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/the-great-antisemitism-con-job">great tsunami of high-profile antisemitic attacks</a>“ to weekly pro-Palestine street marches in Sydney, passing repressive anti-protest laws on the back of these claims. The NSW Police later revealed that these incidents had been almost entirely the work of petty criminals, linked to the same common source as the Dural caravan hoax. 
Universities have also used “concern for antisemitism” as justification to introduce anti-protest policies and procedures. Indeed, despite what the SafeWork report alleges, Sydney University has been leading the charge on quashing pro-Palestine activism. Over the last year, Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott has pushed through multiple policies designed to crack down on student and staff rights to protest and express political dissent. The new <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/free-speech-under-attack-at-sydney-university">Campus Access Policy</a> bans forms of protest that have been part of university life since the campaign against the Vietnam War, while policies introduced just this month impose punitive rules regarding posters on campus and total bans on students making lecture announcements before their classes. 
As Israel intensifies the genocide in Gaza and the war crimes pile up, the pro-Israel camp continues to find new ways to slander and silence the activists standing up for justice. But we won’t stop campaigning for Palestine.
Shovan Bhattarai is the vice-president of the University of Sydney Students’ Representative Council and a coordinator of the campus Students for Palestine collective

Shovan Bhattarai

SafeWork NSW’s report on antisemitism at Sydney University is fake news

Business has been booming for Officeworks throughout the pandemic. Sales have increased 27 percent in five months, according to the United Workers Union (UWU), which represents workers in the company’s distribution centres. The company’s profits had already increased by 42 percent between 2015 and 2019. 
Despite the good times, Officeworks has offered its distribution centre workers wage increases of between 1.5 and 2 percent this year, as well as cuts to overtime penalties, according to the union. The company has refused to give guarantees for job protection, amid growing concern among workers that their jobs will be outsourced. 
So workers at distribution centres in North Rocks and Yennora, New South Wales, and Laverton in Victoria went on a 24-hour strike in late August. “They talk about doubling the size of the business in the next two or three years!” Paul Khoudair, a UWU delegate who has worked at the centre for nearly two decades, tells Red Flag. “But they don’t wanna go past 2 percent? Doesn’t sit well with me.”
The distribution centres are used to replenish stock in Officeworks’ retail stores and fill online customer orders across Australia, and workers here have stayed on site during the pandemic. So far, three have tested positive for COVID-19.
Amy* has worked at the North Rocks distribution centre for three years. “Minimum hours everyone’s doing is at least ten, every day. You’re encouraged to stay back for twelve. It’s constant; half an hour lunch break, then you’re back in”, she says.
“With the corona stuff that’s been happening, we’ve really busted our arses these last couple of months”, says John,* who also works at the North Rocks site. “And for them to turn around and say that we don’t deserve the 2 percent, that they wanna impose all of these other things, it’s just like a slap in the face.”
As the sun comes up over the distribution centre strike on Monday, 24 August, workers on the morning shift begin to gather outside the site gates. There hasn’t been a strike at this workplace in almost 20 years, and the company has used dirty tactics to try to intimidate workers, such as hiring 30 casuals as scab labour over the weekend. “On Saturday, they had the new casuals walking around the warehouse”, Amy says. “They were like, ‘If you’re a casual and you wanna go out on strike, these are your replacements’.” 
As numbers grow outside the gates, spirits are high. A group gathers by the road to wave placards that read “HONK FOR PAY RISE”, and a holler goes up with each honk from a passing vehicle. One truck driving by belongs to a garbage collector who used to work here. He nearly swerves into the crowd as he jumps out of the truck to cheer on the strikers. 
Towards the end of the day, everyone joins a meeting to discuss next steps for the campaign. The UWU officials say that the company has refused to back down from its original offer and will move to a non-union ballot to push it. The union members resolve to campaign vigorously for a “no” vote over the coming days. We learn that workers in the Maritime Union and at Woolworths’ Wyong distribution centre, who recently won a 12 percent pay rise after a two-week strike, will boycott Officeworks until the distribution centre workers win.
“They say inside at work that we’re a family, but I don’t feel that”, says Gloria,* who has worked at the company for four years. “I feel more support now that we’re out here together and we’re standing up for what we deserve. And what we’re doing out here today is stronger than anything else a group could do.”
*Names have been changed

SafeWork NSW’s report on antisemitism at Sydney University is fake news

Officeworks distribution centres strike for wage rise

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