Thursday, 1 August 2024

Community safety

Jess WILSON (Kew) (17:33): (759) My adjournment is for Minister for Education. The action I am seeking is for the minister to deliver on this government’s promise to provide sufficient security funding to Jewish schools so they can keep their students safe. According to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, in the two months following the devastating attack on 7 October by terrorist organisation Hamas we saw a 738 per cent rise in antisemitic incidents compared to the same period last year. Unfortunately this steep and ugly rise in antisemitism has been particularly apparent here in Victoria, where we have seen protests and violence conducted in Jewish neighbourhoods and outside synagogues, designed to intimidate our Jewish community and target their faith. We have heard antisemitic chants even in this place calling for the complete destruction of Israel, and in the most hateful and intimidatory of acts we have witnessed the targeting of Jewish schools.

Mount Scopus Memorial College is a Jewish secondary school in Burwood. The college was targeted with disgraceful, hateful and antisemitic graffiti earlier this year. Because of this rise in hate and the increased security risks since 7 October, Mount Scopus is spending an additional $40,000 per month on guarding the school and its students, both primary and secondary. To date this year the school has been forced to spend more than $1.2 million on security costs, including a need post 7 October to spend $50,000 on CCTV and tracking of their school buses. If this trend continues, families at Mount Scopus will be forced to pay almost $2000 per student for security in 2025.

We know these security concerns are being felt by all Jewish schools. Indeed concerns have been so great that at some Jewish schools students have been told not to wear their school uniforms outside school grounds, excursions have been cancelled and sporting events have been postponed due to concerns about the safety of students. We are living in 2024, not 1934. The targeting of our Jewish community is morally repugnant and has no place in Victoria or anywhere. That is why I strongly supported the government’s promise in November to provide $2 million to be shared between Jewish and Islamic schools to improve security. While a base $20,000 was provided to each school for security improvements, most importantly the commitment included the ability for schools to apply for further funding for costs incurred for additional security measures beyond what schools generally require.

Despite the significant increase in security costs incurred by Mount Scopus since 7 October, their application for additional funding was rejected. At the same time the Allan Labor government has hit the school with its unfair schools tax and will now collect more in tax from the school than the school receives in funding from the state government. The education minister stated that it is unacceptable that students or staff feel unsafe in the schools where they learn, work and play. I could not agree more, but actions speak louder than words, Minister. It is easy to come into this place and say ‘Never again’, but schools like Mount Scopus are yet to receive this urgent support. I call on the minister to provide this additional security funding as a priority.