Survey of Candidates in the Perth By-election

The Jewish Community Council of Western Australia Inc has now completed its survey of the opinions of candidates for the forthcoming by-election for the Perth Electorate, in relation to issues of interest to the community.

The following is a list of the candidates in alphabetical order. Ten of them responded to our questionnaire. Those in italics did not respond.

ARIELLI	Nicole	Animal Justice Party
BRITZA	Ian	Independent
COLLINS	Paul	Independent
DU PREEZ	Wesley	Liberal Democrats
GORMAN	Patrick	Australian Labor Party
GRAYDEN	Jim	Independent
HAMMOND	A	Science Party
HARFOUCHE	Gabriel	Australian People's Party
JOUBERT	Ellen	Australian Christians
MASON	Barry	Citizens Electoral Council*
MATHESON	Julie	Western Australia Party
MULLINGS	Ben	The Australian Mental Health Party
PERKS	Caroline	The Greens (WA)**
ROBINSON	Tony	ALA
SCOTT	Colin	Sustainable Australia

The responses received are available as follows:

• in this DropBox file;  and
• in this GoogleDrive file. 

Further information for voters:

*Citizens Electoral Council

Voters should be aware that the The Citizens Electoral Council of Australia is a minor political party in Australia affiliated with the international LaRouche Movement, led by American political extremist Lyndon LaRouche, who three times ran for President of the USA, and was sentenced in 1989 to 15 years in prison for scheming to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and deliberately defaulting on more than $30 million in loans from his supporters. In 2011, the Party's leader in Australia, Craig Isherwood published an article in its "New Citizen" entitled : “Defeat the British Crown’s Green Fascist Dictatorship” Under that banner headline, the Citizens Electoral Council presented a purported "indictment of the British Royal Family’s half-century long creation and personal direction of the world’s present “green” movement, as their chosen vehicle for global genocide."

**Greens Party

The Greens national policy on “Israel/Palestine” is anchored in a core resolution dated March 2010, which includes 

• their demand for the Australian government “to halt military cooperation and military trade with Israel”
• to “recognise the ongoing injustice that has been done to the Palestinian people and aim to rectify that injustice in a way that will allow both Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace”
• calls for “the establishment of an international commission under the auspices of the UN to effect a settlement of the conflict” and only then “peace negotiations facilitated by the commission leading to a schedule for the implementation of all the goals”
• calls for the deployment of “international” forces to protect Palestinians.

The Greens have never issued a condemnation of an act of Palestinian violence or terrorism but Greens Foreign Policy spokesman Sen. Scott Ludlam has made many statements including condemnations of Israel. Among Ludlam’s statements have been baseless and inflammatory accusations copying Palestinian propaganda, such as his false claim in October 2015 that “Israeli military forces have repeatedly stormed the holy site of the Al-Aqsa mosque.”

All Greens members of parliament also signed the strongly anti-Israel 2014 Canberra Declaration on Gaza.

In July 2014, amidst fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Greens National Council passed a resolution accusing Israel of waging war against civilians by putting “the might of its military force against the Palestinian people… this has not been proportionate to the Hamas rocket attacks.”

At its national conference in November 2015, the Greens passed a resolution formally recognising the State of Palestine “as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”

Greens leader, Sen. Richard Di Natale, is on record as opposing Israel’s demand to be recognised as a Jewish state or homeland under the widely used formula “two states for two peoples”. As the left-wing website New Matilda reported: “Di Natale’s office [said that] the Senator supported a peaceful two-state solution. ‘The establishment of a “Jewish state” (as opposed to an “Israeli state”) is not conducive to this outcome, and Senator Di Natale did not intend for his comments to be construed as such, and this is not Australian Greens policy.'” In this, the Greens closely align with the position of the Palestinian Authority, which staunchly rejects recognising Israel as a Jewish homeland in any peace agreement.

In August 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas, Greens Acting Leader Adam Bandt called on Australia to pressure the US to cut off arms supplies to Israel. “Australia cannot stand idly by while its ally arms one side of the conflict in Gaza,” said Mr Bandt in a press release. Bandt suggested Australia should suspend its own military cooperation with the United States as a form of coercion. “Australia could, for example, suspend the basing of US troops in Darwin until the United States pulls back from restocking the Israeli government and taking sides in the conflict,” Bandt said.

In March 2016, Sen. Ludlum attempted to push a motion to halt military cooperation and military trade with Israel, in a vote that coincided with the visit of former Israeli Defence Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz to Australia. Referring to Gantz’s role in Gaza conflicts, the news item on the attempted motion posted on the Greens website was titled “Don’t mention the alleged war crimes”.

A further issue in the Greens platform likely to concern many in Australia is its policy of removing clauses granting limited exemptions to religious organisations from anti-discrimination laws. This would likely impact significantly on Jewish schools and other communal institutions and concern has been expressed about this policy by Jewish community leaders.

Di Natale also controversially called for Australia to end its alliance with the US because of “the horrific consequences of US foreign policy.”