In this interview, Colleen Harkin appeared on ABC Melbourne Mornings with Justin Smith to discuss the IPA’s research into social cohesion.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Justin Smith:
There’s no way around it. It has been a bloody awful week for Australia and a week that we would dearly wish that we could erase from our history. We can’t. Let’s wrap up the week. Emma Dawson is Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre and Colleen Harkin is Director of the Schools Programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. Emma, Colleen?
Colleen Harkin:
Good morning to you both.
Justin Smith:
Welcome.
Emma Dawson:
Good morning.
Justin Smith:
I will keep that question going too that we started off at 8:30. 1-300-222-774. How have our leaders gone this week, but not just our politicians, religious leaders, our community leaders? How has the media gone this week, our leaders in media? 1-300-222-774. We’ll keep it going. We’ll chat. Colleen, hard to put into words this week.
Colleen Harkin:
It’s incredibly hard to put into words. I think most people are still reeling from the fact that it has actually happened on our shores. I think people have that sort of grief has now turned into anger because so much has been allowed to fester for so long and so many people warned that something like this might happen and it was sort of set aside and not taken seriously. I think there has been an absence of leadership before and since, there’s been sort of a bit of mealy-mouthed response from some people who should have been much more convicted in what they said.
Josh Frydenberg’s speech was powerful and very personal and it sort of reflects on a lot of our political leaders that it took him to say a lot of what needed to be said. I do think also though, that of course the Jewish community are the focus of this and the people who are the most affected, but this is not just about Jewish people. This is about the very fabric of Australia and who we are and our culture and what we stand for, who we’re prepared to stand up with, and what we’re not prepared to accept, and I think is a day of reckoning and we have to have it now.
Justin Smith:
Emma?
Emma Dawson:
The first thing I want to say is that this was an anti-Semitic terrorist attack on Australian soil on Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah. And my solidarity and my thoughts are with the Jewish community unequivocally and without caveat this week. I think Colleen is right though when she says it is an attack on all of us. And it’s been so deeply shocking and deeply upsetting because Australia has done very well until now to avoid these kinds of attacks, which occur in most Western democracies for very similar reasons. So seeing this occur on our shores has been shocking.
It shouldn’t really be shocking to people. ASIO Malcolm Turnbull said very well the other day that terrorists only need to succeed once, whereas ASIO has to succeed every single time to foil every single plot. So let’s not forget that. But I do think that what it exposes is, as Colleen also said, that grief has turned to anger very quickly, and that’s because the anger has been simmering in our society for a long time. And it has been particularly bad for the last couple of years since the Hamas attacks on the 7th of October 2023 and Israel’s then disproportionate and abhorrent response.
What distresses me as someone nominally of the left is the utter refusal by many in the well-meaning pro-Palestinian movement to take any pause to reflect that their words and actions may have not directly contributed to the decision of two terrorist sympathising radicals to undertake a heinous act, but that a lot of the language, a lot of the atmosphere around those protests, the refusal to admit that phrases like, “From the river to the sea. Globalise the intifada,” are incredibly offensive to Jewish people.
Whether you think they mean what Jewish people take them to mean or not, there is a time to stop and say, “Have we at least in some way, however unwittingly, or however we didn’t mean to, or we don’t think we’re culpable, contributed to an atmosphere that made this act permissible in this country.”
Justin Smith:
Colleen?
Colleen Harkin:
I agree. And this is the issue about what has happened over a couple of years that has been allowed to fester and there haven’t been nearly enough people to come and speak out against what has gone on. The protests in Melbourne week in, week out, the university sit-ins, the burnings of synagogues, the graffiti. It’s all happened and has emboldened some reprehensible people to think that there’s a mood of acceptance for this. And we actually have the laws. We already have the laws in place that could have dealt with a lot of this stuff and people chose not to enact on them.
Justin Smith:
Well, I want to ask you then, just with that in mind, the announcements yesterday from the Albanese government on how they’re going to combat anti-Semitism. Have a listen to this. This is Anthony Albanese saying he could have done more.
Anthony Albanese:
More could have always been done. Governments aren’t perfect. I’m not perfect. We have engaged in a constructive way. Could we have done more? Of course, you could always do more. And my heart goes out to what is a community that are suffering that have been targeted.
Justin Smith:
Colleen, I want to stay with you on that. With the announcements yesterday, is that going to make a difference?
Colleen Harkin:
Look, it’s never too late, right? But it is too late for the 15 people who have been murdered. But what I find incredibly frustrating is this pivoting that’s going on to create a different conversation like the gun laws, for example. There’s about a million people in Australia who hold a gun licence, and now having the conversation that all of a sudden holding a gun is a reason for this sort of attack on our soil. It’s not. It has nothing to do with it.
There are a million recreational gun holders who shoot deer or whatever they do, and they’re just trying to change the conversation. The same with this idea that we’re now going to apparently teach antisemitism in schools. It’s a nonsense. What we have to teach in schools is equality, not identity politics of segregating out Jewish people or Muslim people or Christian people. Australia’s values are that we are all equal. So learning that in school is what kids need to learn, the value of being in Australia, not whether you are Muslim or Jewish or Christian.
Emma Dawson:
I would agree with that in principle. I think what we need to do is remember that Australia had been very successfully a multicultural pluralistic democracy where we didn’t have groups set against one another, certainly not in public life. However, I do think there is evidence of a lot of young people who have lost the historical knowledge about antisemitism, and for example, believe that the political ideology of Zionism is one that seeks to destroy the Palesestinian state. It’s not.
The political ideology of Zionism simply holds that the Jewish people have a right to a homeland and to self-determination. So I think when all Zionists are terrorists, for example, that language that’s used often on the left, is deeply ignorant and deeply offensive to a lot of Jewish people who would say, “I am a Zionist,” simply because they believe that Israel has a right to exist. So there is some need to explain-
Colleen Harkin:
But they’re talking about having this stuff for kindergarten. They’re talking about K to 12. People have lost knowledge of history at all levels. Most kids in Australia wouldn’t know anything about Australia’s involvement in previous wars, anything about our Anzacs.
Emma Dawson:
And it’s really that broad teaching of history and of anti-racism, the concept of internationalism and solidarity and understanding that religious and racial prejudice is something we should always be striving to move beyond as a civilised nation. That’s core to it. But I do think what this is talking about is the fact that there are many people that are outraged at the thought that they have had any contribution to the atmosphere that’s allowed this at all, who simply don’t understand that chanting, “Globalise the intifada,” is directly offensive and calling for violence towards Jewish people in the eyes of many, many, many Jewish people in Australia.
Justin Smith:
1-300-222-774 is the phone number. We’re wrapping up the week with Emma Dawson and Colleen Harken, but we asked this question, how’s the leadership gone? Not just politicians, religious leaders, community leaders, how has the media gone this week? 1-300-222-774. The number is 1-300-222-774. We’re wrapping up the week with Emma Dawson, Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre.
Colleen Harkin is the Director of Schools Programmes at the Institute of Public Affairs. We’ve got some breaking news that we’ll go to in a moment. Yeah, we’ll come to that in a moment. But I want to ask you both, watching the funeral yesterday of Matilda was incredibly hard to watch. I think that’s the hardest thing that I’ve had to watch in a very long time, watching the family in that front row just trying to get themselves together. How do we harness that?
Emma Dawson:
The compassion.
Justin Smith:
How do we harness the grief, turn it into compassion-
Emma Dawson:
In compassion rather than anger.
Justin Smith:
… and make it into something that we can use going forward?
Emma Dawson:
I found it incredibly difficult to watch. I’ve been upset by it all week, but that was a particularly difficult thing to witness. And I think it is necessary and the Prime Minister’s remarks that you played earlier, I think do point the way. He didn’t shirk responsibility, “Yes, we could always do more.” And anyone in his position, I think he said, would have regrets on an occasion like this. If you can’t admit that, then you are not showing compassion for the moment. And I think it is really important that we look at that family and we look at all the families of the people that were lost and injured and terrified and try to understand and put ourselves in their shoes.
We’re not seeing a lot of anger come from the direct victims. They are grieving, they are sad, and they are reaching out to their community, and that’s what we need to do, we need to embrace one another. And this defensiveness on right and left, and I’m calling out my own side today, that’s not to say that I don’t think that the spectre of Neo-Nazis on our street and that extreme right-wing tendency towards fascism here globally is a much bigger threat than anything from the pro-Palestinian movement, of course, but I’m saying it behoves all of us after an event like this to just take a step back from our entrenched positions and say, “What might I do to bring peace back to my community?”
Justin Smith:
The member for Wills, Peter Khalil, was on the programme earlier this week with Wally discussing whether we’ve become complacent about social cohesion in Australia. Let’s have a little listen to Peter.
Waleed Aly:
Have we fallen asleep, Khalil?
Peter Khalil:
That’s a really good question, actually. We’re so blessed in Australia that over many decades, we just take for granted how peaceful our society is, how things work, but there are those, as I’ve said, who wish to kill that idea. So that complacency, wherever it may have emerged because we were comfortable, we thought we’re so lucky to be here and so on, and we just all took it for granted, there could be an argument made on that basis. And this is not a political point or an argument against any particular side of politics. It’s like, “What can we do better as a society?” We are faced with these challenges now.
Justin Smith:
Yeah. Peter Khalil, a member for Wills speaking earlier this week. Colleen, how do we harness that?
Colleen Harkin:
Well, I think he’s completely correct that we, as a nation, I’ve said it before, in some ways we’re a bit lazy. We’ve had it good. We think it’s always going to be that way, and we haven’t really realised that it’s incumbent on us to stand up for the values that we hold that are different to other countries. We do have it better than most places, and that’s why millions of people have come here and tried to come here. You don’t see too many Australians getting on a boat trying to go somewhere else.
Emma Dawson:
No.
Colleen Harkin:
We have been lazy about protecting what it is that Australia is and needs to continue to be.
Emma Dawson:
And that we actively created this country.
Colleen Harkin:
Correct.
Emma Dawson:
First Nations people aside, since European settlement, the White Australia policy was dismantled 50 years ago, and there’s been a deliberate push in this country to be a welcoming, pluralistic, multicultural place. Now, that’s been attacked over the years by people from all sides of politics, primarily on the right, it has to be said. But what Peter’s talking about there, and Peter is, full disclosure, a longtime friend of mine, long before either of us got involved in labour politics and came to that separately, but he is an Egyptian Coptic Christian with a deep experience in the Middle East in his previous career.
And the concept of social cohesion has been poo-pooed by people on the right and left over recent years. It’s been called out as some kind of conspiracy of the dominant class to stop people protesting or stop them having views. It’s been pilloried on the right as some kind of touchy-feely woke thing. It is not. Social cohesion is the means by which we hold together a society that isn’t all of one race or one religion or one ethnic or cultural background. It is incredibly important. As Colleen said, then it’s on all of us. It’s not just up to our leaders. It’s not just up to the elected politicians to fix this. No country in the world has been able to implement legislation that stops terrorist attacks.
Colleen Harkin:
You can’t legislate against hate.
Emma Dawson:
You can not.
Colleen Harkin:
You can’t stop.
Emma Dawson:
It is on all of us to take a step back from the heat and that anger.
Colleen Harkin:
And I think part of this issue, Emma, is that we have to know who we are and what we stand for.
Emma Dawson:
Yeah, we do.
Colleen Harkin:
First of all, we have to actually-
Emma Dawson:
And we’re never going to fully agree on that, Colleen. You and I don’t fully agree.
Colleen Harkin:
No, correct. But there are big ticket items that I actually think most Australians do agree on, and that’s what we have to ensure is it’s sacrosanct.
Emma Dawson:
And that’s respect for people’s cultural beliefs, their religious beliefs, their values, unless those values or those beliefs infringe on other people’s rights.
Justin Smith:
I wanted to mention, thank you very much. 1-300-2774. Emma Dawson is here, Colleen Harken. We’re wrapping up the week, but we do have some breaking news. You may have heard this at 10 o’clock, but just repeating, the husband of Victoria’s premier has lost his licence after drink-driving in Central Victoria. Premier Jacinta Allan says Yorick Piper was driving to the supermarket in Bendigo yesterday morning when he rear-ended another car at an intersection.
He was pulled over and blew the legal blood alcohol rating of 0.05. Mr. Piper received an on-the-spot fine and lost his licence for three months, which kicks in from January 16. Premier Jacinta Allan says he and her family had celebrated their son’s birthday at a local pub the night previously, and that medication he is taking may have contributed to the accident. So just repeating, the husband of Victoria’s premier has lost his licence after an accident and blowing 0.05 and he lose his licence for three months from January 16.
Emma Dawson:
Unfortunate for-
Colleen Harkin:
Do you want us to comment on that?
Emma Dawson:
… that family. Jacinta’s going to be doing all the driving of all the kids for the next foreseeable times.
Justin Smith:
You notice how I just leave a little air there and I let you just stroll on in. So yeah.
Emma Dawson:
Look, I feel sorry for the family. We have drink-driving laws for a reason. It’s obviously harder in regional Victoria to not get in your car when you need to get some milk, but when you’ve had a drink the night before, walk to the milk bar, folks, if you can.
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah. Look, I don’t see it as a gotcha moment. He’s been an idiot and he has to pay the consequences and he’s not the first and only person who will ever do it. I’m absolutely no fan of Jacinta Allan, but what her husband does is not her problem and he’s just been a fool and life moves on.
Justin Smith:
I’m sure she’s relieved there’s not an election coming up. Oh, wait.
Colleen Harkin:
There is.
Justin Smith:
That’s right. Hang on a second.
Colleen Harkin:
But see, I don’t think things like that should be an election issue. You know what I mean? We’ve got really serious problems to address.
Justin Smith:
But realistically though, it’s one of those things where we, we, as in everybody in the media and in politics, don’t get to tell people what they care about. It does have an impact, doesn’t it?
Emma Dawson:
It does, but also-
Colleen Harkin:
Oh, for sure, but he’s not the politician, by the way. Emma?
Emma Dawson:
And also it’s the way these things are covered and drummed up. And this goes to the broader issue of the media this week as well, right? No, we don’t get to tell people what they care about, but in the media people are, regardless of the fact that we’ve got many other means of communications now, still very much the gateway through which we decide what gets covered and what gets talked about and are just as responsible for politicising minor things like this as they are for politicising and trying to bring conflict to sell to get our eyeballs on a huge issue.
Colleen Harkin:
And I think that’s perhaps part of the reason why, we spoke before about people’s conviction to protect Australian and Australian values, is that they’re sick of hearing rubbish. They’re sick of hearing things that they don’t have the impact in the places where they want them to.
Justin Smith:
Like what?
Colleen Harkin:
Well, with respect, things like that. Jacinta Allan’s husband has no impact on my life. He’ll suffer the consequences of his own action. I want the government to address energy policy and national security, and I want them to address things that have big-ticket items on the way we all live and how we work as a society, whether someone has been a fool and done something that affects-
Emma Dawson:
If Yorick Piper was the head of the Transport Accident Commission, we might say it was an issue, right?
Colleen Harkin:
Correct. That would be different.
Emma Dawson:
But what’s behind this is some kind of censorious, “Oh, look, this goes to the character of the Premier.” It doesn’t go to the character of the Premier. And if that’s the case then-
Justin Smith:
Respectfully, nobody said that.
Emma Dawson:
No, but I’m saying implied in this as a story, why is it public interest? Only because he’s married to the Premier. So what’s the possible judgement on that? The implicit thing is that somehow it goes to the character of the Premier and that’s nonsense.
Justin Smith:
The Premier was spoken a short time ago. This is what she said.
Jacinta Allan:
He simply shouldn’t have been driving the following morning. He understands that, I understand that, and for this, we are both truly sorry.
Justin Smith:
All right. There you go. That’s the Premier talking there. Jacinta Allan and her husband have also made donations to local charities and anti-drink driving organisations as part of the announcement today. We’ll take a quick call just before I ask you both something that did make you smile this week. A tough one to get a smile this week, but I will ask you. Mary’s in Carlton. Hi, Mary.
Mary:
Oh, good morning. Look, I just want to make a comment about Josh Frydenberg’s speech. I was absolutely appalled, horrified at the hate and the venom in his voice and his personal attack on Albanese and blaming Albanese. Now, that’s such a shocking thing. And my respect for him, and I did respect Josh Frydenberg, but I’m sorry, it’s gone out the window. I thought, “Here is a man who is showing such fanaticism and hate directed at a prime minister.” We haven’t even had a royal commission. We haven’t had anything into it. Things are coming through. That poor man, I felt so sorry for Albanese. How can he live with that hate?
Colleen Harkin:
Totally disagree. I’m sorry.
Emma Dawson:
I completely agree with you. I think that the speech was in temperate, divisive, inflammatory, and although he denied this on 7.30, very much to do with his desire to return to the political fold. The anger was obviously genuine. He has a right to have his feelings as a Jewish person, but I think it was an exploitation of his profile and I was very disappointed in it.
Colleen Harkin:
I think they’re both extraordinary things to say. He walks around town with security because his life is under threat for being a Jew. His personal exposure to this is beyond anything that we can even comprehend. The Segal report about dealing with antisemitism has sat on someone’s table for months.
Emma Dawson:
Because parts-
Colleen Harkin:
I think it’s-
Emma Dawson:
… of it are problematic, Colleen. Parts of it are problematic.
Colleen Harkin:
Deal with it. This is the problem is that this stuff has been festering for years and no one has done anything about it and 15 people get murdered. Somebody actually comes out with emotion and strength and says what he really thinks and everyone goes bananas about somehow it’s just a play to get back into politics. It’s the most outrageous thing that he could be accused of. I think it’s insulting to him.
Emma Dawson:
I think the speech, even if he was still in an office of politics would have been inappropriate and divisive.
Colleen Harkin:
But Albanese himself has said he could have-
Emma Dawson:
Yes.
Colleen Harkin:
… and should have done more.
Emma Dawson:
But he did not-
Colleen Harkin:
So if he had said it himself, what is wrong with Josh Frydenberg saying it?
Emma Dawson:
It’s the way he said it and the other things he said, I think went far too far. And I think the Prime Minister’s remarks for-
Colleen Harkin:
What is too far when 15 people have been killed?
Emma Dawson:
Because what would Josh Frydenberg have the government do? Would he have him ban public protest?
Colleen Harkin:
What about-
Emma Dawson:
No.
Colleen Harkin:
… the hate preachers?
Emma Dawson:
And that’s being acted on, Colleen.
Colleen Harkin:
Now maybe. What about, for example-
Emma Dawson:
There was a meeting of National Security Cabinet-
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah, but now-
Emma Dawson:
… and that decision was taken.
Colleen Harkin:
… after 15 people died and 49 in hospital.
Emma Dawson:
And the Prime Minister has said, “Yes, look, we may have been able to do…” And I think what they’re coming out with now is attempting to find ways of addressing this. But let me repeat, no country in the world has successfully, as you said-
Colleen Harkin:
That’s because-
Emma Dawson:
… you can’t legislate against hate.
Colleen Harkin:
… globally, there has been a mood to accept it.
Emma Dawson:
Because no country, as you said earlier, you can’t legislate against hate.
Colleen Harkin:
You can’t.
Emma Dawson:
All we can do-
Colleen Harkin:
And for example, remember that university’s lecturer who was screaming and shouting like, “Nose to nose.”
Emma Dawson:
Yes. She lost her job this week, I believe.
Colleen Harkin:
This week. She did that three months ago.
Emma Dawson:
Because there are-
Colleen Harkin:
This week.
Emma Dawson:
Because there are processes to go through, otherwise-
Colleen Harkin:
No, that’s not true. That’s ridiculous.
Emma Dawson:
Of course there are. Of course there are processes to go through.
Colleen Harkin:
Any other person in a workplace who did that would be stood down immediately, investigated immediately, and handled immediately.
Emma Dawson:
Well, universities are notoriously [inaudible 00:24:51] community.
Colleen Harkin:
Well, that’s not good enough.
Justin Smith:
Colleen, was Josh Frydenberg over the top when he said that the Prime Minister had blood on his hands.
Emma Dawson:
Yes.
Colleen Harkin:
But he does.
Emma Dawson:
No.
Colleen Harkin:
He’s admitted it himself. The Prime Minister-
Emma Dawson:
Sorry, but that kind of rhetoric… He has not said, “I have blood on my hand.”
Colleen Harkin:
The Prime Minister has-
Emma Dawson:
And that kind of rhetoric is dangerous.
Colleen Harkin:
A large part of the problem with this is that people are calling it a tragedy. It’s not a tragedy. A tragedy makes it sound like it was an accident that no one could prevent. It sounds like it was a terrible bus accident or something. This was premeditated murder and people were warned for years that it would happen.
Emma Dawson:
Yes.
Colleen Harkin:
It is not a tragedy. It is a premeditated Islamic terrorist attack that people were warned would happen.
Emma Dawson:
Absolutely. But we didn’t know when or by whom. I think it is absolutely, as you say, a premeditated act of murder. It’s not just a happenstance. Somebody did this and it comes from an ideology. But to claim that the Prime Minister has blood on his hands is exactly the kind of heated rhetoric that we need to take out of this debate if we’re going to restore our social cohesion.
Justin Smith:
Sorry, Colleen, but you’d have to be quick, if that’s all right.
Colleen Harkin:
No, that’s okay. Well, I was just going to repeat myself. The Prime Minister himself has said, “I could have and should have done more.” You don’t need to hear any more than that.
Emma Dawson:
We all need to have that moment of self-reflection and responsibility rather than lashing out at our fellow Australians.
Justin Smith:
All right. I’ve got to do this or Mary McDonald will come upstairs and go after me. I just simply can’t have that. Thank you very much to both of you. And I know Raf would want to say thank you very much for this year too and Merry Christmas to you.
Emma Dawson:
Thank you. And thank you, Colleen.
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah, and to you too.
Justin Smith:
Emma Dawson, Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre and Colleen Harken, Director of the School’s Programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. Let’s get the-
This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on ABC Melbourne Mornings from 19 December 2025 has been edited for clarity.
