Home Affairs funded a Muslim media group that claimed Australia “faked antisemitic attacks to save Israel” and platformed an antisemitic influencer who was later deported, the antisemitism royal commission has heard.
Commissioner Virginia Bell is staring down escalating calls to extend the Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commission timeline to address unresolved questions as it enters its final week of public hearings, with NSW Premier Chris Minns on Monday publicly backing an expansion.
The probe heard evidence a “social cohesion” grant was awarded by Home Affairs to the OnePath Network despite it platforming manosphere influencer “Sneako”, who was later deported from Australia.
Barrister Nick Bender SC grilled Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster on behalf of a collection of Jewish community groups over the department’s approach to visa screening and awarding community grants.
Radical Islamic preachers Mizanur Rahman Azhari and Shaykh Ahmadullah were granted visas and travelled to Australia as part of a speaking tour, but were deported after objections from the Jewish community.
Online influencer “Sneako”, whose real name is Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy, was granted a visa in May despite his years-long track record of antisemitic, misogynistic and white supremacist rhetoric.
Three weeks before his arrival in Australia he had led a group in the “Khaybar chant”, Mr Bender said, which references a historic conflict between Jewish tribes and followers of the Prophet Muhammad – it has since become a call for racial conflict. Sneako’s visa was cancelled only after public media reporting.
“I understand that the facts may not have been known to individuals within the department at the time at which the visa was granted. I’m just asking, knowing now that his visa was cancelled, whether you agree that it should follow that he never should have been given a visa to begin with,” Mr Bender asked.
“We will make a decision based on the facts we have in front of us at the time,” Ms Foster said. “We do due diligence to the best we can.”
Mr Bender led Ms Foster to a YouTube interview by the OnePath Network with Sneako, purportedly filmed in Australia.
OnePath Network, an Islamic education media company based in Australia, was a beneficiary of a Home Affairs grant for $308,000 “to support social cohesion and sustainability of independent multicultural media outlets” for use between June 16 this year and June 30 next year. Mr Bender said the interview “raises at least a very substantial concern that this grantee is acting inappropriately”.
A year earlier, he said, it had posted a video titled “How Australia faked antisemitic attacks to save Israel”, which remained online with more than 100,000 views.
“We will always, when information is provided to us, investigate its validity and its appropriateness,” Ms Foster said.
“I’m reluctant to say any more at this stage, so I don’t prejudice that process.”
The commission also heard from local mayors who tackled antisemitism within their constituency.
Earlier in the day, Mr Minns put himself at odds with his federal counterparts by declaring his support for an extension of a “couple of weeks” if required, and saying it would be “money well spent”.
He told reporters his government and the commonwealth were relying on recommendations from the inquiry to form government policy and, because of that, he hoped the commission would speak to “as large a number of people as possible”.
“If we need to go a couple of weeks longer, given that most of the expense was spent setting it up, that would seem to be money well spent, because both the federal and the state government are relying on those recommendations to shape some of our policy,” he told a press conference.
Mr Minns said he had spoken to Jewish leaders who have appeared at the royal commission, relaying that they had been happy with the platform they had been given.
“Given the expense and time that’s gone into the royal commission, and the fact that we’re not going to have another one for a long period of time, we are using this royal commission to get to the fundamental truths of what happened on the day, and also what happened in the lead-up to that day, particularly around antisemitism,” the Premier said, referring to the Bondi mass shooting.
“I’m hopeful that it will speak to as large a number of people as possible, and genuinely get the perspective of the community.”
Independent Jewish advocate Marnie Perlstein, the organiser behind a petition for a royal commission into the Bondi Beach terror attack that attracted 94,000 signatories, launched a new campaign on Sunday for an extension.
More than 3000 people had signed her new petition as of Monday afternoon and Ms Perlstein urged Commissioner Virginia Bell to request an extension if it was “what the public is asking for”.
Mainstream Jewish community leaders have stayed quiet on the prospect of an extension, but Ms Perlstein said she hoped a petition would show the public’s prevailing view.
“It affects potentially every single taxpayer in this country and that the public should have an opportunity to use their voice and have their opinion heard, and they can do that by choosing to sign or not sign the petition,” she told The Australian. “We will know over the next few days and weeks what the public truly thinks.
“There’s been a gap in terms of holding political leaders to account, those who failed in leadership: our Prime Minister, Tony Burke, Penny Wong, the people who made key decisions after October 7, 2023.
“If it was a criminal case, you would call the person accused of a crime to the stand, and the people that are, in my mind, the most guilty of spreading racial hatred in Australia have not been called to give evidence.”
The federal Coalition last week pushed for Labor to voluntarily extend the commission past its December 14 deadline, but the motion was quickly cut down when the Albanese government voted to gag debate on the issue.
Opposition education spokesman Julian Leeser and legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash on Monday seized on Mr Minns’ intervention, the latest in a series of departures from the position of federal Labor on policy addressing antisemitism.
The pair pushed in a joint statement for the government to volunteer an extension sufficient to address the commission’s “significant unfinished business”.
Labor previously voted against a debate on a possible extension of the royal commission moved by Mr Leeser in parliament, while senior ministers have said they respect the commission’s independence and ability to complete its work on the original timeline or seek an extension itself.
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