Sometimes a statement matters not because it is carefully phrased, but because it refuses to participate in a lie. Daniel Lewkovitz’s recent X post addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is one such statement. It is not a party-political intervention. It is a moral objection — and it deserves to be taken seriously.

“Don’t you dare claim your ‘Hate Speech’ laws are helping me or my Jewish community. Don’t you dare.”

That line alone exposes the central problem with the government’s approach. These laws are being justified in the name of Jewish safety, yet a growing number of Jewish Australians are explicitly rejecting them. When the people supposedly being protected say, clearly, “this is not for us,” the moral legitimacy of the policy collapses.

Lewkovitz points to a fact that cannot be wished away: the government had years to address open antisemitic incitement and chose not to.

“You had two years to respond to violent speech at the Sydney Opera House, violent speech on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, violent speech on CBD streets weekly, violent speech at universities… You didn’t. You did bugger all.”

This is not hyperbole. Australians have watched, repeatedly, as mobs chanted threats, glorified terrorism, and intimidated Jewish communities — often in the most visible public spaces in the country. For two years there was no urgency, no emergency legislation, no rush.

Now, suddenly, sweeping hate-speech laws must be forced through parliament with a so-called “public consultation” measured in days?

That is not careful lawmaking. It is retrospective narrative control.

One of the most serious accusations in Lewkovitz’s post is also the most uncomfortable:

“Don’t you dare use the memory of dead Jews at Bondi to pretend you’re solving a problem. You helped create the problem.”

This cuts to the heart of the issue. Exploiting tragedy like Albo is does not absolve his government of prior negligence. Nor does it grant him permission to expand state power while avoiding accountability for the conditions that made violence possible.

Jewish victims must not be used as moral cover for laws that target speech while leaving ideology untouched.

Lewkovitz refuses the central sleight of hand behind modern hate-speech laws:

“Violent Islam is the problem. Not guns, not memes…”

This distinction matters. Criticising an ideology — particularly one with a long and well-documented history of religiously justified violence — is not racial hatred. It is analysis. Conflating the two is not compassion; it is intellectual dishonesty.

The most disturbing contradiction exposed in the post is this: Islamic texts are expected to be exempt from the proposed laws. That means explicit calls to violence found within the Quran and Hadith may continue to be preached publicly — while citizens criticising those calls may face legal sanction.

Lewkovitz quotes a passage also referenced in the Hamas Charter — a call for the killing of Jews — and makes the point plainly:

“They’ll be able to say it in the mosque and in the street… Meanwhile the cops will be arresting people like me for posting truth bombs.”

If this is how the law functions, it does not reduce hatred. It protects incitement and punishes dissent.

Lewkovitz warns Australia is following the same path as the UK — where hate-speech enforcement has produced selective policing, growing resentment, and declining trust in institutions.

In Britain, police resources are routinely diverted to policing tweets and online speech, while radical preachers operate with relative impunity under religious exemptions. Ordinary citizens lose confidence in the law. And minority communities — especially Jews — become lightning rods for backlash once the state claims to be acting “on their behalf.”

This is not theoretical. It is observable.

Perhaps the most important insight in Lewkovitz’s post is this warning:

“Eventually… who do you think they’ll blame?

Jews.”

History is clear on this point. When governments claim to act for Jews while silencing everyone else, Jews become the visible justification for invisible, expanded government power. When those policies fail — as they inevitably do — resentment does not land on politicians. It lands on Jewish communities.

That is not protection. It is exposure.

Lewkovitz repeatedly returns to the same indictment:

“You did nothing for two years. Nothing. Yet now you want to ram legislation through on two days’ notice so you can announce you’ve solved the problem.”

This is governance by press release. The appearance of action replaces responsibility for incompetent actions in government – such as mass migration from Gaza of all anti-Australian, antisemitic cultures.

The post also rejects the idea that Jewish communities should accept symbolic funding and concrete barriers as a substitute for national moral clarity.

“We shouldn’t have to build giant walls and steel doors around our buildings while you leave the door of the entire country wide open for extremists.”

Security is not grants, fences, or announcements. Security is enforcing existing laws, confronting violent ideology, and refusing to criminalise Truth-telling in order to compensate for earlier cowardice.

“Hate speech” laws do not cure hatred. They misidentify it. They displace it. They protect the wrong people. And they ultimately make minorities less safe by attaching them to laws they did not ask for and do not support.

If Australia wants less hatred, it must fully liberalise all political and religious speech and start confronting Islamic ideology. Laws that silence citizens while shielding incitement, insurrection and sedition do not heal societies — they fracture them.

And if the government insists on claiming it acts on behalf of the Jewish community, it should begin by listening when Jewish Australians say, clearly and publicly:

Not in our name.

Dave Pellowe is the founder of 'Church And State', a nationwide ministry equipping Christians to be public salt and light: redeeming the culture and advocating for righteousness in government. Dave teaches Christians how God’s unchanging Word answers all the controversial questions. Specialising in what God says about complex ethical and social issues, Dave Pellowe is a guest speaker at churches, youth groups and Christian schools, TV, radio and podcast interviews and other secular and Christian forums where love of Truth and honest thinking are valued. [more]

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