Pom in Oz with Derek Goforth: Albanese Government’s stance on antisemitism has lots of words, little ownership

There is a moment in every government’s life when the language stops working. Press conferences get longer, statements get vaguer and responsibility starts to bounce around the room like a hot potato nobody wants to catch. Watching the Albanese Government respond to the rise in antisemitism and hate speech has felt exactly like that. Lots of words. Very little ownership. And an uncomfortable habit of pointing everywhere except the mirror. Let’s be clear. Antisemitism is not a theoretical issue. It is not an abstract debate for university panels or a footnote in a party room briefing. It is old, ugly and historically catastrophic. When Jewish Australians report threats, vandalism, intimidation or fear about openly practising their faith, the only acceptable response from a national government is firm, clear and immediate. Anything less is a failure of leadership. Instead, what we have seen is hesitation dressed up as nuance. A reluctance to name things plainly. A tendency to blur antisemitism into a broader conversation about “community tensions” as if hatred is just a misunderstanding waiting to be workshopped. Hate does not need context. It needs consequences. Worse still has been the blame shifting. When pressure mounts, responsibility is quietly outsourced. Social media companies should do more. State governments should act faster. Police processes need time. Universities need to manage their own campuses. All of this may be true, but leadership is not about listing who else could act. It is about stepping forward and setting the standard. Australians understand this instinctively. We expect our leaders to call a spade a spade. When racism shows its face, we want it named, condemned and shut down. Not hedged. Not balanced. Not softened so nobody gets offended except the people already being targeted. There is also something deeply unsettling about the political caution at play. Antisemitism should be one of the few issues that cuts clean across ideology. It should not matter who is protesting, who is voting or which demographic might feel uncomfortable. Moral clarity is not supposed to be focus grouped. History teaches us this lesson again and again. Hatred thrives in the gaps left by silence and equivocation. It grows when leaders choose careful language over courageous action. By the time everyone agrees the problem is serious, it is usually far more entrenched than it ever needed to be. This is not about suppressing debate or policing opinions. Free speech matters. It always has. But free speech has never meant freedom from consequence, and it has never included the right to intimidate, threaten or dehumanise. A government confident in its values should be able to draw that line without blinking. The frustration many Australians feel right now is not partisan. It is practical. People want to know that their government will stand up for them when things get ugly. They want reassurance that hatred will be confronted, not explained away. They want leadership that sounds less like a legal disclaimer and more like a moral compass. There is still time for the Albanese Government to correct course. To stop passing the buck. To speak plainly. To act decisively. To remind Australians that some values are not negotiable and never have been. Because history also teaches us this. When governments hesitate, others notice. And they rarely take that as a sign to behave better. Derek Goforth is an expat and father of three living and working in Geraldton