‘Dutton’s Jew’: University’s Anti-Racism Symposium Condemned for Antisemitic Content

A member of the Jewish community staples a poster to the front of the damaged Adass Israel Synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea in Australia on Dec. 9, 2024. Martin Keep/AFP via Getty Images

A university conference intended to tackle racial discrimination has itself become the focus of antisemitism allegations.

The two-day symposium, hosted by the the Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Indigenous research wing, the Carumba Institute, calls for “action for uniting research and practice in the efforts to eliminate institutional racism.”

Yet on day one of the conference, the leader of the left-wing Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, made multiple comments and showed slides including one with a cartoon character labelled “Dutton’s Jew.”

The slide was met with laughter from the crowd at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The image was a profile of supposed conservative Jewish Australians that support the centre-right Coalition and its leader Peter Dutton.

It also listed supposed attributes of a conservative Jew in bullet form: that they promote Judeo-Christian values; hate the radical left; “hate” Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims; are anti-immigrant; view antisemitism as the only form of racism; and defend Western civilisation and Australian culture.

A final point also said this psychographic profile is “willing to hug Dutton for photo ops.”

Another slide featured the title: “With friends like these, who needs enemies ...”

And it included images of Pauline Hanson of One Nation, Dutch conservative politician Geert Wilders, Elon Musk at the Auschwitz death camp, and U.S. President Donald Trump in Israel.

The presentation drew condemnation from Jewish and political leaders from both sides of the aisle.

Another ‘Low’ for Antisemitism: Jewish Board

The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies issued a statement online saying Jews had witnessed antisemitism in the past 15 months that was “never previously thought possible here in Australia.”

Another antisemitic “low” was exemplified by the symposium, the group said.

“The presentation would not have been out of place in antisemitic gatherings throughout the ages. It contained it all—laughter as Jews were the subject of public mockery, images of rabbis as the subject of ridicule, and baseless demonisation of a community that has done nothing to warrant such hatred.”

The Board drew comparisons with pre-war Germany.

Jewish Council is a Fringe Group: AJA

Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory said there had been “widespread” outrage.

“The slide was full of antisemitic tropes as well as unacceptable attacks on Australian culture,” he told The Epoch Times.

He said the left-wing Australian Jewish Council was a fringe group that supported ideologies out of alignment with most Australian Jews.

“The Jewish community, like any other community has its extremists,” he said.

“Sarah Schwartz and the Jewish Council represent an extreme fringe of less than 1 percent of the Jewish community. It is unfortunate that public broadcasters like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation give their views a disproportionate amount of coverage.

“QUT should apologise and hold an inquiry into how such a disgraceful event was allowed to go ahead.”

The Epoch Times contacted QUT for comment.

Liberal, Labor Condemn Seminar

Queensland Nationals Senator James McGrath announced he had personally written to QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil to cancel the conference.

“I have written to the vice-chancellor asking to cancel the seminar and to condemn antisemitism.

“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”

Former Liberal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is Jewish, echoed the same sentiments.

“Antisemitism has become normalised in Australia as Jews are singled out for ridicule and hate, in a way we would not accept for any other minority group,” he said.

Meanwhile, Labor MP and committee chair of a parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, Josh Burns, did not rule out bringing the seminar into its proceedings.

“The material coming out of the Queensland University of Technology was shocking and personally, I have seen some truly stupid things, but that was about as irresponsible as I’ve seen in the last 18 months,” he said.

In recent days, the committee heard claims of student unionists performing Nazi salutes and mimicking Hitler moustaches during an online meeting of Australian National University students.

ANU staff dismissed the act as a student reaching to adjust her webcam, while explaining that the moustache gesture was due to the student being self-conscious about her lip.

Pollster Says This is Why the Left is Losing Support

Political pollster and strategist Kos Samaras said this was another sign that the traditional left of politics was becoming increasingly alienated from broader society.

“Arts of academia are so lost in their identity politics that they thought this slide was ok—in Australia, 2025,” he wrote on X.

“‘Anti racism conference’—code for, ‘We the Brahmin Left get to determine who is diverse and who is not,’” Samaras said. “I have some bad news for them. In 2025 the broader electorate think this form of politics needs to get into the bin.”

Brahmin Left is the opposing term for “populist right” and describes left-wing Western political parties becoming increasingly devoid of working class voters, and dominated by university educated elites in society.

Schwartz Defends Presentation

Schwartz, a human rights lawyer, said she gave the presentation to outline Dutton’s divisive tactics.

“Just in short, these guys want all Jews to move to Israel to bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ, which will kill us, along with all the other unrighteous, definitely not a cranky or antisemitic idea,” she said.

Another slide showed Dutton in a cartoon outfit akin to a medieval knight, with Schwartz criticising him for saying Christians and even atheists could end up under attack if antisemitism was left to flourish.

“His party no longer needs to defend the right to be bigots, because Dutton’s Jew can do this for him,” she said.

Another slide showed Labor’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who is Jewish, with the caption, “Why can’t you just give me an example of antisemitism I can use to push my own agenda?”

But Schwartz claims her presentation made fun of what she perceives as Dutton using Jews as a “human shield” for his political beliefs.

“In my presentation, I referred to Dutton’s racist conception of Jewish people as ‘Dutton’s Jews,’ not actual Jewish people,” she wrote on X.

“Against this conception, I spoke about how Jewish people are diverse and about how the Jewish community is not a monolith.”

Schwartz said “only opportunists could wilfully misrepresent my point.”

“My speech was part of a comedy event making fun of racists,” she added.

The conference hosts a number of anti-Israel identities, including sociology academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, who came under scrutiny for changing her Facebook profile to that of a paraglider in Palestinian flag colours just after Hamas terrorists parachuted into Israel and killed 364 people at the Nova music festival.

Controversial formers Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe, who has been vocal in her support of the dismantlement of Israel, is also a speaker at the event.