Jillian Segal and husband funding far-right group “Advance”

EXCLUSIVE

ANTHONY KLAN

Antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal and her husband John Roth are among the biggest funders of highly divisive, far-right lobby group “Advance”, which aggressively spreads hateful propaganda, racist tropes and bigoted imagery.

In 2023-24 the couple’s family trust — the Henroth Discretionary Trust — gave Advance $50,000, making it Advance’s second biggest funder in the year, Australian Electoral Commission records show.

The far-right Advance aggressively spreads online disinformation and clinically disseminates hateful — often AI generated — material to its hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, including over 140,000 on Facebook alone.

It has suggested immigrants in detention are “rapists, paedophiles and murderers”; claims the Indigenous Welcome to Country is part of a secretive plan by “elites” to “delegitimise Australia’s history”; and spread division ahead of Anzac Day, where the Indigenous Welcome to Country was booed.

It runs imagery suggesting Australia is being overrun by immigrants, including claiming the nation’s “freedom, security and prosperity are under threat” because of “wide open” borders.

 

Advance also directly targets Palestinians with its hate.

This week the far-right group posted an image $100 bills being sucked into a government job advertisement seeking a “Palestinian Settlement and Community Development Worker”.

In the background are masked rioters, one waving a large Palestinian flag.

“Why do we have to pay for this, exactly?” writes Advance.

“Advance targets Palestinians with its hate”

 

On Tuesday Advance posted to its 146,000 Facebook followers an image — apparently AI generated — of brown-skinned and hijab wearing “immigrants” queuing outside a house.

“We’re paying the price of skyrocketing immigration through housing shortages and clogged-up public services,” Advance states.

In a 20-page report Thursday, Segal called for funding to be cut from universities, charities and cultural bodies if they “enable or fail to act” against “antisemitism”.

“Antisemitism has risen to deeply troubling levels in Australia,” Segal states.

“This has been driven by…manipulated narratives in the legacy media and social media and the spread of extremist ideologies.”

Segal refused to comment when contacted by The Klaxon.

She did not respond to a series of written questions about Advance, and about Henroth Discretionary Trust being one of its biggest funders.

 

Segal was appointed “Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia” in July last year, to preserve “social cohesion”.

“The appointment of the Special Envoy is a critical step in the Government’s efforts to ensure all Australians feel safe and included,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at the time.

“Every Australian, no matter their race or religion, should be able to feel safe and at home in any community, without prejudice or discrimination.”

 

Australian Electoral Commission records show Henroth Investments Pty Ltd, lodged lodged a donor return “ATF” (meaning “as trustee for”) the Henroth Discretionary Trust, declaring $50,000 had been paid to Advance, in June last year.

That made Henroth Discretionary Trust Advance’s tied second biggest funder in the 2023-24 financial year, the most recent data.

Henroth Investments is Segal and Roth’s family property development company.

The company is owned and run by Roth, 75, and his brother Stan Roth, 71, who inherited it from their father, late property mogul Henry Roth.

Segal is an immigrant, from South Africa, and her husband Roth is a second-generation immigrant from Poland.

Segal’s report calls for sweeping legal changes, including allowing for grants to universities, researchers or academics to be terminated “where the recipient engages in antisemitic or otherwise discriminatory or hateful speech or actions”.

The report has drawn heavy criticism, with many experts warning it could have chilling impacts on freedom of speech and democratic rights.

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Jewish Council of Australia executive officer Dr Max Kaiser said the document” reads more like a blueprint for silencing dissent rather than a strategy to build inclusion”.

“Segal seems fixated on driving a pro-Israel narrative and repressing legitimate criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” he said.

Kaiser said that was consistent with Segal’s “past statements erroneously linking antisemitic attacks with Palestinian solidarity protests”.

The National Union of Students said Segal’s “Trumpian” plan undermined the independence of higher education institutions and was a “serious overreach”.

“It’s authoritarian, not anti-racist,” said president Ashlyn Horton.

“It’s authoritarian, not anti-racist” – Ashlyn Horton

Advance was the main “No” group opposed to the Indigenous Voice to parliament.

It aggressively spreads disinformation, including that the Indigenous Welcome to Country is part of a secretive plan by “elites” to “delegitimise Australia’s history”.

In an email to tens of thousands of followers the week before Anzac Day, Advance executive director Matthew Sheahan said the Indigenous welcome  “actually means” that “this isn’t your country anymore”, and that “it’s time you paid up”.

“It’s about delegitimising your place in the country, your family’s history,” said Sheahan.

The email was titled “Sick of hearing Welcome to Country?”

Advance sent another divisive mass email on Anzac Day eve, sowing division over the national day of remembrance.

Hours later at Melbourne’s Dawn Service the Welcome to Country was interrupted by racist hecklers.

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Thank you,

Anthony Klan

Editor, The Klaxon