The Lebanese Muslim Association has called for the resignation of Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal over her family trust’s $50,000 payment to far-right lobby group “Advance”.
Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir said Segal’s response yesterday — a two-sentence statement suggesting her husband was responsible for the payment — was “not a justification” but “an evasion”.
“Jillian Segal’s position as Australia’s Antisemitism Envoy is no longer tenable,” Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir said in a statement.
“You cannot be the face of a national strategy against hate while your own family trust donates $50,000 to Advance Australia — a far-right lobby group notorious for spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, vilifying pro-Palestine voices as terrorist sympathisers, and accusing political opponents of siding with foreign adversaries”.
“You cannot be the face of a national strategy against hate while your own family trust donates $50,000 to Advance” — Gamel Kheir
An expose by The Klaxon Saturday detailed how Segal’s family trust — the Henroth Discretionary Trust — in 2023-24 gave Advance $50,000, making it Advance’s second biggest funder in the year.
The far-right Advance aggressively spreads online disinformation and clinically disseminates hateful material to its hundreds of thousands of online followers, including suggesting immigrants in detention are “rapists, paedophiles and murderers”.
The Klaxon’s expose Saturday. Source: The Klaxon
Kheir said for Segal to “pretend” the Advance funding “has no bearing on her her role” was “insulting”.
“To pretend this has no bearing on her role is insulting” — Lebanese Muslim Association
In a 20-page report last week, Segal called for funding to be cut from universities, charities and cultural bodies if they “enable or fail to act” against “antisemitism”.
Asked about the scandal this morning, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the $50,000 payment was “a matter for her”.
“We are taking substantial steps to crack down on this disgraceful escalation in antisemitism that we’re seeing in our society,” Chalmers told reporters in Canberra.
“We’re working our way through that, but when it comes to donations made by her husband to that organisation, she’s addressed this publicly on the record, and I see that as a matter for her.”
“She’s addressed this publicly on the record, and I see that as a matter for her” — Jim Chalmers
An Advance social media post last Thursday. Source: Advance/Facebook
Yet Segal is refusing to respond to key questions about the circumstances of the payment, and instead has released to select media outlets a two-sentence statement suggesting — but not explicitly stating — it was made by her husband, John Roth.
“No one would tolerate or accept my husband dictating my politics, and I certainly won’t dictate his. I have had no involvement in his donation, nor will I,” it states.
Segal has suggested the $50,000 payment was made by her husband. Source: The Klaxon
Segal broke her silence yesterday afternoon — 48 hours after The Klaxon approached her with a series of written questions about the Advance payments — but her terse and carefully-worded response has only sparked more questions.
“Segal cannot credibly lead efforts against antisemitism while remaining silent about — or benefitting from — the funding of organisations that fuel other forms of racism and bigotry,” said Kheir in the statement.
“If she will not resign, the government must act.
“If she will not resign, the government must act” — Lebanese Muslim Association
“Keeping her in this role sends a clear and dangerous message: that bigotry is only worth confronting when it suits the politics of the day,” the statement says.
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Anthony Albanese and Jillian Segal at the Sydney Jewish Museum last week. (AAP Image/Thomas Parrish)
Segal has not only repeatedly refused to respond to The Klaxon’s repeated requests for comment since last Friday, she and her office are refusing to provide The Klaxon with the Segal’s statement yesterday.
Guardian Australia, which along with the Sydney Morning Herald, the Canberra Times and SBS News, has been given the statement, today confirmed it is comprised of just the two sentences.
The $50,000 payment is recorded as being made on June 27 last year, two weeks before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Stegal’s appointment as “Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia” in order to preserve “social cohesion”.
Segal is refusing to say if she disclosed the Advance payment before her appointment, or at any time since.
The Lebanese Muslim Association has formally called for Segal’s resignation. Source: Lebanese Muslim Association
The form disclosing the $50,000 payment by Henroth Discretionary Trust was lodged in the name of Henroth Investments Pty Ltd.
Henroth Investments is the family property development company directed and owned by John Roth, 75, and his brother Stan Roth, 71, who inherited it from their property mogul father Henry Roth.
Segal and Roth were married in around 1980.
A social media post by Advance last week. Source: Advance/Facebook
Advance was the main “No” entity against the Indigenous Voice referendum and actively spread disinformation and racist material in its campaign against the proposal.
The far-right group 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.
Unanswered: Questions The Klaxon put to Jillian Segal Friday.
Last week Advance posted to its 146,000 Facebook followers 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.
Henroth Discretionary Trust gave Advance $50,000 in 2023-24. Source: AEC
Advance spreads racist 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.
In releasing her report last week, Segal said “Antisemitism has risen to deeply troubling levels in Australia”.
“This has been driven by…manipulated narratives in the legacy media and social media and the spread of extremist ideologies,” she said.
More to come…
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Thank you,
Anthony Klan
Editor, The Klaxon
