The huge increase in penalties is an alternative to the Antisemitism Envoy’s recommendation to withhold funding from universities that fail to deal with antisemitism
Australian universities could be fined up to $2 million if they do not deal effectively with antisemitism under new legislation to be introduced into parliament this month.
The Education Minister announced last Friday that under the draft legislation, the maximum fine for universities will increase from the existing cap of $40,000 to $2 million – a 50-fold increase.
The fine regime, which will be administered by the university regulator TEQSA, is the government’s response to the recommendation by the Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal, which proposed withholding funding or terminating grants from universities that fail to effectively combat antisemitic behaviour.
That recommendation was one of the most controversial proposals in the Antisemitism Envoy’s 2025 report and was widely criticised at the time as overly punitive and potentially curtailing academic freedom. After the Bondi massacre last December, the Albanese government adopted “and fully supported” the recommendations of the report.
Without much fanfare, however, the government has rejected this key proposal in favour of a more nuanced system of penalties. Minister Clare said the new legislation “will give the university regulator more tools to enforce these new standards”.
In July, when the government hinted at the new legislation, he told The Jewish Independent: “When it comes to enforcing the standards, the university regulator at the moment has a feather and a sledgehammer and not much in between.
“They can shut a university down, or they can give them a warning.”
Under the new legislation, TEQSA will have the power – according to the offence and the circumstances – to decide what sort of fine is merited. It is unclear at this stage whether there will be a defined scale of fines or some other structure for imposing them.
The draft bill will be introduced in the last sitting week, November 23-26 and is due to come into force early next year once it passes the Senate.
In his announcement last week, Minister Clare reiterated that the government has “strengthened the standards unis must comply with so that they must all have a definition of antisemitism.
“I expect universities to use either the definition the Government has adopted, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, or the one the Antisemitism Education Taskforce has recommended.
“We are making sure that adopting a definition is more than lip service,” he said, adding that the law had been changed in July.
h/t WallacyWalls
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