On what planet does Labor think Jillian Segal is right for a high-profile government role, particularly one as sensitive as an “envoy for antisemitism”? (The “envoy for Islamophobia” is yet to be announced, but one is promised by the prime minister.)
“Envoys” are stunt roles, made for announcement and little else. But it’s unusual to see someone with Segal’s history handed such a gig. As immediate past president of the ardently pro-Israel Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Segal last November savaged Labor for daring to criticise Israel for bombing hospitals, calling such criticism a “libel” in a joint statement with the right-wing Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler.
… we refer to the minister’s [Penny Wong’s] assertion that the hospitals and medical facilities that Hamas burrows itself into are protected under international law and her call for Israel to ‘cease the attacking of hospitals’.
We remind the government that Article 19 of the Geneva Convention explicitly states that hospitals lose their protection if they are used for military purposes. It is incontrovertible that Hamas uses Shifa and other hospitals for military purposes. There is no evidence that Israel is not observing the laws of armed conflict.
The libel that any Israeli attack on Gazan hospitals from which Hamas operates would amount to war crimes only serve to demonise the state of Israel and its supporters. These libels are central to Hamas’ objectives as a terrorist organisation, and are reverberating across the world in a new wave of antisemitism. The government of Australia should not be lending any credibility to this false and harmful narrative.
The word “libel” may have been used to invoke suggestions of the infamous “blood libel” to which Jews have been subjected for a millennium. An investigation by The Washington Post in May found that just four of 36 hospitals in Gaza had not been bombed, assaulted or abandoned by the Israel Defense Forces, prompting calls for the investigation of Israel’s destruction of the Gazan healthcare system as a war crime.
The Executive Council also criticised Australia’s support for a United Nations resolution calling for a ceasefire. Segal’s opposition to the call for a ceasefire and her insistence there can be no legitimate criticism of Israel’s hospital bombing campaign surely makes her position as the holder of any government appointment untenable. Imagine the outcry if Anthony Albanese’s mooted “Islamophobia envoy” had endorsed Hamas’ atrocities or defended the killing of Israeli civilians.
Beyond her support for Israel’s bombing of hospitals, there’s another reason why Segal’s appointment by Labor raises eyebrows: her corporate history.
Segal, who was born in South Africa, was a director of the National Australia Bank (NAB) from 2004-16, during which numerous instances of misconduct occurred as part of a widespread pattern of banking scandals that led to the banking royal commission. NAB had already been forced in 2015 to start remediating victims of its wealth management arm, before the royal commission, for misconduct dating back to 2009. The royal commission revealed astonishing abuse of NAB’s “Introducer” program, which it hid from the corporate regulator, involving bribery and forgery.
NAB eventually admitted to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission that it had charged customers more than $600 million in fees for no service between 2009-18 — nearly all of which was during Segal’s time on the NAB board. NAB was also fined in the UK for mis-selling insurance via its UK arm in 2015. As of the end of 2022, NAB had forked out nearly $1.5 billion in compensation to its victims as a result of activities that substantially occurred while Segal was a director of the bank.
In the annals of corporate misconduct in Australia, NAB looms large. How is Segal an appropriate appointee for Labor given its history of championing victims of bad financial advice and banking misconduct throughout the 2010s?
What’s your view of Jillian Segal’s appointment? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
