Submission to the Australian Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism
Craig Turner, 7 March 2026
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// My profile

I am an Australian citizen, born 1979 (Adelaide) and have worked extensively
in finance in London and Europe.


// Introduction

Some antisemitic sentiment in Australia stems from radicalised pockets of
immigrant populations. What should also scare us is the normalisation of it
amongst the cultural elite, who have more influence with the mainstream. [1]

There are now many educated Australians who have adopted an anti-Jewish
mission as an identity cause - these are individuals who will march against
Israel but remain silent regarding the oppression of Syrians, Kurds, Iranians
or Sudanese.

It is my view that the recent rise of anti-semitism is an accidental
side-effect of weak governance in the bodies of Australia's cultural elite.
Here, I will focus on that, and recommend a governance-based solution.

I have deliberately kept references to Adelaide Writers Week (AWW) minimal.
There is valid material around this, but I expect those angles will be covered
extensively by other submissions.


// Western standards of governance

Western societies rely on the habit of most people to act in good-faith most
of the time. We then create mechanisms to prevent, highlight and mitigate
missteps. Broadly, we call this governance.

This model has fostered high standards in accounting, engineering, law, and
public safety in countries like Australia.

A prerequisite of good governance is the foundational assumption that there is
an objective truth.


// Case Study: Dr Abdel-Fattah and Institutional Failure

A significant part of Australia's cultural elite are now disconnected from
western standards of governance. We see evidence of this in the continued
strong levels of support for Dr Abdel-Fattah. Her "Jars" project and her
public boasts regarding a lack of regard for the governance of her grants
would, in other professional fields, be considered a demonstration of poor
character and professional misconduct.

With regard to her conduct,

1) The Jars project was presented as a significant output of an AUD 870,000
publicly funded research grant, yet is insubstantial as a piece of academic
work.

2) She boasted to an academic conference that she "bends" the rules and
revealed that she had refused an ARC requirement to hold a conference.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/universities-are-meant-to-educate-not-indoctrinate/news-story/963ad39cd336c594c0a4658edde7958f

When public figures with academic platforms celebrate non-compliance with
governance, they set an example that can have effects beyond their immediate
institution.

In the London finance sector, if an individual boasted of circumventing
governance, they would be immediately ostracised. They would face a lineup of
accountability: compliance officers, leadership chains, professional bodies,
and regulators. I am confident that these standards apply equally to
engineers, lawyers and doctors in Australia.

In February 2026, The Australian reported that she rejected the legitimacy of
an investigation into her conduct by Macquarie University with these words,

    "It is a profound assault on my academic freedom as a Palestinian Egyptian
    Muslim scholar to have my decolonial methodological and ethical praxis
    framed as a potential breach of the Code for the Responsible Conduct of
    Research," she told the investigators.

Note the emphasis on race and cultural group. A person's race is immaterial to
the objective-truth validity of their work. It is concerning that there are
intellectual traditions thriving in Australia that hold themselves to be above
governance, while being funded by the taxpayer.

The fact that Dr Abdel-Fattah continues to be protected by Macquarie
University - which found no wrongdoing after an investigation - is striking.
When conduct that stands for itself is dismissed, it signals that the
governing bodies themselves no longer adhere to basic principles of
governance.


// Symptoms of standpoint theory

A philosophy called /Standpoint Theory/ has become well-established in the
social sciences. It proposes that marginalised identities (race, gender, etc)
provide "a better position to know certain facts about the world" (Wikipedia,
20260302). While this sounds innocuous, in practice, it is used to give a free
pass to people who claim oppressed status, allowing them to dismiss objective
governance as a 'Western' or 'Colonial' imposition.

We are now seeing the symptoms of this spreading from universities into
public institutions,

1. Lehrmann mistrial: A juror ignored 17 explicit warnings from the Chief 
Justice to rely only on evidence.
(https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/28/bruce-lehrmann-mistrial-brittany-higgins-juror-brought-other-research-papers-judge-reveals)
Instead, she brought into the jury room academic papers whose content
suggested a presumption in favour of victims. This assumption reflects
Standpoint Theory, which is fundamentally incompatible with the criminal
justice system.

2. Cardinal Pell Prosecution: The DPP's case placed heavy weight on a
narrative from a claimed victim, but difficulties with the supporting evidence
led to the case being overturned.

3. Adelaide Festival Appointment: Following the 2026 AWW crisis, arts director
Peter Sellars was appointed to a senior role with the Adelaide Festival. An
interview published by The Australian on 15 February 2026 quotes Sellars as
having said, "No one will be safe until everybody has the right to speak their
histories and their truths". There is no such thing as an individual's truths.
There is only objective truth and unsupported claims.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/culture/sacked-director-peter-sellars-returns-to-adelaide-festival-amid-new-crisis/news-story/4ecb4a2d2282c700be62039e02640cf5

4. Civil Service standards: The federal APSC and several civil services
(including SA and Victoria) have integrated /Intersectionality/ - an
unscientific derivative of Standpoint Theory - into hiring and strategy
frameworks. This requires an /intersectional lens/ to override traditional
merit.

5. The ABC: The national broadcaster recently announced it will hire /cultural
guidance advisers/ to ensure /culturally informed decisions/. This is the
application of Standpoint Theory to journalism, where a media organisation
focuses on cultural diversity as a metric of truth. In doing so, it is
distracted from its responsibility to report objective facts.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abc-announces-it-will-hire-new-cultural-guidance-advisers-just-weeks-after-sacking-120-staff/news-story/059dde060c12322ac34da163c99340df

The ABC published an interview of Dr Abdel-Fattah in October 2025 that served
to promote a book she had published. This interview placed heavy emphasis on
cultural identity matters, and did not raise questions about her character.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-15/randa-abdel-fattah-palestinian-author-new-book-discipline/105865540


// Case Study: Press Council fails to self-regulate effectively

Media coverage is a primary driver of social cohesion. A press regulator that
lacks procedural integrity cannot effectively hold outlets accountable for
coverage that inflames community tensions.

In a recent matter, the Press Council adjudicated a complaint involving the
former DPP of the ACT, Shane Drummond and The Australian newspaper. During
proceedings, Drummond was permitted to testify in his own interest. News Corp
was denied the right to have Senior Counsel heard in response. Facing a result
that could carry legal and reputational consequences, News Corp commissioned
two independent Senior Counsels to provide opinions. The silks, instructed
independently of one another, reached essentially the same finding: that the
Press Council's conclusion in the matter was wrong.

In any legitimate quasi-judicial proceeding, the asymmetry seen here -
permitting a legally-qualified party to advocate for their own interest while
denying the opposing party equivalent representation - would be viewed as a
breach of natural justice. The fact that it passed unremarked within the Press
Council's process is itself a governance failure.

This case illustrates a principle that extends beyond media regulation. Any
body exercising quasi-judicial functions over matters of public interest
should meet a minimum standard of procedural integrity. The current landscape
contains numerous such bodies - press councils, university ethics committees,
grant review panels, arts funding bodies - none of which are subject to
consistent external scrutiny.

There is a pattern here: self-regulatory bodies - funded and staffed by the
industries they oversee - lacking the structural integrity to adjudicate
disputes fairly.

Below, I will propose an "Australian Integrity Standard". That standard would
establish an appropriate floor.


// Recommendations: The Australian Integrity Standard

Australia's social cohesion is being undermined by a cultural elite that has
embraced the idea that truth is subjective.

I recommend the commission call on the federal government to establish the
Australian Integrity Standard with the following tenets,

    Commitment to Objective Truth. Academic claims must be grounded in
    verifiable evidence and subject to external scrutiny.

    Obligation to Act in Good Faith.

    Obligation to Act with Intellectual Honesty.

Legislative Requirements:

    Mandatory sign-up: All universities, state/federal civil services, publicly
    funded institutions (ABC, arts festivals) must sign up to the Standard.

    Chief Governance Officer: Each body must have a professionally licensed
    CGO (Lawyer or Accountant) responsible for self-reporting, subject to loss
    of personal license for negligence.

    The Professional Elite Audit.

        All signed-up bodies must be subject to external audit by a team drawn
        from Australia's professional elite.

        For example - Senior Counsel, Chartered Accountants, Fellows of
        scientific or engineering academies - each holding an active or
        recently retired professional license from a body empowered to
        sanction misconduct.

        Members of the register should receive a prestige framing, by being
        branded a "Commonwealth Integrity Fellow".

        Tier 1 - Single Reviewer. A sole licensed professional, appointed from
        the approved register, sufficient for routine compliance checks or
        low-complexity complaints.

        Tier 2 - Panel. Three members drawn from the register. A panel is
        convened automatically where the matter involves high-value public
        funding, a public admission of non-compliance, or where a Tier 1
        reviewer determines the matter warrants escalation.

        No auditor may be a current or recent employee of a signed-up body,
        nor a current or recent recipient of ARC or equivalent public funding.

        If the body to be audited cannot find an auditor then their funding is
        suspended. Obligation is on the funded body to achieve audit.

The value of including science and engineering fellows in audit panels is
supported by precedent. The replication crisis in psychology and social
sciences - in which a significant proportion of published findings could not
be reproduced - was largely identified by researchers applying to published
work statistical standards from disciplines with more rigorous standards of
evidence. That process was uncomfortable for the fields involved, but it
produced genuine accountability and methodological improvement. The proposed
audit mechanism would institutionalise this type of cross-disciplinary
scrutiny in a more systematic way.

Note that the proposed standard governs process and integrity, not
conclusions.

By excluding the cultural elite from the audit of their own peers, we can
break the informal network and restore the objective truth standard to the
heart of Australian public life.




Craig Turner

--
:1 @20260313, I have tweaked the wording of this paragraph since the
submission, for this website presentation. My initial copy could be read to
trivialise the significance of the Bondi attacks - not my intent.