Zionist envoy, Jillian Segal, wants the arts sector to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism – imposed through funding agreements. Josh Barnett investigates.
On Wednesday September 2, senior figures from the arts met the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion’s community engagement team behind closed doors in Sydney.
Publisher Morry Schwartz and entertainment lawyer Michael Napthali were there. Bell Shakespeare chair Philip Crutchfield KC was invited but was in court. Sources told The Australian, which broke the meeting, that the private format was chosen “while granting the attendees a level of protection”.
Public hearings at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism had closed a week earlier, on 26 August, after hearing more than 340 witnesses. So the arts sector’s contribution to what Commissioner Virginia Bell recommends arrived
after the last witness was sworn, in a room with no transcript.
Royal Commission roundtables
The Commission told The Australian that roundtables let it hear views and suggestions “in an informal setting”, and that it has held “a number of roundtables” and “more than 150 community engagements”.
The Commission’s news and media page announces none of them. It carries three items: the Commission’s establishment, the opening hearing, and a statement from Bell in March. No attendee list, no agenda, no record of what any of the 150 ‘community engagements’ produced.
The recommendations are informed by evidence the public never saw.
What Segal asked for
Special Envoy Jillian Segal delivered her Plan to Combat Antisemitism to the Prime Minister on 10 July 2025. It asks government to require the IHRA definition across all public institutions, and to “include terms in all public funding agreements with cultural institutions or festivals
to allow for the efficient termination of funding.
The Government’s formal response says nothing about termination clauses, and does not mention Creative Australia.
Then, in April 2026, page 54 of Segal’s Understanding Antisemitism in Australia told the sector the definition would help galleries and artists distinguish “between legitimate political critique and antisemitic rhetoric”.
MWM put nine questions to the Envoy’s office on 8 September, including whether she or her staff have approached any arts body about adopting the definition, and whether she maintains the termination-clause ask.
The office had not responded at the time of publication.
Who’s adopted it?
Who’s adopted the Segal edicts? So far, none that we can see.
MWM searched the published policies, annual reports and terms of trade of Creative Australia, Screen Australia and the eight state and territory arts and screen agencies. None adopts the IHRA definition. None mentions it. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s explainer, which lists every Australian adoption it claims, names no arts body.
The national funder says otherwise. At Senate Estimates on 28 May 2026, Creative Australia’s acting chief executive Tim Blackwell said, “the definition of antisemitism that has been adopted by the government is also, obviously, adopted and accepted by Creative Australia”.
He did not name IHRA.
MWM could find no board resolution, policy or funding-agreement clause adopting any definition.
“Good practice”
At Senate Estimates on 27 May, Arts department secretary Jim Betts said the Envoy regards the Sydney Theatre Company’s code of conduct as “good practice”, and his department is examining “its applicability more widely within the sector”.
STC publishes an Ethics Framework, a single A3 page with nothing in it about antisemitism, discrimination or political speech. The Code of Conduct its board approved at the end of 2024 is not published. That is the document being examined for the whole sector.
At the Royal Commission on 31 July, Segal proposed mandatory antisemitism training for grant panellists and a separate grant panel for Jewish artists. In other words, no policy text required,
Training is to decide what an assessor thinks antisemitism is.
The route already works. AHPRA refused it for two years on free speech grounds, then adopted it on 17 June 2026, eight weeks after the handbook appeared. Its chief executive told the Commission the handbook was the tipping point.
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Creative Victoria funds through the Victorian Common Funding Agreement, whose clause 14.3(e) allows immediate termination “if the Organisation behaves in a way that the Department believes that its continued association with the Organisation may be detrimental to the reputation of the Department”. That’s pretty broad, and there is no remedy period and no reasonableness test, unlike the clauses on either side of it.
Creative Australia, Create NSW, Sound NSW, Arts Queensland, artsACT, Arts Tasmania and South Australia’s Music Development Office publish no agreements at all. MWM has lodged freedom of information requests.
The case being made
The Bondi Royal Commission heard from Jewish artists in Sydney in late July. Sculptor Nina Sanadze said Jewish creatives “have been now erased almost entirely” from the sector. Monash’s Professor David Slucki, who interviewed 64 Jewish artists, said they are routinely required to state a position on Israel and Gaza.
Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry put the reason for the closed door plainly: “the price of speaking up has often been death threats, boycotts and loss of income”.
That is why they persist, and why people who gave the evidence wanted a room without a transcript.
What’s next?
The Royal Commission hands down its report on 18 December.
By then, the sector will have been asked to work to a definition no arts body has adopted, on the advice of a roundtable with no minutes, against a Sydney Theatre Company code that is not published, under funding agreements that seven agencies decline to release.
Only one document in that list is public. It is the one saying the definition is not binding.
Josh is a professional musician and cameraman who is now working with Michael West Media to develop The West Report and other visual content across major social media channels