Controversy over Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism begs the question: Should the government fold the special envoys into one Social Cohesion role? Ali Reza Yunespour writes.
The Special Envoy, Jillian Segal’s, plan to combat antisemitism has sparked significant media attention since its release on 10 July 2025. The responses either contested the proposals in the plan or called for her to step down, especially amidst the revelation that her husband had made a $50,000 donation to the right-wing Advance Australia.
However, these media responses to Jillian Segal’s plan were somewhat predictable. This is because, since mid-2024, the Albanese government’s approach to appoint three separate envoys for antisemitism, Islamophobia and social cohesion has overlooked the interconnected challenges that Jewish and Muslim communities and many others face together.
In doing so, the Albanese government has exacerbated cultural differences and created a contest of recognition, inadvertently framing one group’s suffering as more deserving of attention than another in Australia.
Separate envoy inflames community division
The horrific Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent invasion and killing of over 58,000 people, including women and children, in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces, has led to a significant increase in the incidence of antisemitism and Islamophobia across Australia.
As per Jillian Segal’s plan, antisemitic incidents increased by 316% from October 2023 to September 2024. Similarly, the Islamophobia Register Australia has recorded 309 in-person Islamophobic incidents in 2024 and noted the alarming ‘sharp rise in online hostility’ towards Muslims, especially women and girls, in Australia.
Facts and evidence missing in claims about increasing antisemitism
In response, the Albanese government has appointed three special envoys: Jillian Segal on 9 July 2024, Peter Khalil MP as Special Envoy for Social Cohesion on 29 July 2024, and Aftab Malik as Special Envoy to combat Islamophobia on 30 September 2024.
Accordingly, these envoys are expected to produce separate reports for government consideration.
The reasoning behind appointing separate envoys may be politically understandable. In the wake of rising global conflicts and growing issue-based polarisation, it is tempting for the government to demonstrate concern by naming visible advocates for affected Jewish and Muslim communities.
However well-intentioned they might be, separate reports run the risk of turning shared trauma into a contest of recognition, as has been shown with the release of Jillian Segal’s recent plan.
Working together?
For example, Jillian Segal has recommended that the Envoy ‘lead and encourage the Jewish community to re-establish, strengthen and fund long-term interfaith and intercultural community initiatives’.
However, the entire 20-page plan has failed to mention even once the government’s envoys for social cohesion and Islamophobia and how these three offices could or would work together.
As political journalist Michelle Grattan rightly noted, Jillian Segal’s plan raised controversies because of its ‘over-blown’ recommendations and that ‘she inserts herself too personally into what she believes should be done’ to combat antisemitism.
Also, the envoy to combat Islamophobia is reportedly working on a report to be handed to the Albanese government later this year.
At the same time, there are some reports that Peter Khalil MP, in his role as envoy, has achieved little to promote social cohesion prior to and since this year’s federal election.
As a sitting MP, he has perhaps found it difficult to navigate deeply polarised constituencies, let alone help an already fractured Australian society have a shared understanding of, and response to, global conflicts.
We need an independent envoy
The controversy over Jillian Segal’s plan and her credibility creates a new opportunity for the Albanese government to appoint an independent envoy for social cohesion. The appointee would work with and have the capacity to strengthen the Office of Community Cohesion (OCC) in the Department of Home Affairs.
On its establishment in September 2024, the OCC is mandated to coordinate whole-of-government initiatives to support ‘social cohesion and democratic resilience in Australia’, but so far, it has not publicly commented about Jillian Segal’s recent plan.
Instead of three envoys, the new independent envoy for social cohesion must use the widely endorsed National Anti-Racism Framework to map intersecting forms of discrimination and develop unified strategies to promote social cohesion.
Such an envoy could help Australia live up to its multicultural values, not just by recognising difference, but by reinforcing what we have in common.
This is not a call to downplay antisemitism or Islamophobia in this country. Both are real and dangerous. But tackling them in isolation, without acknowledging their shared roots, misses the important opportunity for deeper, lasting change.
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Ali Reza is an academic at the University of Melbourne researching refugees education and social cohesion in Australia. In 2024, he was awarded the Sir Ronald Wilson Human Rights Award by ACFID. He arrived in Australia as a refugee in 2005.