Australian Member of Parliament Andrew Wallace. Photo: Screenshot

Vandals targeted the campaign yard signs of Australian parliamentarian Andrew Wallace in the country’s Sunshine Coast this past weekend, drawing black swastikas over his face on the blue and yellow Liberal National Party ads.

In addition to speaking out forcefully against antisemitism, Wallace serves as deputy chair of the Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee and chair of the Australia-Israel Allies Caucus. He previously worked as Speaker of the House of Representatives and led the campaign that resulted in the criminalization of publicly displaying Nazi symbols, including performing the Sieg Heil salute.

“I have never seen antisemitism as widespread and prevalent on the Sunshine Coast as we are experiencing today,” Wallace said after his campaign signs were vandalized. “Online and on our streets, we are confronting an antisemitism crisis – and it’s only getting worse.”

Wallace said that during the previous nine years he “had plenty of my election signs damaged and defaced, which is in itself a criminal offense, but this is beyond the pale and an affront to the dignity of Jewish Australians who have a right to live their lives in peace. We are better than this.”

Describing how he felt “absolutely appalled by this behavior,” Wallace said “Australia’s antisemitism crisis demands strong leadership, and [Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese, supported by his Teal and Green allies, has proven incapable and in fact, unwilling, to stand up to antisemitism and hate.”

Going further, Wallace urged for listeners to “ask yourself how we got here. The answer is simple: weak leadership, poor decisions, and wrong priorities from Anthony Albanese.”

Following the vandalism, the Australian Jewish Association said that Wallace “is a strong supporter of the Jewish community and Israel and a friend of the AJA.”

Wallace added that “it’s time for Australians to stand up, speak up, and show up for the Jewish community. Report graffiti and all forms of antisemitism to the police and stamp it out in conversation and online.”

Australia has seen a wave of crimes targeting Jews the last six months which authorities have linked to foreign actors paying with cryptocurrency for the antisemitic hate crimes. On March 11, police announced the arrest and charging of 14 people allegedly involved in an organized crime network behind some of the incidents.

“None of the individuals we have arrested … have displayed any form of antisemitic ideology,” New South Wales Police deputy commissioner David Hudson said. “I think these organized crime figures have taken an opportunity to play off the vulnerability of the Jewish community.”

However, Australian Jewish leaders have urged continued vigilance, expressing disappointment with what they described as law enforcement downplaying the severity of the recent spree of antisemitic crimes.

On March 20, police arrested an unnamed 41-year-old man for alleged involvement in the Jan. 29 vandalism of the Jewish day school Mount Sinai College in Maroubra, New South Wales. The graffiti included the phrases “Jew dogs” and “Jews are the real terrorists.”

In December 2024, an arsonist attacked the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, prompting a response from about 60 firefighters with 17 fire trucks. Albanese said at the time that “to attack a place of worship is an attack on Australian values. To attack a synagogue is an act of antisemitism, is attacking the right that all Australians should have to practice their faith in peace and security.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked the synagogue attack with Australian government policy toward Israel. “Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia, including the scandalous decision to support the UN resolution calling on Israel ‘to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as rapidly as possible,’ and preventing a former Israeli minister from entering the country,” Netanyahu said.

Since its formation in December, the New South Wales Police Department’s Strike Force Pearl — created to counter antisemitic crime — has made at least 30 arrests.

In an interview with Sky News, Wallace revealed that the vandalism targeting his campaign signs had continued on Monday.

“It’s happened again last night as well — I’ve had reports that the same person it looks like has been out spraying the Nazi cross on my signs,” he said on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, what we’re seeing on the far left of politics and it has to be said on the far right of politics, are that these people are utilizing what happened on Oct. 7, 2023, for their own political purposes. This is a symbol that reflects the death of six million Jews.”

Thanks to Wallace’s efforts, display of that symbol in Australia can now result in a year’s imprisonment.

“I want people who are engaged in antisemitism to be held to account, to be charged, to be incarcerated,” Albanese said following the law’s passage in February.