/qresearch/ -  Q Research

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THREAD ARCHIVES

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CURRENT DOUGH

https://www.fullchan.net/?4fa18dbae74b1110#9csZ52bsmWnfyfimyUQnM9WPq4rmSxDMZdRBJEQWswi8

>>24769926 (pb)

ABC rejects claims of antisemitic bias ahead of fronting royal commission

Barbara Miller - 8 July 2026

1/2

The ABC has rejected "claims that its journalism has contributed to antisemitism or social division" ahead of appearances by ABC and SBS executives at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Thursday.

The public broadcasters are expected to be probed on allegations of bias in their reporting of events related to the Middle East.

Ahead of proceedings, the ABC issued a statement on Wednesday night that said its "reporting has been evidence-based, fair, impartial and consistent with its Charter obligations".

In its statement ahead of the hearing, the SBS said it represented "Jewish Australian stories and perspectives in a way that is respectful, accurate and inclusive".

The ABC's editorial director Gavin Fang and ombudsman Fiona Cameron will front the commission on Thursday morning.

They will be followed by SBS's director of Audio and Language Content David Thanh Man Tue Hua, director of News and Current Affairs Amanda Wicks and ombudsman Amy Stockwell.

Submissions 'highly critical of broadcasters'

The commission's current hearing block, being held in Sydney, is focusing on antisemitism and hate speech in the online environment and in traditional media and broadcasting.

In opening remarks last week, counsel assisting Richard Lancaster SC noted the ABC and SBS "occupy a particularly important, trusted position in the Australian media landscape".

Mr Lancaster said the organisations' "statutes, charters and policies commit them to high standards of accuracy, impartiality and balance".

He said the broadcasters would be asked about their policies and management of "allegations of antisemitism and the effectiveness of those measures".

"This will involve asking if there is any demonstrable antisemitic bias in the reporting of journalists or in the editorial policy in those media organisations."

Mr Lancaster told the commission that some of the submissions it received were "highly critical" of the coverage of the Middle East conflict by the ABC and SBS.

"There are complaints that the ABC and the SBS have produced coverage that is inaccurate or unbalanced both in their selection of stories and focus and in the reportage that they produce," Mr Lancaster said.

Submissions to the commission through its website have not yet been published, but a number of commission witnesses have been critical of the ABC in their testimony.

Speaking of her lived experience of antisemitism, Léa Levy, who emigrated to Australia from France in 2015, told the commission that during the Gaza war the ABC "never talked about Israelis' pain".

Former editor-in-chief of the Age newspaper Michael Gawenda claimed the ABC and other outlets "minimised antisemitism".

"They ran pieces by people who claimed that it was a concocted notion, this notion of antisemitism, done by a powerful lobby that was trying to cover up and silence criticism of Israel."

In its statement released on Wednesday evening, the ABC issued a strongly worded rebuttal of such claims.

"The ABC has devoted extensive coverage to the rise of antisemitism in Australia and included all relevant perspectives," the statement read.

"The ABC reporting has consistently centred on the experiences of Jewish Australians while providing context regarding broader social and political issues."

Ahead of appearing at the hearing, the SBS released its 39-page submission to the royal commission.

The ABC has not made its submission publicly available.

Complaints surge in wake of October 7

Australia's commercial networks have not been asked to appear at the commission, set up in the wake of last December's terrorist attack during a celebration of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, in which 15 people were killed.

The ABC put questions to the royal commission on why only the ABC and SBS were being asked to appear.

In a statement, the commission said it had called on the ABC and SBS to give evidence "following concerns raised by members of Australia's Jewish community … about reporting sentiment and bias".

Commissioner Virginia Bell said in her remarks last week at the opening of block three that it was not the job of the commission "to resolve individual complaints".

The former High Court judge said the commission's focus was rather "on the adequacy of the broadcasters' complaint-handling mechanisms, including with respect to allegations of bias in the reporting of events in the Middle East relating to the state of Israel".

(continued)

>>24810431

2/2

The ABC's coverage of the Middle East has seen a surge in the number of complaints lodged with the corporation's ombudsman.

These reached a peak in the months following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent Gaza war.

In the 2023-24 year, the ABC reported receiving a five-year high of more than 7,000 complaints relating to content and editorial standards.

The broadcaster said almost half of these, 49 per cent, were attributable to the Israel-Gaza war.

In the year 2024-25, 4,192 content complaints were handled by the ABC ombudsman's office, 26 per cent of which were related to Middle East coverage.

The ABC said to date the ombudsman had recorded breaches for five instances of ABC coverage concerning the Middle East.

The broadcaster said no complaints of bias had been upheld by the ombudsman in relation to ABC News coverage of the Middle East.

Difficulty of defining antisemitism

The ABC and SBS are also expected to be questioned at the commission on why they have decided not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

The IHRA definition, stating that "antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews", has been adopted by both the commission and the Australian government, but is a subject of controversy.

Detractors argue that it is used to stifle free speech and legitimate criticism.

The ABC and SBS have said they rely instead on their existing editorial guidelines on hate speech.

In its statement, the ABC said while IHRA's core definition was broadly consistent with the ABC's approach, "the IHRA's examples are contested and there has been criticism that in some cases they risk conflating legitimate political criticism of Israel with antisemitism".

SBS's statement did not directly address the dispute over use of the IHRA definition, but said the broadcaster was guided by its charter to serve diverse audience and contribute to social cohesion.

"SBS's commitment to factual, balanced and impartial journalism is supported by strong editorial standards, independent complaints processes, and ongoing engagement with communities across Australia," the statement said.

The Australian government's Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, is a strong supporter of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and has consistently urged public institutions to adopt it.

The commission has called Ms Segal to speak to concerns about ABC and SBS coverage.

She is due to testify before the broadcasters when proceedings get underway at 10am AEST on Thursday.

Criticism from all sides

While the commission's focus will be on allegations of antisemitism, the broadcaster has also been accused of being overly sensitive to complaints from Jewish Australians.

In a damning judgement issued last September in the Antoinette Lattouf case, Judge Darryl Rangiah found the broadcaster had "let down the Australian public badly when it abjectly surrendered the right of its employee Ms Lattouf to appease a lobby group".

Justice Darryl found Ms Lattouf was unlawfully terminated when she was taken off-air in response to what he described as "an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists".

According to the ABC, in the six months to December 2025, 51 per cent of complaints claimed the ABC's Israel-Gaza coverage was broadly pro-Palestinian and 47 per cent claimed it was broadly pro-Israel.

The broadcaster said, "this indicates that perceptions of bias are arising from strongly held views across the community rather than systematic editorial favouritism".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-08/bondi-antisemitism-social-cohesion-royal-commission-abc/106894204

>>24810441

2/2

The ABC in a statement before Thursday’s hearing said 51 per cent of the complaints about its Israel-Gaza coverage suggested it was unduly pro-Palestinian, while 47 per cent claimed the opposite.

“This indicates that perceptions of bias are arising from strongly held views across the community rather than systematic editorial favouritism,” it said in the statement.

But Ms Cameron and Ms Segal said it was misleading to use complaint tallies to vindicate the ABC’s objectivity.

Both broadcasters were questioned on why they refused to adopt the widely used but controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism within their editorial frameworks.

The IHRA definition is used within government and the royal commission itself, but has been criticised for conflating condemnation of Israel with antisemitism.

Mr Fang said he had to uphold “not just our independence, but the perception of independence”, and using the definition would hurt the ABC more than it helped.

SBS news director Amanda Wicks said it wasn’t the role of the public broadcaster to decide what constitutes antisemitism, and it therefore did not need to define it.

“We are only ever reporting on antisemitism when it is determined to be such by police, the legal system, the community itself,” she said. “We’re never in a position where we’re making a determination that something is antisemitic.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/abc-rejects-call-for-new-independent-watchdog-despite-bad-mistake-on-gaza-coverage/news-story/4005eda1568c2975d9cddfaf55f0e0d9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHqIo6cbyEo

>>24810431

>>24810441

Envoy to combat antisemitism calls for independent oversight committee to review ABC's compliance with charter

Phoebe Pin - 9 July 2026

1/3

Australia's envoy to combat antisemitism has accused the ABC of being its own "judge, counsel and jury", recommending the establishment of an independent oversight committee to review the public broadcaster's compliance with its charter obligations.

The ABC and SBS were today called to give evidence at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, with the inquiry hearing that a number of complaints had been received about the public broadcasters' coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal was called to discuss those concerns, telling the inquiry the Jewish community had told her the nature and volume of the coverage of the Israel-Gaza war had contributed to "an impression of great negativity about Israel".

"Among the Australian Jewish community there is a common and pervasive perception that has been expressed to me repeatedly, that public broadcasters' coverage of the State of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 attacks, and the ensuing conflict in [the] Gaza region lacked balance, was over-emphasised relative to other global conflicts, disproportionately gave voice to anti-Israel perspectives," she told the commission.

The inquiry heard the ABC repeatedly reported an incorrect statement first made on the BBC that 14,000 babies would die within 48 hours in Gaza on May 21, 2025.

The statement was made at 6am on News Breakfast, with an on-air correction not made until 4pm during Afternoon Briefing.

Counsel assisting Richard Lancaster SC asked ABC's editorial director Gavin Fang whether he agreed the correction would not have been apparent to many of the viewers of the News Breakfast program.

"Yes, it was a bad mistake," he said.

"The correction came on the news channel, the same channel that hosts News Breakfast, later in the afternoon. Ordinarily we would try to … get a correction as soon as possible, but also do a correction to the same or similar audience."

An online correction was published online a week later.

Responding to four complaints about the incident, the ABC ombudsman found the broadcaster had breached its accuracy standards through its reporting and failure to issue a timely correction.

'Judge, counsel and jury'

Mr Lancaster put to Ms Segal that it was difficult to verify those community perceptions given the concerns were broad in nature.

Ms Segal said mechanisms like the ABC's complaints management process, overseen by the ABC ombudsman, could be used to test the accuracy of concerns within the Jewish community.

But she said those processes were currently ineffective, recommending an independent oversight board be appointed for the public broadcaster.

"They are, with respect, judge, counsel and jury.

"I suggest re-establishing … an external ombudsman like other industries have. It is the gold standard. They don't mark their own homework."

Mr Lancaster put to Ms Segal that the ABC ombudsman had a "track record" of causing editorial policy changes to be made in response to complaints about coverage of matters in the Middle East.

"Does that suggest that the ombudsman is functioning independently of the ABC editorial management because there is a track record of causing editorial changes to be made to at least that Middle East guidance policy?" he put to Ms Segal.

Ms Segal said the ombudsman, appointed by the ABC board, was a voice independent of the ABC's reporting, but maintained external oversight was important.

"Most important structures in our society … have external complaints management. It is the gold standard," she said.

"I think that the media … is incredibly important and we should make them be beyond reproach."

Mr Fang said he did not know how an external oversight body like the one Ms Segal suggested would operate effectively.

"I think the current structures, which involve an ombudsman that is separate to the content teams that reports to the board is functioning effectively, and there is additional oversight from the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority)," he said.

"I'm not sure how another oversight body might function in addition to that existing oversight body, which already has the power to review and to examine the ABC's content."

(continued)

>>24810451

2/3

Ombudsmen detail number of complaints received

ABC ombudsman Fiona Cameron told the commission complaints to the ombudsman about ABC content had increased by 85 per cent in the year to date, with about 25,000 complaints received each year on average.

She said the use of artificial intelligence to create a number of identical complaints from organised groups of activists or campaigners had contributed to that increase.

Ms Cameron said between October 2023 and May 2026, her office had settled 19,000 content complaints, with 8,000 of those complaints relating to the ABC's coverage of Israel and Gaza.

She said a Q+A program that aired in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel prompted 2,000 complaints, many of which were identical.

Ms Cameron said the number of complaints did not necessarily indicate a problem, but rather pointed to the ABC's audience being engaged with news and current affairs.

"If someone is putting their signature to a concern, we take that seriously. It's usually done in good faith and it is usually about something that is important to them," she said.

"It reflects passion, interest, heartfelt concern."

Ms Cameron said it was not within the ombudsman's remit to investigate broad complaints about the ABC's coverage of the war in Gaza.

"I will occasionally get a complaint that says, 'You haven't reported on this matter, this is terrible'. It's very hard for me to investigate something that doesn't exist," she said.

"I might get complaints that suggest that all our reporting on an issue is biased. And again, that's not something I can address without an individual piece of content to investigate."

Ms Cameron said she may in those cases forward such complaints to the editorial director.

The commission heard the SBS ombudsman office received 157 complaints alleging breaches of the broadcaster's code of practice between July and December 2025.

Ombudsman Amy Stockwell said it was the largest number of complaints received in six years, attributing the rise to coverage of significant global events, contentious foreign policy and the use of AI in creating duplicate complaints.

Figures presented to the inquiry showed the ombudsman received 160 code complaints about 86 pieces of content relating to the war in the Middle East between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2025.

That accounted for 44 per cent of all code complaints in that time period.

Following her investigations, Ms Stockwell recorded eight breaches of the SBS code of practice, five of which related to complaints about accuracy.

Mr Lancaster pressed Ms Segal on her claim that the public broadcasters had over-represented the Middle East conflict in their reporting compared to other international news events.

"Do you accept the ABC could not be criticised … considering it has an obligation given its statutory responsibilities to give a substantial measure of attention to a conflict of that significance?" he put to Ms Segal.

"I'm not in any way suggesting that they shouldn't cover the matters that they consider important, but there are also lots of important issues around the world," Ms Segal said in response.

"There are major famines, there are other wars we don't hear about at all in Africa.

"It's the perception of the Jewish community feeling constantly that they are being faced with reporting about the Middle East, about Gaza and about Israel in a way that paints Israel constantly in a negative light."

Broadcasters probed on IHRA adoption

Ms Segal also expressed concern that the ABC and SBS had not adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

The IHRA definition, which states that "antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews", has been adopted by both the commission and the Australian government.

It is controversial, with some arguing it could be used to stifle free speech and legitimate criticism of Israel.

Mr Fang said the broadcaster relied on its existing editorial guidelines on hate speech.

"It is important for us to maintain, not just our independence, but the perception of independence," he said.

"Adopting a definition that is contested would not help us with both the perception of independence and our independence more broadly.

"Our current framework, as it relates to our editorial policies, is effective in doing that."

(continued)

>>24810455

3/3

SBS news and current affairs director Mandi Wicks said the public broadcaster neither accepted nor rejected the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

She said the definition, without its examples, was included in the SBS style guide used by content creators and producers to help them "build their understanding" of antisemitism.

Ms Wicks said SBS was "never in a position" where it was required to determine whether something was antisemitic.

"We have covered extensively reporting on antisemitic attacks and the abhorrent impacts that that has had on the community here and globally, but we are only ever reporting on antisemitism when it is determined to be such by police, the legal system … we are attributing that to someone else," she said.

"We're never in a position where something happens and we would need a definition and we determine as SBS that that is antisemitic."

Media authority's role

Ms Segal said the Jewish community had also expressed frustration with the ACMA, which she described as a "well-meaning regulator" that was "without teeth".

She said the Jewish community was concerned the coverage of the Israel-Gaza war by the ABC and SBS had "exacerbated the prevalence of antisemitism in Australia due to the conflation of Jewish identity with the State of Israel and its actions".

Mr Lancaster told the commission ACMA had not found any instances of the ABC or SBS breaching relevant code provisions in coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, or otherwise, since October 2023.

"Does that suggest also that the current structure of the ombudsman in each broadcaster is working effectively, that ACMA have not in any instance identified a difficulty?" he put to Ms Segal.

The special envoy rejected the suggestion.

"I just don't accept that," she said.

"I do concede [ACMA] haven't found a great deal of inaccuracy, but it's the more complex, nuanced issues of prioritisation, impartiality, objectivity and balance that I'm concerned to achieve."

Public broadcasters release statements

The ABC on Wednesday released a statement in which it rejected "claims that its journalism has contributed to antisemitism or social division".

In its statement ahead of the hearing, SBS said it represented "Jewish Australian stories and perspectives in a way that is respectful, accurate and inclusive".

SBS also released a 39-page written submission to the commission.

Mr Lancaster last week said the inquiry had received submissions from people and groups who were "dissatisfied and highly critical of the public broadcasters' coverage of the conflict in the Middle East".

At the start of the hearing block, Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell AC SC said the inquiry was not required to generally investigate claims of biased reporting in particular instances.

A group of about 50 people gathered outside the commission building in Sydney on Thursday morning to protest, calling on the inquiry to hear from more witnesses who were "anti-Zionist Jews, Palestinian activists and anti-genocide campaigners".

They carried signs with slogans such as "no pride in genocide" and "anti-Zionism is not antisemitism".

In September 2025, a Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory by the UN Human Rights Council found that genocide was occurring in Gaza.

The allegation of genocide is rejected by Israel.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-09/abc-sbs-bondi-antisemitism-social-cohesion-royal-commission/106895318

>>24777212 (pb)

>>24784624 (pb)

>>24810431

Antisemitism Royal Commission: X Corp used Holocaust images in fight to keep Bondi footage online

The antisemitism royal commission has questioned whether Elon Musk’s X should have a ‘social licence to operate in Australia’ after it used photos from the Holocaust in legal submissions over Bondi footage.

JAMES DOWLING - July 10, 2026

Trillionaire Elon Musk’s X used pages of Holocaust pictures to justify why a video of murdered Bondi victims should remain online, according to extraordinary evidence heard before the Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commission.

Counsel assisting Richard Lancaster SC on Friday appeared to hint that a recommendation could be made for heavy regulation or a total ban on the parent company of the social media platform after condemning its “shocking disrespect and disregard for the Australian community”.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant last week told the royal commission that she had successfully ordered X Corp to remove violent footage of the December 14 Bondi massacre from its platform, but said the tech giant had fought to keep the video online and argued it was no worse than a “gore movie”.

Mr Lancaster on Friday grilled a sweep of social media platforms who “have either not co-operated with the commission or have co-operated in a manner that was insufficient”, with X Corp nominated as a chief offender.

He told commissioner Virginia Bell the inquiry had gotten copies of X’s legal submissions from its attempt to lower the video’s classification and keep it online.

Mr Lancaster said deploying Holocaust imagery in this argument was “extraordinary”, especially after a massacre targeting Jews, and the platform should be “unequivocally condemned” for doing it.

“X supported its case by saying that notorious depictions of historic and political significance are available online, none of which have been refused classification. The submission attached page after page of images from the Holocaust,” he said.

“It was extraordinary of X to deploy those images. In my submission, they give no support to a contention that a video made in 2025 showing some of the deceased after the Bondi Hanukkah attack should be permitted to be shown online, and the use of Holocaust imagery in that context should be unequivocally condemned.

“During the course of the eSafety Commissioner’s evidence, she referred to the concept of a social license. X Corp’s conduct, both within this commission and outside of it, begs the question whether X Corp has or ought to have a social license to operate in Australia.”

Mr Lancaster described how the royal commission had tried to contact X Corp and its lawyers on at least six different occasions and received no response, despite being a “key perpetrator in the proliferation of antisemitic hate in the online environment”.

It demonstrated, Mr Lancaster said, “a complete lack of interest in providing transparency concerning a topic as important as keeping Australians safe from the proliferation of terrorist and violent extremist material, including extreme antisemitism”.

“X Corp’s attitude to regulation and to antisemitism is perhaps most evident in its response to footage connected with the Bondi Hanukkah attack itself,” he said.

“Bringing the proceedings to challenge the classification was a step that was legally open to X, but what does it say about corporate and social responsibility?

“X decides to be active in Australia to fight for content to be available on X that would, if published, cause immense sadness and harm to the Australian Jewish community. Yet the same company refuses to engage with an Australian royal commission that is inquiring into ways to make social media a better place for Australian end users.”

It was part of a broader pattern of negligence among tech giants, he argued, saying Telegram and Reddit had failed to assist the commission “despite earning substantial advertising revenue from publishing content to Australian end users”.

Ms Bell echoed his point, saying: “It will not come as a surprise to those who are following the work of this commission that regulation of the online ecosystem, in order to tackle hate speech and antisemitism in particular, is very central to the work of this commission.”

(continued)

>>24810476

2/2

In a plain-spoken condemnation, Mr Lancaster gave the clearest indication yet that the royal commission would recommend ambitious and wide-ranging social media reforms that would hold platforms to Australian law and to suffer Australian penalties when caught misbehaving.

“The social media companies are not sufficiently addressing anti-Semitism online. Regulatory obligations must be imposed on them, because they are not taking care of the problem themselves,” he said.

“If obligations are imposed on social media platforms, they must be capable of being enforced in Australia. If social media platforms are capable of inflicting harm, or are actually inflicting harm upon Australians, the laws of Australia must be capable of securing accountability for those harms.”

LinkedIn vice-president James Patrick Corrigan was the last social media executive called before the commission, where he was asked defend a policy of “feature gating” where users he frequently breached hate speech policies weren’t banned from the platform, but instead banned from posting publicly.

Another member of the commission’s counsel assisting team, Matt Sherman, suggested LinkedIn had a profit motive to keep antisemitic and abusive users on its platform.

“I’m not suggesting that you’re looking for growth at all costs. What I’m suggesting is that, to some extent, the number of users on the platform will contribute to the value of the product,” he said.

“The more users that are deplatformed based on the strike policy, the more there will be an impact on LinkedIn’s revenue as well.”

Mr Corrigan denied this and said changes to LinkedIn policy that allowed users to violate guidelines more often without being banned “had absolutely nothing to do with revenue”.

Ms Bell also announced the commission’s sixth hearing block from July 28 to 31 would focus on “knowledge, tools and support to recognise and respond to antisemitism” in workplaces. It will call witnesses from the education, healthcare, arts and public sectors.

“Education, training and strong standards play a critical role in building understanding, fostering respect and supporting social cohesion,” she said.

“Hearing block six will examine the effectiveness of existing frameworks and will explore ways to improve these frameworks to prevent and respond to antisemitic conduct and improve social cohesion.”

The commission will next week begin hearings on antisemitism at universities, while a subsequent hearing block will focus on security arrangements at Jewish community sites.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/x-corp-used-holocaust-images-in-fight-to-keep-bondi-footage-online-rc/news-story/1fa9d5617fc3950439a6373a1f5f378b

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‘Shocking disregard’: Elon Musk, X condemned at royal commission

Kate Aubusson and Alexandra Smith - July 10, 2026

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A counsel assisting the antisemitism royal commission unequivocally condemned X and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, for using Holocaust images to justify allowing gruesome footage from the Bondi Hanukkah terror attack to appear online, after the platform ignored repeated requests to appear before the commission.

Richard Lancaster, SC, on Friday said that “although an apparent proponent of unconstrained speech, X has remained silent” in the face of damning evidence that the social media platform was one of the worst perpetrators in proliferating antisemitic hate online.

The corporation’s refusal to engage with the royal commission after repeated attempts to engage them showed “a shocking disregard for the Australian community”.

“X has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in providing transparency concerning a topic as important as keeping Australians safe from the proliferation of terrorist and violent mixed material, including extreme anti-Semitism,” Lancaster said.

He said X Corp’s attitude towards regulating hate speech was perhaps most evident in its response to footage connected with the Bondi Hanukkah attack itself, Lancaster said.

The royal commission earlier heard that Musk’s organisation fought to keep gruesome content relating to the Bondi massacre online, arguing it was no more graphic than a “gore movie”, Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the royal commission on antisemitism.

Lancaster called X’s inclusion of “page after page” of Holocaust imagery in its submission supporting its position that a video depicting deceased victims of the Bondi Hanukkah attack should be permitted online “should be unequivocally condemned”.

“X Corp’s conduct, both within this commission and outside of it, begs the question whether X Corp has or ought to have a social licence to operate in Australia,” Lancaster said.

Dr Andre Oboler, chief executive officer of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, earlier told the commission that X had been difficult to work with for a decade, and particularly since the platform was bought by Musk, who had significantly downgraded its trust function.

“Dr Oboler has observed that [X] remains a major online contributor to online antisemitism … indeed, Dr Oboler was personally targeted on the platform,” Lancaster said.

Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor at CyberWell, a nonprofit that monitors and counters online antisemitism, told the commission that X’s removal rate for antisemitic content dropped from 54 per cent in 2024 to just above 29 per cent in 2026, making it the platform with the lowest removal rate, Lancaster recalled.

Lancaster said what occurs on social media platforms like X, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok had profound consequences for Australia.

“If social media platforms are capable of inflicting harm or are actually inflicting harm upon Australians, the laws of Australia must be capable of securing accountability for those harms,” he said.

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Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell said that regulating the online ecosystem to tackle hate speech and antisemitism in particular was central to the commission’s work.

Earlier on Friday, Counsel Assisting Matt Sherman questioned LinkedIn’s vice president of legal and digital safety about why the professional networking platform did not explicitly include antisemitism as an example of hateful or derogatory content that violated its policies.

Corrigan said that there was no intention to exclude antisemitism from the public-facing community standards, and using the term “Zionist” as a slur in the context of a person who is Jewish was a violation.

Sherman quizzed Corrigan about whether profits were a factor in a policy change in June 2025 that relaxed “strike thresholds” that would ban users from using the platform.

“These changes had nothing to do with revenue,” Corrigan said.

The commission on Friday also heard from the Australian Communications and Media Authority chair, Nerida O’Loughlin, who was asked about a “bizarre limitation” on the media watchdog which prevents it from investigating complaints about streaming content.

“It certainly presents some challenges to us, and I think it also presents some challenges to complainants. We’ve had a range of complaints come to us over the last few years which have been out of our jurisdiction,” O’Loughlin told the commission.

“[It] must be very frustrating for a complainant when they’re proposing to complain about something which is on broadcast on the ABC, where they can come to us [but] it was actually a streamed version of a television program.”

O’Loughlin said rules applied to broadcasting services should be the same when they are delivered online.

The royal commission will hold hearings in Melbourne next week, where the focus will be on universities. Sydney University confirmed on Friday that it would appear.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/shocking-disregard-elon-musk-x-condemned-at-royal-commission-20260710-p60eba.html

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Australian antisemitism worse than in Muslim nations, declares Israel’s top diplomat

RICHARD FERGUSON - July 08, 2026

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Israel’s ambassador to Australia says he has never seen so much hatred toward Jews as he has in this country in a 26 year-long diplomatic career, declaring modern “blood libel” myths are being normalised and the nation could face more antisemitic terror and violence.

In his most searing comments since landing in Canberra earlier this year, and in the middle of a groundbreaking royal commission, top Israeli diplomat Hillel Newman has called the nation’s antisemitism scourge significantly worse than the two Muslim countries he was previously ­ambassador in.

While he does not reference Anthony Albanese or his government, Dr Newman’s intervention follows revelations that Labor’s draft policy platform has ramped up the ALP’s pressure on Israel and watered down the party’s previous commitment to hold Palestinian interests accountable.

Dr Newman writes in The Australian that “obsessive herds” accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza and of using dogs to rape Palestinians are akin to medieval antisemitic tropes of Jews contaminating water with the black plague and using babies’ blood in rituals.

He also says that antisemites using the cloak of anti-Zionism could help spark further violence like the scenes at Bondi Beach last year that led to the nation’s worst terror attack.

“We should not be surprised if the toleration of the new inflammatory anti-Zionist antisemitism leads to further violence and terrorism,” he writes.

“Make no mistake – the obsessive, multi-ranged, wild, unfounded accusations thrown time and time again at Israel, are not legitimate criticism. They are not caring for anyone. They are driven by hate. They are a manifestation of antisemitism.

“Throughout my 26-year career as an Israeli diplomat, I have never seen such levels of hatred of Israel, and of Jews, as I experience and witness here in Australia.”

Dr Newman’s language is considerably stronger than any public statements made by his predecessor Amir Mamon, who headed up the embassy from before the October 7 massacres to the immediate aftermath of the Bondi terror attack.

The Israeli ambassador also hits out at progressives who campaign for Indigenous rights in Australia, but refuse to acknowledge the Jewish people’s thousands of years of connection to what is now modern day Israel and Jerusalem.

“People promote and support the connection Indigenous Australians have to land, history and ancestry,” Mr Newman writes. “Yet deny and refuse to recognise the historic connection between the Jews and the land of Israel, as documented in the Bible, archaeological artefacts and literature – this is a sign.”

Anti-Australia Day marches since the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack have conflated anti-Israel and far-left anti-colonial messages. Some of Australia’s strongest supporters of the Jewish community include Indigenous rights leaders like Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson.

(continued)

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Ahead of the ALP’s 50th national conference in Adelaide in a fortnight, The Australian revealed this week that Labor’s draft policy platform has strengthened its opposition to the Israeli “occupation” of Gaza.

References on Hamas disarming and the Palestinian Authority reforming have been removed from the latest draft, despite the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Penny Wong making PA accountability and Hamas’s removal from Gazan government key conditions of their controversial recognition of a Palestinian state.

The draft also solidifies ALP support for the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice – as well as the “compliance of their binding decisions” – amid investigations by both courts into allegations against Israel and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr Albanese has not labelled Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide”, and has hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog on an official visit despite protests within in his own party. He also set up the royal commission after weeks of pressure post-Bondi, appointed an antisemitism envoy, and overhauled hate speech and hate symbol laws.

Despite this, anti-Israel protests have continued unabated after Bondi – helped by the NSW courts overruling Premier Chris Minns’ hate speech banning attempts – and Labor activists are likely to push for stronger anti-Israel action at the party’s national conference.

Dr Newman writes that unlike the Islamic nations of Uz­bekistan and Tajikistan, where he served the Jewish State, more people are politicised and radicalised in Australia and “obsessive herds” are dominating debate on Israel and Palestine.

“I served as ambassador in two Muslim countries. Yet, I did not see these levels of hatred. The non-radicalised and un-politicised Muslims understood the issues and showed more understanding than the obsessive herds calling for Israel’s annihilation and protesting Israel’s existence on the streets of Australia. In a reverse of moral and immoral, this modern antisemitism disguises itself as virtue.”

Dr Newman used the infamous Sydney Opera House anti-Israel protests after the October 7 massacre – the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust – as an example of antisemitic movements in Australia focused on hatred of Israel rather than the welfare of Palestinians.

“The fact that these protests predate Israel’s self-defensive operation in Gaza disprove their dishonest attempts to attribute care for the Gazans as the reason for their protests. They were supporting the killing of Jews. Period,” he adds.

“When people march and chant ‘From the river to the sea’, they are calling for the annihilation of the state of Israel. That is a sign.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/australian-antisemitism-worse-than-in-muslim-nations-declares-israels-top-diplomat/news-story/0f959bc73eebeea859171f6149754e63

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COMMENTARY: I’ve seen less Jew-hatred in Muslim countries

HILLEL NEWMAN - July 08, 2026

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It is sad to say this, but the truth must be said. Throughout my 26-year career as an Israeli diplomat I have never seen such levels of hatred of Israel, and of Jews, as I experience and witness here in Australia.

I served as ambassador in two Muslim countries. Yet I did not see these levels of hatred. The non-radicalised and unpoliticised Muslims understood the issues and showed more understanding than the obsessive herds on the streets of Australia calling for Israel’s annihilation and protesting against Israel’s existence.

In a reverse of moral and immoral, this modern antisemitism disguises itself as virtue. They dress it up as caring for some humanitarian cause. It is not love or care of any kind that drives them. It is hatred. Hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel, the one and only majority Jewish state. Not only are these hate-filled people not held in contempt but in some cases they are even glorified. They become social icons and get rewarded for their deeds. You need to be blind, totally delusional or purely and simply antisemitic to lack the ability to detect the drive and motivation behind these activists.

As the royal commission continues its important work, we hear witness testimonies and are exposed to the levels of Jew-hatred in Australia. While this classic antisemitism continues to reveal itself, it has already evolved into the anti-Zionism version.

Those who feel that it may not be as popular as in the past to attack Jews dress up their Jew-hatred as hatred of the Jewish state. They then try to camouflage their hatred, calling it “legitimate criticism” of the state of Israel.

I have seen legitimate criticism of the policies of the Israeli government. As a robust democracy, Israel is full of self-reflection and internal criticism. Many Israelis have disagreements over the policies of the state of Israel, as I assume many in different democratic countries around the world may have legitimate criticism of their own government or any other government’s policies.

However, what we see on the streets of Australian cities is not legitimate criticism of policy decisions, it is pure antisemitic hatred. Hostility once directed at individual Jews is increasingly transposed on to the collective Jewish national experience – that is, on to the state of Israel. When antisemitism presented itself in the raw appearance of racial hatred, conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi manifestations, it became undeniable. So, we now see contemporary antisemitism presenting itself in more socially acceptable ways that allow deniability.

Although one cannot always prove motives, hatred is identifiable. When so-called moral activists chant hate slogans, reveal double standards, display hypocrisy and resort to distorting reality, this is a sign. When they demand conformity, bully those who do not conform, demonise the state of Israel, reduce complex realities to simplistic anti-Israel narratives, this is a sign.

When Israel and Jews become the object of disproportionate hostility, fixation or moral obsession, this is a sign. When Israel is judged by standards applied to no other nation or when Jewish self-determination (Zionism) is considered uniquely illegitimate, this is a sign.

One clear and obvious sign was the demonstration opposite Sydney Opera House only days after the brutal Hamas massacre in Israel. According to reports, demonstrators chanted “Gas the Jews”. This predated Israel’s incursion into Gaza. So, what were they protesting? They were celebrating the slaughter of 1200 Israelis and Jews.

The fact these protests predate Israel’s self-defensive operation in Gaza disproves their dishonest attempts to attribute care for the Gazans as the reason for their protests. They were supporting the killing of Jews. Period.

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When people march and chant “From the river to the sea”, they are not expressing legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies. They are not supporting coexistence and a two-state solution. They are calling for the annihilation of the state of Israel. That is a sign.

ASIO director-general Mike Burgess shared this understanding during his annual national threat assessment.

He stated: “Hatred of Jews is one thing virtually all the violent extremist cohorts have in common. I recognise that criticism of the government of Israel is not of itself antisemitic but some of the threatening statements made by the perpetrators go well beyond political protest or commentary.”

Their wish to deny Israel the right of self-defence against the barbaric Hamas terrorists is just a continuation of that approach.

While they would understand any regime that acts to prevent such a murder spree, they wish to deny that right to Israel. By falsely calling Israel’s military operation “disproportionate” or “genocide”, they are attempting to deny that right. They are advocating for the murder of more Israelis.

When people claiming to care for Palestinians resort to lies and deception, this is an indication of the real motivation.

Already at early stages of the Israeli military operation against Hamas, they started their false claims of “genocide” and “intentional starvation”. Both claims were unfounded and untrue. Today we know the ratio of civilian casualties during the operation is one of the lowest in urban warfare. This does not stop them from repeating the genocide lie. Today we know that more than four times UN requirements of food and nutrition entered Gaza, in a massive humanitarian aid venture, yet they continue the lie of starvation.

When they manipulate pictures of Palestinian children stricken with illnesses, falsely portraying them as starved by Israel, neglecting to mention, of course, that these children were treated in Israeli hospitals, then this is a sign.

When people claim to go on a voyage to deliver urgent aid to Gazans but refuse the legal operative channels and fail to carry any significant aid, that is a sign. If people demonstrate against Israel, engaged in a self-defence operation, but neglect to protest against Iran, which butchered more than 40,000 of its own people, or neglect to even mention half a million casualties in Syria, or ignore the butchering of minorities in Syria, or ignore the plight of Palestinians perpetuated in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, then one should understand that it is not human care driving them but selective human hatred.

When people promote and support the connection Indigenous Australians have to land, history and ancestry yet deny and refuse to recognise the historic connection between the Jews and the land of Israel, as documented in the Bible, archaeological artifacts and literature, this is a sign.

Allow me to revert once again to the words of Burgess: “When antisemitism grows after being tolerated and normalised, we are shocked – but we should not be surprised. When inflammatory rhetoric and provocative protest lead to violence, we are shocked – but we should not be surprised.”

Make no mistake – the obsessive, multi-ranged, wild, unfounded accusations thrown time and time again at Israel are not legitimate criticism. They are not caring for anyone. They are driven by hate. They are a manifestation of antisemitism.

There is a continuous line from the blood libels of the past – accusing Jews of contaminating wells during the black plague or using blood of babies for baking unleavened bread for Passover – to the blood libels of the modern period: genocide, training dogs to rape and starvation. Our sages stated already in the Hellenistic period that there will be haters of Israel in every generation. We see them in our generation today. We should not be surprised if the toleration of the new inflammatory anti-Zionist antisemitism leads to further violence and terrorism.

Hillel Newman is Israel’s ambassador to Australia.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/ive-seen-less-jewhatred-inmuslim-countries/news-story/c76677a6cb740e9baa0d80bf07f84129

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Mr Albanese hailed the more than one million Australians of Indian heritage.

“Your entrepreneurship and innovation makes our economy more productive and dynamic. Your kindness, your community spirit and your love of this country, your home, lifts us all up,” he said.

He revealed the Business Council of Australia would lead a senior business delegation to India in December.

AustralianSuper will also move to capitalise on India’s growth by investing $500m in its National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, lifting its overall holdings in the country to close to $3.3bn.

The move follows the fund’s initial $240m investment in the NIIF in 2019, which has been one of the AustralianSuper’s best-performing infrastructure assets.

The leaders met at the Australia-India Economic Roadmap Business Reception at the Sofitel in Melbourne, which is under heavy police guard after a security incident on Wednesday night.

The pair were met by business leaders including BCA boss Bran Black and AustralianSuper CEO Paul Schroder.

Right-wing agitator Hugo Lennon, also known on social media as “Auspill’’, was removed from the Melbourne CBD hotel by police on Wednesday night after screaming “F*ck Modi, F*ck India” as the world leader walked through the lobby.

Mr Albanese will also attend a celebration of the Indian Prime Minister’s arrival, expected to attract tens of thousands of people to Marvel Stadium on Thursday night – a reprisal of a Sydney event during his diplomatic visit in 2023.

Multiple sources have told The Australian that “technical issues” preventing Australian uranium exports to India have now been resolved, opening the way to a multibillion-dollar trade to feed India’s energy needs.

“It has to be only for civil nuclear energy purposes,” a source told The Australian.

Australia-India Institute chief executive Lisa Singh said: “India’s energy needs are on a scale that we cannot fathom. It has an economy that is developing at a rapid speed, and has a population of 1.4 billion people. So, if we can assist in that delivery of clean energy, then we should be definitely playing a role. It’s a win-win for both of our countries.”

Mr Albanese, announcing the diplomatic visit last week, touted the importance of Australia’s relationship with the fastest-growing economy on the planet, but dodged calls from some of Mr Modi’s critics for the government to raise concerns around human rights issues.

The Australian Federal Police ahead of Mr Modi’s visit issued a warning to a young person alleged to have made a death threat towards the Indian Prime Minister online, while the Alliance Against Islamophobia group is set to protest outside the community event on Thursday night.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/pm-modi-meet-ahead-of-talks-on-uranium-deal/news-story/8b35319c7b0e20348a37d47d2e971525

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M1YbpnNbUs

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Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Dave Sweeney said there remained “compelling reasons for Australia not to send uranium to India” given it has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

“Australian uranium would fuel radioactive risk and waste and potentially allow the diversion of domestic uranium reserves to fuel India’s nuclear weapons program in an already tense region,” he said.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said “the supply of Australian uranium to India represents an immense opportunity” as she called on NSW, Western Australia and Queensland to overturn bans on uranium mining.

Albanese said that “Australia’s relationship with India has never been more consequential than it is today. Our partnership has never been stronger.

“Australia values India as a top-tier security partner. We will boost strategic co-ordination, increase the complexity of our defence exercises, and further build interoperability between our defence forces.

“We undertake to consult on defence-related developments in the Indo-Pacific that affect our shared interests,” he said.

Albanese added Australia had also agreed to commission a temporary space tracking terminal on the Cocos Keeling Islands to support India’s Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, the country’s first attempt to send astronauts to space.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/india-and-australia-look-to-fast-track-sweeping-free-trade-pact-after-uranium-export-deal-20260709-p60e0c.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlWe661fdxw

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Speaking at a business event, Mr Modi said India was aiming to produce 100GW of nuclear power by 2047, up from a current 8.8GW. “Australia’s huge uranium reserves are directly connected to India’s nuclear journey,” he said.

“Today the world is going through a period of uncertainty, supply chain disruptions and an energy crisis. At such a time it is both natural and necessary for Australia and India to advance (the trade).” Under a joint statement on energy security, Mr Albanese also committed to ensure the free flow of LNG to India, and Mr Modi pledged to ensure his country’s role as a reliable supplier of liquid fuels to Australia.

In other commitments, the leaders pledged strengthen clean energy and critical minerals co-operation, and work together to develop critical technologies and bolster supply chains, amid China’s growing stranglehold over key technologies inputs.

On the cultural front, India agreed to repatriate the remains of an indigenous Australian held by the Government Museum of Chennai, while Australia will return Indian artefacts held by the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of NSW.

Mr Modi used a sporting analogy to underscore the increasingly close ties between the countries. “Cricket has become a commonly understood language of diplomacy between India and Australia, and that is why our meetings also kind of feel like a cricket match,” he said.

“The agenda is focused like a one-day match. Decisions are quick like a T20 match, and partnership is long time and intense, like a test match.”

Mr Albanese said the Australia-India relationship was “underdone, under-explored and under-examined” until about a decade ago, but “that has changed for the better”.

Australia’s Indian-born population is close to one million people, making it the second-largest overseas-born group in Australia after the UK.

On Friday, Mr Albanese will host his counterpart at the MCG for an announcement on a Big Bash cricket match in Chennai in December. Minerals Council chief executive Tania Constable said the uranium deal was a major opportunity, that would require Australia to expand its number of uranium mines from the four currently already in operation.

“We need to see the investment occurring,” she said. “I think it sends us very strong positive signal that markets are out there. It’s not just India chasing Australia’s uranium, it’s also the United States … it’s France, it’s many countries.

“India is the latest, and given the size of India, with a population of almost 1.4 billion people, and an ever increasing demand requirement on energy, this sends that positive signal and puts Australia in the box seat.”

AustralianSuper will move to capitalise on India’s growth by investing $500m in its National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, lifting its overall holdings in the country to close to $3.3bn.

The move follows the fund’s initial $240m investment in the NIIF in 2019, which has been one of the AustralianSuper’s best performing infrastructure assets.

The Business Council of Australia will also lean into the relations, leading a senior business delegation to India in December this year.

Professor Ian Hall, an expert on Indian politics at Griffith University, said the security commitments were far-reaching.

“These declarations highlight that the ­really dynamic component of the relationship concerns defence and especially regional maritime ­security,” he said. “The commitments to consult on threats, build interoperability and information sharing, and deploy more aircraft from each other’s territories are major steps forward.”

He said the uranium announcement was “eye-catching” but in the longer term, the joint statement on energy security would likely prove more consequential, amid push by like-­minded states to secure supplies of liquid fuels and gas.

Lowy Institute India chair Shruti Pandalai said: “The political ambition on display for the relationship shows the strategic case for India and Australia is settled, the next step is the scaling up on the delivery.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/indian-pm-narendra-modi-comes-bearing-gifts-on-trade-and-defence/news-story/82cd2ce6615fdddc2607183aa7bbd0a6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr9lOlotUV8

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‘We Indians infuse the world’: Thousands cheer Narendra Modi at stadium extravaganza

Stephen Brook - July 9, 2026

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Melbourne visit had a few elements: business, diplomatic, and sporting. And then there was Thursday night’s genre-busting community/cultural/rock star/political extravaganza at Marvel Stadium.

Thousands waved their mobile phone lights aloft as Modi took to a purple garlanded stage in the middle of the stadium, accompanied by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, who both experienced a level of cheering and a lack of booing neither was used to.

In a speech punctuated by frequent bursts of applause, Modi declared that just as sugar sweetens milk, Indians integrate and sweeten societies globally.

“Just as when sugar is added to milk it makes it sweeter,” he said.

“Just as we Indians infuse the world,” he continued to a crowd estimated at 20,000.

“The milk comes from Australia. However, the tea is made the Indian way.

“I am the tea vendor – the chai wallah,” Modi said to huge applause.

Albanese said he had first visited India in 1991 as a backpacker, while Allan said that she was on a 600-day streak of practising yoga since visiting as premier in 2024.

Modi has now visited Australia three times, the first in 2014.

“This completes the hat trick,” he said. “This demonstrates the heights Indian-Australia relations have reached.”

Not even the Docklands stadium could contain the size or exuberance of “Melbourne Meets Modi”, with Cranbourne’s 50-strong Janagar Jana Dhol Pathak drumming group outside gate 2 delivering an eardrum-shattering serenade as the audience arrived.

“This is a very important event for us,” drumming leader Satish Gaikwad said. “Australia and India coming together. That’s the unity we want to show the world.”

The sound of the massive dhol drums, carried over the shoulder, and the smaller tasha drums completely eclipsed the 30-odd protesters who were sporting a feeble PA system and “Modi Go Home” and “Stop Indian Invasion” posters.

This group was largely unnoticed by the 20,000 Indians streaming along the concourse into the stadium, in what could be seen as a metaphor of geopolitical realities between Australia (population 27 million) and India (population 1.47 billion).

Rachita Savant from Wyndham Vale said she had mixed opinions about the protesters.

“I think they don’t have enough information about what they’re speaking,” she said.

“I understand their emotions. But honestly, the groups that are coming here today, they’re not all harmful to Australia. These are people who have some calibre to be here. They’re not here living off Centrelink.”

“Especially the Indians,” said her friend Gayatri Gangapurkar of Truganina.

“Australia is a diverse culture,” Gangapurkar added. “Australia accepts diversity and India is the same. Because it is one India, but there are different cultures, different languages living together. It’s quite similar.”

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Thirty years ago, the Indian diaspora in Australia numbered 50,000, said Pawan Luthra, chief executive of the Indian Link media group. When the next census is released, it is expected to show the figure has grown to 1.3 million, he said.

The Indian diaspora has already eclipsed the British as the largest foreign-born group here.

“A lot of them transition from permanent resident to citizen over time,” Luthra said. “A lot of them want to fully participate in Australia – except when there is a cricket match on.”

As for Modi: “I value him as a strong economic manager, but there are a lot of things that should have been done better.”

As demonstrated by his embrace of Albanese on Thursday, Modi is a world leader who knows the power of a good selfie. He is only the second Indian prime minister in history to win a third consecutive term, after Jawaharlal Nehru. (Indira Gandhi won a non-consecutive four terms.)

Similarly to Nehru, who had his jacket, Modi’s sense of style means his name has been lent to the Modi kurta, a fitted half or full-sleeve top with a mandarin collar he is often seen wearing.

But some are highly critical of him. Hindus for Human Rights Australia said it had serious concerns about “democracy and human rights, custodial deaths, press freedoms, collapsing educational systems, the right to protest and civil liberties, environmental protections, women’s safety, and the persecution of minorities in India”.

Both countries are helping each other, said Dr Jagwinder Virk, chair of the India-Australia Strategic Alliance.

“Relationships are building up,” he said, pointing to critical minerals, trade and the Indian Premier League.

“Most Australian players spend three to four months in India. They have a second home in India now,” he said. “Glenn Maxwell is married to an Indian woman. That is a good thing.”

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/we-indians-infuse-the-world-thousands-cheer-narendra-modi-at-stadium-extravaganza-20260709-p60e26.html

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Far-right influencer gatecrashes Indian PM’s Australian hotel, leads protest at event

Carla Jaeger and Sherryn Groch - July 9, 2026

A far-right agitator gatecrashed the Melbourne hotel of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hours before dozens of neo-Nazis and their associates gathered to protest his visit.

But the small contingent gathered outside Marvel Stadium were drowned out by joyful performers from an Indian-Australian drumming group celebrating Modi’s Australian visit.

Neo-Nazi associate Hugo Lennon, a wealthy property development heir turned far-right influencer, posted footage of his late-night tirade against the Indian leader after midnight on Thursday. In the video, police officers quickly swarm Lennon and drag him away from the first-floor balcony overlooking the hotel lobby as he bellows “F*ck Modi!” and “F*ck India!” to people below.

Lennon later led the small protest group from the Department of Home Affairs headquarters to the steps of Marvel Stadium, where they hurled racist abuse at the incoming crowd for two hours before disbanding.

Modi touched down in Melbourne at 10.30pm Wednesday just hours before Lennon’s hotel stunt.

Police did not answer questions regarding how Lennon knew where the Indian prime minister was staying or how close he got to Modi but confirmed a 22-year-old man “attended a hotel and shouted political statements” about 12:30am.

“He was moved on by police without incident”, a Victoria Police spokesperson said.

Lennon and his collaborator Mitch Hobbs, a Melbourne stockbroker who goes by the name “Sir Doug”, had organised the protest against Modi’s visit and Australian immigration.

Posters for the event were circulated online by prominent neo-Nazis, including Thomas Sewell, the leader of the now outlawed National Socialist Network.

Many attendees at the demonstration were known neo-Nazis, including Nathan Bull and Michael J Nelson, who were also seen shaking hands with Lennon and Hobbs.

But the groups efforts to disrupt the event made little impact on the festive atmosphere of the arriving crowd, some who took defiant pictures in front of the far-right contingent.

Two musical groups drowned out the protesters’ chants, and Lennon was forced to stop his speech after the Janagar Jana Dhol Pathak drumming group began performing in front of the neo-Nazis.

Lennon’s stunt overnight follows a series of ambushes on politicians by far-right figures during the 2025 federal election, including when two other known neo-Nazi associates confronted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a Melbourne hotel lobby. At the time, those involved boasted in leaked audio about gaining “private intel” on Albanese’s movements.

Nelson also unsuccessfully gatecrashed a One Nation fundraiser last month.

Both Lennon and Hobbs are among a number of wealthy backers recently unmasked by this masthead now helping Sewell and his supporters plot their next move into politics.

Some far-right influencers had shared knowledge online of Modi’s movements around the city during his visit.

Victoria Police stressed officers would be out in force in Melbourne’s CBD throughout.

Security measures are expected to be high throughout Modi’s trip after the Australian Federal Police issued an official warning to a young person who made a death threat towards the Indian leader last week.

An AFP spokesperson said on Monday the source of the online threat was identified and spoken to on July 3.

“Following an assessment of the matter, the young person was issued a formal warning,” they said. “There is no current or impending risk to the community.”

Lennon has been contacted for comment.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/far-right-influencer-gatecrashes-indian-pm-s-australian-hotel-20260709-p60dvw.html

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Isolated, scared, forlorn: The heartbreaking final months of Virginia Giuffre’s life

Virginia Giuffre made global headlines for her fight against her sexual abusers among the wealthy elite, all detailed in a bestselling memoir. Now new questions have emerged about the private anguish she faced at home.

Melissa Fyfe and Carla Hildebrandt - JULY 11, 2026

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It’s the morning of Tuesday, January 14, 2025 and Virginia Giuffre is hiding from her husband, Robbie Giuffre. Virginia, the most prominent of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, texts her sister-in-law in the United States. She’s safe in a Perth hotel, she says, “so it would be difficult for him to find me”.

Virginia had told her US-based family that Robbie had assaulted her on a family holiday. In the days afterwards, as she moved from hotel to hotel, she documented her injuries. Her photographs from that time show a smattering of bruises, like tiny storm clouds, crossing her chest. There’s an arched mark on her right eyebrow and bruises above and below her eyes (Robbie has denied Virginia’s allegations, saying she attacked him).

Virginia sent these pictures far and wide. She sent them to friends and family, her publicist and Amy Wallace, the ghostwriter of Virginia’s bestselling memoir, Nobody’s Girl. She’d been with Robbie – an Australian she met in Thailand in 2002 – for 22 years, but now she was done keeping the marriage’s secrets.

A few months later, on April 5, she issued a statement to People magazine saying that she was able to fight back against Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, but was unable to escape domestic violence: “After my husband’s latest physical assault, I can no longer stay silent.” A few weeks later, Virginia was dead, taking her own life on her farm north of Perth. She was 41.

That January morning in the hotel, texting her American family, Virginia nuts out a plan to keep safe. “We’re getting our ducks in order and we are figuring this out day by day.” The “we” refers to Virginia and her devoted full-time carer Cheryl Myers, then 71 (a degenerative spinal issue and broken neck had left Virginia often bedridden or in a wheelchair). “The police are coming to the hotel and they’re gonna go talk to Rob and hopefully he’s [taken] away [from] me please.” She also mentions her next step: “I go to court today to put a permanent [restraining order] on him.”

That text was sent at 7.31am. If she had gone to the court at 9am, perhaps the next few months would have unfolded differently. But a few hours later, Robbie Giuffre was walking up the steps of the Perth Magistrates Court, just several city blocks away. He submitted a seven-page form and had a 15-minute hearing with the magistrate. He feared Virginia, he said, and she’d been violent on a recent family holiday.

What the magistrate didn’t know was that, just hours earlier, he’d come off a 72-hour restraining order served on him by police. When he walked out of court that morning, Robbie had secured an interim family violence restraining order against Virginia, banning her for six months from contacting him and their two youngest children, a daughter, then 15, and a son, 17. “It was the worst thing that could have happened to her,” says her sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts. “Her children were her life.”

Virginia Roberts – who grew up in Loxahatchee, Florida, about 35 minutes from US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort – fell into Epstein’s world after an unimaginably awful childhood. Abused by her father from seven to 11, he also trafficked her to a friend (he denies both claims). Her mother then sent her to a notorious juvenile facility. She escaped and was picked up by sex trafficker Ron Eppinger, who was later jailed. This was all by the time she was 15. Ghislaine Maxwell spotted Virginia, then 16, working as a Mar-a-Lago spa attendant and recruited her as a sex slave for Epstein.

Virginia’s lawyers estimated that, between 2000 and 2002, Epstein also trafficked her to about 30 men. Virginia named some in her book: Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modelling agent, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew (which he denies). Fearful of naming others, she called them things like billionaire number one, two or three in her book. As a kid with her history of abuse, Virginia said, she just thought this was how the world worked. She also genuinely feared Epstein, who’d claimed to know where her adored brother Sky went to school.

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One day, when Virginia was 18, turning 19, Epstein and Maxwell surprised her with a proposal: they wanted her to have their baby. Virginia knew then that she had to get away but, terrified of upsetting them, she struck a deal: if they finally sent her to the massage training they’d promised, she’d have the baby. So they booked her a course in Chiang Mai, in Thailand.

That was where Virginia met Robbie, then 26. The son of Sicilian parents who had migrated to Sydney, Robbie had dropped out of high school and was in Chiang Mai studying Thai boxing. “I looked over my shoulder. Butterflies. And she’s it, that’s the one,” he told 60 Minutes. “Personally,” said Virginia, “I knew he was the one when he told me the people that are abusing you, it’s not right, and you don’t have to live like that.” They married in a Buddhist temple 10 days later. She called Epstein before flying to Australia. “I fell in love and got married, Jeffrey. I’m never coming back,” she writes in her book. There was a pause. “Have a great life,” he said. And hung up.

In Australia, she wanted to forget her previous life. But in 2008, Virginia was put in contact with a lawyer via the US Department of Justice (she had been identified as an Epstein victim). To Virginia’s outrage, the lawyer explained that Epstein’s 2008 sweetheart deal – for which he served minimal prison time – would mean no trial. Any hope of bringing Epstein to justice was dead. However, he said, there would be financial compensation. She filed a lawsuit under a pseudonym and, in November 2009, Epstein settled with Virginia, paying her $US500,000. She said she later learnt that one victim was paid 10 times that, but she’d just looked at house prices where she lived on the NSW Central Coast and asked for that.

But in 2010, after having two sons, Virginia gave birth to a daughter. Something shifted in Virginia: she decided to fight. She produced that iconic photograph of the Epstein scandal: Prince Andrew with his arm around the slim waist of a 17-year-old Virginia, a beaming Maxwell behind. Eventually, in 2022, Prince Andrew paid Virginia $US10 million – according to documents we’ve obtained – to settle a lawsuit she’d brought against him. She also sued Maxwell for defamation in a lawsuit that provided crucial evidence for US prosecutors in their case against the socialite. Maxwell settled for $US7 million (Virginia got about $3.8 million after lawyers and expenses).

Not all of Virginia’s legal cases were successful. In 2022, she signed a settlement with lawyer Alan Dershowitz saying she “may have made a mistake” identifying him as her abuser. In the end, from class actions, to compensation payouts and settlements, Virginia was paid the equivalent of $US25 million.

Going public had its price – paparazzi, online trolling, strange break-ins, a credible death threat that sent the family into hiding for several weeks – but Virginia inspired dozens of victims to come forward. “You have started a movement,” said Epstein survivor Danielle Bensky at Virginia’s memorial service in Washington in April, “and proved that one small girl can, in fact, change the world.”

Piecing together the secrets of Virginia’s and Robbie’s marriage is like finding clues in a cold case: Virginia kept the reality of their relationship a secret for a long time. On April 4, 2025, a few weeks before she died, Virginia sent her New York-based friend and publicist Dini von Mueffling a text about an alleged incident in 2010, the earliest allegation we’ve found. She wrote that Robbie, coming off a three-day bender, “punched me in the face, which dropped me to the floor, and continuously kicking [sic] me in the stomach”. He’d been violent “throughout the whole marriage”. She called police, but Rob pleaded not to be charged. “But as time went on, it only got worse. I am shattered even writing this.”

Last year, our colleagues at 60 Minutes tracked down about seven women – friends of Virginia’s – who saw signs of domestic violence during this time. One woman, whose identity was obscured because she feared Robbie, said she saw Virginia with a black eye. “I just said, ‘That wasn’t Robbie, was it?’ And she said, ‘Yes, she said it was … just a little scuffle.’ ”

In 2013, Virginia and Robbie moved to her home state of Florida. Amanda Roberts, Virginia’s sister-in-law, first noticed something was wrong when she was giving birth and Virginia was by her side. Amanda noticed a mark about her neck, as if a chain had been pulled against it.

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A few months later, at one of his children’s birthday parties, Robbie was complaining to her brother Sky that Amanda was gossiping about Virginia. Amanda and Sky said Robbie started screaming at Sky, so they decided to leave. “Robbie comes running from the backyard,” says Amanda, “and he charged Sky while he’s holding my three-month-old.” Virginia’s brother, Danny, intervened. (Few in Virginia’s family were immune to Robbie’s wrath: the brothers gave us reams of abusive texts and memes – such as “I swear I will bitch slap you”, “stupid” or “loser” – that Robbie sent to their mother using Virginia’s phone.)

In 2014, the family moved to a small town in Colorado called Penrose to be closer to Virginia’s mother. On March 4, 2015, police attended the Giuffre home after receiving several 911 hang-up calls. According to the police report, Virginia said she tried to stop Robbie punching and kicking their dog, Bear, which Robbie said had bitten him. She said Robbie then punched her several times in her face and head, grabbed her by the throat and strangled her. Virginia had a bruise forming on her left cheek, blood on her sleeve and a whitish-clear fluid mixed with blood leaking from her ear, which police noted could be cerebral spinal fluid, a symptom of severe head trauma. Robbie was arrested on domestic violence charges and taken to jail, where he told an officer he’d hit Virginia by accident.

Dale King, the then-detective sergeant who went to check on Virginia the next morning, tells Good Weekend he remembers Robbie flagged him down in the street. He knew the couple because he’d been to the house to keep the paparazzi in line and investigate the strange break-ins. King said Robbie seemed to be soothing himself with a story he’d heard him narrate before, about being the saviour. “He’s trying to convince me that I have to let him get back home so he can protect her,” he says. “Hell,” he remembers thinking. “You’re her biggest threat right now.”

Robbie was charged with assault but returned to Australia soon after. Virginia’s family begged her to stay, but she decided, for the kids’ sake, to give Robbie another go. She had the record of the Colorado incident suppressed – perhaps she didn’t want the distraction of media reporting – but last December, like a message in a bottle swept to shore, the police report emerged as part of the Epstein files. For Virginia’s brothers – who were in a battle with Robbie over Virginia’s estate and trying to prove he was a domestic abuser – it was a crucial piece of evidence.

It’s 2018 and two young families are barbecuing on the palm-fringed Kewarra Beach in Cairns. The two mothers notice each other. The blonde mother has a pram carrying her pet red-tailed black cockatoo. A rainbow lorikeet is perched on the shoulder of the dark-haired mother. This was Virginia Giuffre and her soon-to-be best buddy Linda Freitag. “We sort of looked at each other as these two crazy bird ladies … it was an instant friendship,” says Freitag.

After Virginia and Robbie moved to Cairns in 2017, things seemed brighter. “They seemed happy enough,” says Freitag of the Giuffre marriage. Freitag and Robbie were close too, back then. “He’s extremely passionate. He’s like a person of extremes,” she says. His darker side could be “quite severe”, but his loving side was generous and considerate, “and outspoken as well, in a good way”. With Maxwell’s payment, Virginia had become a multimillionaire overnight, which meant Robbie no longer needed to work.

But then, in 2020, Virginia contracted meningitis. Delirious, she was admitted to hospital where she got out of bed, lost her footing and broke her neck. She later had two surgeries on her spine and would rely heavily on painkillers. She would also later be diagnosed with fibromyalgia and serious gynaecological issues.

In January 2021, the family moved from Cairns to Perth. Virginia purchased a $1.9 million beachside home in the suburb of Ocean Reef with sea views, six bedrooms and a pool. They had plenty of money to live well but, as Virginia wrote in diary notes found after her death (undated but written post-separation), she felt trapped by Robbie’s increasing control. “The stronger I became, the scarier he became.” She describes it as manifesting in small ways at first: monitoring her daily activities and accusing her of unfaithfulness “on an almost daily basis”. She wrote, “Not allowed to go downstairs while any mate was over. And that was every day. I became a prisoner.”

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In early 2022, Virginia hit rock bottom. She’d been hospitalised after a bad bout of COVID-19. Worn out from near-constant neck pain, haunted by nightmares of past abuse and with people online calling her a liar, sellout and whore, she tried to overdose on pills in hospital. She was revived, went home, and tried again. Her eldest son found her, saving her life. After that, she wrote in her memoir, it would be a long time before thoughts of self-annihilation would begin to subside.

In December 2024, a few weeks before everything blew up between Robbie and Virginia, there was an incident at their Perth home. In one of the documents we’ve obtained, she wrote that Robbie was following her around being argumentative and then called her a whore. “I noticed my daughter’s face go pale, her jaw drop and a shocked look. My instinct was a sense of preservation and to show my daughter it’s not acceptable and I just struck out to which he called the police.” They served her with a 72-hour on-the-spot violence restraining order. She didn’t know it then, but this would soon be used against her to devastating effect.

Virginia had everything planned for the girls’ trip. It was her daughter’s birthday (she’s still a minor, so we’ll call her Ellie) and they were off to the coastal getaway of Dunsborough, about 2½ hours south of Perth. It would be a mother-and-daughter thing. But then Ellie wanted her brothers there, which meant Robbie, too. Matters were strained between the couple then, but Virginia decided to make the most of it. The date was January 9, 2025.

Robbie and Virginia have different versions of what happened that night at their luxury rental on Geographe Bay. In Virginia’s version, Robbie argued with the then-girlfriend of one of his sons – a girl who was 16 or 17 – and kicked her out of the house late at night (we’ve also been told this by an independent source). Virginia paid for her $350 taxi ride back to Perth. Later, Robbie wanted sex, but Virginia – recovering from a spinal operation in November and a serious urinary tract infection – said no.

“It got physical, got violent,” says Sky. He said Virginia told them Robbie punched her in the face and put her in a martial arts position, a sort of stranglehold, cracking her sternum and causing her to pass out. Good Weekend can’t confirm the cracked sternum as we can’t access Virginia’s medical records.

Just before 3pm the next day, local police from Busselton attended the holiday rental and interviewed Virginia. They advised her to go to the local hospital. At 8.55pm, on January 10, 2025, Virginia texted her mother, one of the few people she told about Robbie’s violence. “Mommy, pls call me when you’re awake. Rob did it again, I’m in the hospital and I need your voice to help me calm down.” She FaceTimed Sky and Amanda and called her ghostwriter Amy Wallace, who later wrote in the memoir’s preface that Virginia was in extreme distress. Robbie and the kids left that morning. During the day, police served him with a 72-hour restraining order, which expired on January 13.

A day later, Robbie made his move.

On January 14, Virginia and carer Cheryl Myers were in a Perth hotel room when police knocked on the door. They had called earlier to find out where she was. They then served Virginia with a six-month interim family violence order. She could neither go home nor contact her two youngest children. And she – or anyone on her behalf – could not contact Robbie. “She was in total shock,” says Myers, a gently spoken widow who raised three sons. “And so was I.”

In WA, and across Australia, anyone can apply for an emergency or interim restraining order against a violent partner. The system is designed for people – mostly women – in genuine fear and immediate need of protection. Less evidence is needed compared to other court hearings and, for safety reasons, the alleged abuser does not have to be notified or be present. And that’s why, on January 14, Virginia had no idea what was about to happen.

On that morning, Robbie filled out an affidavit, which we’ve obtained. Robbie notes that Virginia had a police order made against her, “approximately four weeks ago” (presumably the incident when Virginia lashed out at Robbie for calling her a whore in front of Ellie). He writes that Virginia has been “physically, mentally and emotionally abusive and financially to myself and my kids”. She suffers, he writes, from mental health issues and has been admitted into mental hospitals numerous times. “She has attempted suicide on numerous occasions with kids present.”

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In the form, he writes down his version of the Dunsborough incident. “We went to bed [and] were having a conversation and the conversation led to an argument and then she started physically assaulting me with headbutts, punching, scratching, hammerfist and spitting. I was trying to protect myself by covering my face. And as soon as I had a chance to flee I did and then seeked [sic] to protect my children and told them to pack to leave in the morning.” He had scratches and bruising to the head, he writes, and was constantly in fear and anxious Virginia would return to the house and assault him.

Two pages later, he says that he’s the primary carer and describes Virginia as a manipulative and unpredictable person who put “my children” in harm’s way to the point one required two surgeries (likely a reference to a 2024 incident when Virginia was driving a quad bike with Ellie on the back and they ran into a tree; Ellie’s jaw needed two operations).

With the form done, Robbie then argued his case before magistrate Lynette Dias. We don’t know what happened in that courtroom because the court has refused our request for the transcript twice and Robbie has repeatedly declined to speak to us. One of the few people who does know, however, is defence lawyer Nick Terry.

Terry filed an objection against the order for Virginia and applied for the transcript. He can’t give it to us because of his professional obligations to the court, but he said the hearing lasted about 15 minutes and that Robbie did not tell the magistrate about the recent 72-hour restraining order against him.

The system is so overwhelmed – the Perth Magistrates Court alone handles around 5600 family violence restraining order applications a year – the first time Virginia could challenge the order was in six months, the length of the order itself. (A statement released to Good Weekend by Robbie’s lawyer said: “Due to Virginia’s behaviour in January 2025, it was necessary for the courts to impose protective measures to safeguard Robert and the children from harm.”)

Meanwhile, Virginia was dealing with the police. She was interviewed again about the assault, this time in her hotel room by two female officers from Perth. “They were extremely good. But then a guy stepped in,” says Myers. “He just wanted to brush it off, you know. So I was not impressed.”

In the following weeks, Cheryl Myers says Virginia repeatedly called police with concerns about Robbie’s guns and his history of violence against her. Ultimately, WA police did not charge Robbie with assault. Myers thinks this is because the children told police their mother had injured herself. The police declined to talk to us about their inquiries into the January 9, 2025 incident, citing a possible coronial inquest, but last month Commissioner Col Blanch said they were reviewing their investigation after the family officially complained. “Her local police force failed her,” says her brother Danny Wilson.

Virginia’s “ranch” is the kind of place you’re likely to see kangaroos. We did when we went to Neergabby a few months ago: a mother and a joey minding their own business on the long driveway that curved to Virginia’s homestead. This property, with its 16 hectares of bush and running brook, is where she lived for the last four months of her life with carer Myers, two dogs, a horse, two sheep and 12 chickens. It was her favourite place.

As Virginia documented in her notes, she became increasingly isolated post-separation. Wilson remembers his sister ringing one night. She said she had been cut off from her mobile phone, satellite internet and power. It was dark. “She got up in the middle of the night, drove to Perth and checked into a hotel.” Later, she described being cut from her health and house insurance and locked her out of her personal and work emails. Due to the interim order, neither she nor Myers could contact Robbie to find out what had happened.

His guns were also causing her great distress. (Not long after Robbie had sole custody of the children, he pleaded guilty to a charge of keeping his ammunition unsecured.) “She was isolated, totally isolated,” says Myers of those last few months. “It was just a complete nightmare.”

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During this period, police charged Virginia with breaching the restraining order after she sent texts to Robbie. She was told to appear before the Joondalup magistrates court in March. She also tried desperately to get through to her children, changing her Netflix profile to “Mommy Loves You”. “My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them,” she posted to Instagram on March 22. “I miss them so very much. I have been through hell & back in my 41 years but this is incredibly hurting me worse than anything else.”

On March 30, 2025, Virginia Giuffre created another Instagram post that sent shockwaves around the world. She was lying on a hospital bed, eyes downcast, face bruised. She said a bus driving at 110 kilometres an hour had hit her car and she’d gone into kidney renal failure. “They’ve given me four days to live … I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time.”

Six days prior, Myers had been driving Virginia home – she was in the back seat with her dogs – when an orange school bus clipped her from behind as she turned into the farm. The next day, Virginia went to hospital where, Myers says, doctors were concerned the crash had ruptured her liver and would cause eventual renal failure. But Virginia left to move to a bigger hospital.

Initially, the WA Police said they had no record of a crash, which fuelled scepticism. The driver, Ross Munns, pointed out buses are legally not allowed to go 110 kilometres an hour in WA. “It was a fake crash, this evil woman should be arrested for making false allegations,” read one typical comment on a news story. Myers says the post was a message to her kids, that she needed to see them. Virginia’s family maintain it was never meant to go public: she didn’t realise her Instagram was connected to her private Facebook account.

After Wilson saw the post, he jumped on a plane. When he arrived on April 2, Virginia was staying at Perth’s Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and had undergone dialysis. “She was in pretty bad shape,” he says.

Around this time, three weeks before her death, Virginia started to seriously rethink the manuscript for her hit book, Nobody’s Girl. She’d approved its contents in October 2024, three months before her marriage fell apart. This version had Robbie starring as the white knight. But when Virginia went public, telling People magazine on April 5 about her violent marriage, it created an obvious problem: the white knight was now an alleged abuser. According to those closest to her, Virginia wanted either a total rewrite, Robbie taken out of the “saviour” role, or the book to be silent about him. Despite her feelings about Robbie’s portrayal, Virginia did want the book published, emailing Amy Wallace on April 1 that “in the event of my passing, I would like to ensure Nobody’s Girl is still released”.

After Virginia’s death, von Mueffling, Sky and Danny and their wives fought Penguin Random House, lobbying for her wishes to be realised. In August 2025, they went to The New York Times, declaring Virginia would not want it published in its current form. In the end, Penguin Random House released the version Virginia was unhappy with but added an opening note from Wallace that included the January 9 and Colorado incidents, the People article and the family’s concerns that the book underplayed domestic abuse (a titbit not included, Wallace tells Good Weekend, was that on one of her Australian visits, Robbie made it clear after 11 days that she was no longer welcome, slamming the door behind her).

Nobody’s Girl, which has sold 1.4 million copies, recently won three British Book of the Year Awards, including the overall book of the year for “honouring Giuffre’s memory, her story and her words”. But it has also become an important account for Robbie. Responding to domestic abuse allegations in this article, his lawyer pointed out that the book “praised and thanked Robert for his support of her throughout their marriage”.

On April 13, 2025, Sky flew to Australia, then Danny left. Sky has fond memories from this time, including watching The Red with Virginia, a horror film about a bloodthirsty zombie kangaroo. One day, he watched as Robbie had all of Virginia’s belongings delivered from the Ocean Reef house in garbage bags. Around this time, Virginia told her Cairns friend Linda Freitag that Robbie “was just waiting for me to die”.

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But few people, including Myers and Sky, saw Virginia’s death coming. On the day before she died, she was excited because she had found a psychologist she connected with, a Canadian. He told her he wanted to focus on her future, not her past. Myers describes her as hugging him and calling later in the day about the treatments he’d mentioned. “She said, ‘You actually understand. I don’t want to go backwards. I want to go forwards.’ ”

The next morning, a Friday, was Anzac Day. Virginia insisted Myers go and see her soldier son march in the parade. She left at about 12.30pm. “We did the usual,” says Myers, “‘I love you, no, I love you, no, I love you more. No, I love you more.’ ”

Virginia phoned Myers an hour later, saying she’d realised they needed to pick up more medication the next day. “She said, ‘Look, Sky’s here, why don’t you stay home tonight, pick up the meds in the morning and then come back.’… She was in a good mood,” says Myers. That was the last time they spoke.

Meanwhile, Sky had left to do some laundry and check out Perth’s beaches (he was leaving soon and hadn’t done much sightseeing). He says he got back at 3.30pm or 4pm and Virginia wasn’t out of her bedroom, so he had a nap. When he woke, he decided to get something to eat. He went to Virginia’s door and was going to knock, but heard what he describes as “some really nice therapeutic sounds”. He decided to leave her be and left the property to get dinner.

Before leaving, he noticed that the CCTV system he’d installed for Virginia had been unplugged (it had external cameras and one facing the kitchen and front door area). When he returned around 9pm, he was talking to Amanda on the phone when he realised he hadn’t spoken to Virginia all day. So he knocked on her door. No answer. Eventually, he kicked the door in.

And that’s when he found Virginia. He rang Triple Zero and tried to resuscitate her for 45 minutes. “That whole time I was …” He stops, trying to steady his wavering voice. “I was trying to bring her back to life. You could just tell, though, she was lifeless and her face was drained.”

When news of Virginia’s death broke, conspiracy theories went into overdrive. Online sleuths pointed to her December 2019 post that said “in no way, shape or form am I suicidal”. Her father went on television to declare “somebody got to her”. That she was murdered in a shadowy Epstein-related plot is still a common sentiment in online comments. But Sky, who will not reveal the method of Virginia’s suicide, said: “I know it’s hard to accept it because of the warrior she was, but she did commit suicide.”

No one can really know what, in those final moments, drives a person to take their life. Her family believe Virginia was broken by not seeing her children. One of her sons was to turn 18 in two days. “At the very core of her was being a mother,” says Sky. Says Myers: “If [she was] just allowed to speak to her children, not even see them but speak to her children, she would be alive today.”

Sky was initially impressed with the police investigation into his sister’s suicide. But, he says, they failed to properly investigate what Virginia alleged were Robbie’s isolating tactics and domestic and systems abuse. Sky says there was plenty of evidence for police: they took photographs of her diaries that detailed the alleged abuse. He says he spent hours telling them about Robbie’s alleged violence: the January 9 incident, Colorado.

The family – backed by 16 of Australia’s top domestic violence experts – are asking for a public inquest so that the coroner can examine the systems that failed her and look at issues such as the alleged misidentification of Virginia as a perpetrator, the hidden toll of domestic violence-related suicide, systems abuse, coercive control and the police failures. “I don’t want there to be more Virginias out there that have to go through the same thing,” Sky says.

Meanwhile, a battle is unfolding over Virginia’s estate which, with book royalties and investment returns, could be worth up to $30 million, Good Weekend has been told. Robbie’s and Virginia’s divorce is yet to be finalised, and Robbie may emerge from that with millions of dollars. The remainder will be divided according to whoever wins the case slowly making its way through the WA Supreme Court (Virginia died without a will).

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On one side are sons Christian and Noah, backed by their father. If they win, Robbie stands to inherit just over a third of what’s left after the divorce settlement, with the remaining two-thirds divided between the three children. That would make him the main beneficiary and most likely the administrator of Virginia’s worldwide estate.

On the other is Myers and Virginia’s Perth lawyer Karrie Louden, backed by Virginia’s brothers and their wives. They say Virginia had an “informal will”, expressed to Louden and also emailed to her accountant in February 2025, stipulating a small amount of money going to Virginia’s family and friends, but the bulk to her children and none to Robbie. They say she wanted the money held in trust until the kids turned 25.

In a statement to Good Weekend, Robbie’s lawyer said Virginia suffered “significant mental health issues and overreliance on prescription medication”, due to the pressure of being in the public eye. “This may have led to Virginia’s change of perspective.” Robbie was limited in responding to “various unfounded allegations” for legal reasons, the statement said, but he and the children just wanted to “remember Virginia as a loving wife and mother”.

“What appears to be an orchestrated attempt by persons to gain financially from Virginia’s death by making unsubstantiated allegations, when they should have been aware of Virginia’s medical conditions, is simply disgraceful,” the statement said.

Sometimes Virginia would tell random people she was going to marry Cheryl Myers. This embarrassed the 71-year-old grandmother, of course. “I know you love me,” Virginia would say. And Myers did. “I loved her as if she was my own daughter.” Virginia, who always yearned for the unconditional, protective love of a parent, found that in Myers. But she also, in those last months, found something else: a clarity about healthy relationships. She wrote in her diary about the need to recognise early signs of control, such as jealousy and possessiveness. “We must challenge traditional notions that confuse love with control.”

In early February, she texted von Mueffling. Her life was a shambles, she wrote, but for the first time she felt liberated: “I am nobody’s girl.” Myers noticed this, too: “In that last four months, I seen the mother in Virginia, where she yearned for her children. I seen the child in Virginia that had missed out on her childhood. I seen the teenager in Virginia where she would put pranks on me all the time.”

A few days before her death, Virginia spent $8000 on furniture to set up her long-held dream of a retreat on her farm for victims of domestic and sexual violence. “She had so much more to offer this world,” says Myers. “She really did.”

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline (13 11 14), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467), Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) and Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800).

https://www.1800respect.org.au/

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

https://www.kidshelpline.com.au/

https://www.theage.com.au/national/isolated-scared-forlorn-the-heartbreaking-final-months-of-virginia-giuffre-s-life-20260629-p60avr.html

https://www.instagram.com/virginiarobertsrising11/p/DH0vvDKzDvu/

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/what-happened-virginia-giuffre-husband-family-epstein-zr2cxwrlh

—

Q Post #4923

Oct 21 2020 20:55:05 (EST)

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1319071346282778624

Dearest Virginia -

We stand with you.

Now and always.

Find peace through prayer.

Never give up the good fight.

God bless you.

Q

https://qanon.pub/#4923

https://qanon.pub/#4568