Scurrilousness as Journalism.
When Scrutiny Becomes Suspicion: What is MichaelWest Media up to?
Note: A version of this has been offered to Michael West. Thus far, no response.
Stephanie Tran’s recent article about security funding to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry on the Michael West website raises legitimate questions about public transparency and government expenditure. Public money should be scrutinised, particularly where large sums are involved. But scrutiny is not the same thing as insinuation, and there appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding regarding both the purpose and administration of the approximately $181 million in general security funding administered through the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) over recent years. The tone adopted in the article is worthy of the Daily Telegraph. Perhaps some of her criticism would have been more considered if the ECAJ had responded to requests for information, but that absence does not excuse the sneers.
Before going further, I should state my own position clearly. I have long been critical of the elite nature of ECAJ politics and of the broader ecosystem of influential Jewish “peak organisations”. I believe they have often functioned as an echo chamber for a wide range of Israeli policies and actions, and their lobbying influence within Australian public life is substantial. Alternative non- or anti-Zionist Jewish voices struggle for visibility and legitimacy and, at present, remain underrepresented and marginalised within the dominant institutional landscape.
But criticism requires accuracy.
The article repeatedly frames the ECAJ as an “obscure Israel lobby entity”, which is a strange description (or was this an attempt at irony?). Whatever one thinks of the ECAJ operations as a lobby group for the Israeli government, it is hardly obscure. It has functioned for decades as a peak body for established Australian Jewish community structures and has extensive relationships with governments, media institutions and community organisations. Like many Jewish organisations, its activities have not been confined solely to Israel-related matters. It has also engaged with broader issues including community welfare, the bread and butter stuff of ethnic organisations.
More importantly, the article appears confused about the nature of the large-scale funding itself.
The suggestion appears to be that there is something suspicious in the money not being directed through charitable trusts associated with the ECAJ. But the explanation is straightforward. This is not charitable or tax-deductible funding. These are operational security grants and are administered through ordinary organisational structures rather than charitable arrangements.
Nor is this money a “handout”, as the article at times appears to imply, unless one thinks of community protection as a “handout”.
In this case, the ECAJ acts primarily as a coordinating body through which funds are distributed across hundreds of Jewish institutions, including schools, synagogues, and community organisations. The ECAJ itself has publicly stated that “we would prefer to live without antisemitism and without the security funding it has necessitated”.
These grants are not simply allocated at whim. Applications require professional threat and risk assessments, defined scopes of work, and quotations. For all the criticisms that can be directed at ECAJ politics, these grants operate under strict Commonwealth accountability requirements.
Short of constructing an entirely new bureaucracy, it is difficult to see how governments could efficiently administer security funding directly to hundreds of individual Jewish organisations. The use of intermediary structures is not unusual; it is a common administrative solution designed precisely to avoid that problem. The real question is therefore not whether a conduit model exists, but whether it operates with appropriate transparency and oversight. These arrangements are also subject to strict government probity requirements. Jewish security organisations should not be immune from criticism.
There is also a useful comparison here that Tran appears to have missed.
The Australian Government is currently providing $25 million over three years for security uplift measures for Muslim communities, administered through the Australian National Imams Council as a coordinating body. Following October 7, a further $25 million became available through community cohesion funding directed toward Australian Palestinian, Muslim, and other affected communities. There have also been grants to Buddhist and Hindu organisations.
To my mind, this resembles important aspects of the ECAJ model. In both cases, governments have chosen established organisations as administrative conduits rather than attempting to directly manage hundreds of individual institutions. One can certainly question the suitability or politics of any particular peak body, and the reasoning behind the vastly different sums —15 murdered at Bondi sadly helps explain the greater expenditure directed toward the Jewish community — but the existence of a conduit arrangement is hardly evidence of impropriety in itself.
By omitting these broader administrative parallels, Tran risks presenting a selective picture that leaves readers with the impression that a uniquely suspicious funding architecture exists around Jewish organisations, when governments routinely use intermediary structures elsewhere.
Criticism should illuminate. It should not create conspiracies where evidence does not exist. Yet Tran’s article has been picked up on social media accompanied by repulsive remarks.