My earliest memories of hypocrisy are of being forced to play footbrawl (some call it football) at school. Being a big kid, I was inevitably picked to be a front row forward. We were instructed to always grab our opponent’s jersey in a scrum, and thus impede and delay their return to the game. If ever they did that to us, we were expected to scream fowl and complain to the referee. The hypocrisy of that always left a sour taste in my mouth and I never again took any interest in the game.

Fast forward to the early 2000’s when Jose Ramos-Horta was involved in the struggle for independence for East Timor (latter to become Timor-Leste). I remember Mr Ramos-Horta in an interview speaking about the support he had verbally received from numerous world leaders at the time. However, when the crunch came, that support evaporated. As he explained – his first experience of international political hypocrisy.

Staying with Timor-Leste for a moment, there is also the hypocrisy of the Australian government at that time, spying on an ‘ally’ to gain an advantage by depriving the fledgling country of precious oil revenues, compounded even further by prosecuting the whistle blower for exposing these actions. How’s that for a moral, forthright government one could get behind and support.

There has been a veritable explosion of hypocrisy in recent times. Let us begin with the most recent example – the tragedy at Bondi Beach.

There are literally dozens of reports, studies and articles documenting the rise of antisemitism that it is no wonder the Jewish community is in shock, dismay and anger over this heinous attack. Among the noise however, equal reporting which goes unacknowledged reveals an increase in Islamophobic attacks in Australia as well. Why are the attacks on one group of Australians less or more important than attacks on another group of fellow Australians? Why does one group of Australians need a special envoy to advise (more akin to ‘dictate’ to, rather than to advise…) the government on how to reduce this rise, while other groups are ignored? Hypocrisy?

Attacks on any innocent Australians are reprehensible, especially when they are targeted for their race and/or religion. But so far as I know no Australian has been murdered recently because they are Muslim. We have just witnessed Australia’s worst ever terrorist attack in which 15 innocent people were murdered and many more injured. There is a massive disparity in the severity, prevalence and violence of antisemitism compared to Islamophobia at present. The Government’s repeated failure to recognise this, and virtual inability to use the word “antisemitism” without simultaneously condemning Islamophobia, is one of the reasons it is being widely condemned for failing to recognise, and act on, the problem.

And the Government did not only commission and envoy on antisemitism. It also commissioned Aftab Malik as a special envoy on Islamophobia. His report was handed down in September.

http://theconversation.com/landmark-report-makes-54-recommendations-to-combat-islamophobia-in-australia-now-government-must-act-264489

There is no comparison between antisemitism and invented "Islamophobia". It's just one of Albanese's tricks.

(Continued.....)
In time, I hope that a memorial will be erected at Bondi to remember the horrors and courageous actions of many on 14th December, 2025. There is another memorial near Bondi, in Marks Park. This one commemorates the more than 30 gay men who were tortured and murdered over 3 decades from the 70’s through to the 90’s. That’s 30 years in which gay men lived in real fear of being viciously attacked and killed. It has taken almost another 30 years for their lives and deaths to be recognized. I sincerely hope that it doesn’t take 30years to recognize the recent horrors at Bondi. Somehow, I doubt it will. That’s hypocrisy for you.

For another example of hypocrisy at play, we don’t have to look beyond the continuing chorus of indignant ‘concern’ over the handling of the COVID endemic. Deafening shrieks of mishandling, incompetence, poor judgement, nepotism and even blatant corruption still abound. Not so surprisingly I seem to have heard exactly the same complaints before. Of course I’m referring to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Faced with a totally unknown illness (HIV/AIDS & COVID) doctors and researchers raced to understand what it was and how to treat it. Along the way both endemics encountered exactly the same issues – government incompetence and interference, professional rivalry, commercial profiteering, isolation and public hysteria. Talk about isolation and lockdown - our great friend Fred Hollows proposed isolating everyone with HIV/AIDS on a desert island. (I’m not sure if he meant everyone or just the gays). No wonder I view the current COVID chorus as nothing more than hypocrites

(Finally ...)

Among all this hypocrisy I am left wondering what happened to all those free-speech advocates demanding the scrapping of Section 18C. It seems to me that they are quite comfortable with being able to say what they like about whoever they want, but are not prepared to afford their opponents the same right. While the 47th president of the USA sues media companies left right and center in an obvious attempt to intimidate and curb criticism of him and his administration, other media executives fawn over his bootstraps attempting to curry favour for financial and business advantage. The hypocrisy goes unchecked. As long as political parties continue to accuse each other of exactly the same crimes (rotting the system ring any bells?) the hypocrisy continues.

So much so that I wonder out loud – is hypocrisy hard wired into human DNA?

Hmmm

32 people murdered every day in Nigeria this year because they were Christian. How many more murdered in the war in Sudan than in Gaza? How many dead each day in Ukraine? And on and on it goes.

For me, the tragedy of the holocaust was not the murder of six million Jews. It was the murder of six million people like you and me because someone thought that being Jewish made them different.

Perhaps if we'd treat others as we'd like them to treat us? Perhaps the hypocrisy is the hatred you hang on to because of the hatred you perceive in others?