Sydney and Monash universities have urged students protesting against the war in Gaza to stop using phrases such as “intifada” and “from the river to the sea”, as Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus dismissed a request from Australia’s top tertiary institutions for urgent legal advice on the slogans.
Dreyfus noted that people could already make a complaint under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, under which it is an offence to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people”, if they were concerned about the use of the phrases.
The Group of Eight leading universities wrote to Dreyfus on Wednesdayrequesting formal advice on whether the pro-Palestinian call for …