Greens’ election claims against doctor dismissed
JEWISH physician John Nemesh left Newtown Court without a conviction last Thursday, after charges that he put up electoral signs without the printer’s name and address on them were dismissed.
JEWISH physician John Nemesh left Newtown Court without a conviction last Thursday, after charges that he put up electoral signs without the printer’s name and address on them were dismissed.
Nemesh was charged in late September after a complaint from Greens Marrickville councillor and former Bob Brown staffer Max Phillips, who now works for NSW Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham.
Prior to the NSW state election in March, Nemesh was involved in distributing signage within the Marrickville electorate criticising the NSW Greens’ support for the anti-Israel global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)campaign.
He admitted that omitting the printer’s details from the signs was an honest mistake.
In court, barrister Stephen Russell said the NSW Electoral Commission had never prosecuted the menial offence, nor had it lodged the complaint on this occasion.
He also pointed out that federal Greens deputy leader Christine Milne had made a similar error in July this year when she omitted the name and address of the printer on her Milne Mail publication.
In dismissing the charge, Magistrate Margaret Quinn said the offence was low in the criminality stakes and that she had found the Marrickville Council BDS affair, in which the council attempted to adopt BDS as policy, “fairly disgraceful at the time”.
Outside the court, Nemesh said the charges had been dismissed due to their “utter ridiculousness”.
“What was not ridiculous was the manner in which the Greens conducted themselves – with hypocrisy, bullying and even racial profiling,” he said, the latter a reference to Phillips’s police statement, in which Phillips said it “occurred to him” that three well-dressed 20-somethings putting up the signs “might be Jewish”.
“He [Phillips] can consider himself extremely lucky not to have been hauled into the witness box to give evidence under intense interrogation regarding his racial profiling of Jews,” Nemesh said.
Nemesh has lodged a complaint of his own with police against former Marrickville mayor and state candidate Fiona Byrne and one of her staffers for allegedly stealing the signage. Following court on Thursday, Nemesh added Phillips and his colleague Colin Charlton to the complaint.
In State Parliament on Thursday, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, Luke Foley, showed solidarity with Nemesh and attacked the Greens.
“A virulent strain of anti-Semitism exists within some sections of the New South Wales Greens,” he said.
“I call the leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, to intervene in his party’s New South Wales branch to purge this frantic extremism.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
John Nemesh outside Newtown Police Station
comments