'What is there to fear if we speak the truth?'

On Friday, around 350 federal, state and territory public servants released an open letter addressed to Anthony Albanese and members of his government in which they demanded that Australia “take swift and decisive action to end its support of the genocide, ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation of Palestine by immediately ceasing all military exports to Israel.”

Since then, the open letter has been signed by nearly 2500 public servants from all levels of government. Unusually, each signatory took the additional step of signing their name. In some cases, signatories included information about which government department employs them.

As laid out in the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct and its state and territory equivalents, public servants are typically prohibited from expressing political viewpoints in their work capacity to prevent the perception of bias in the public service.

However, numerous public servants are speaking out in defiance of that prohibition.

Hash Abdo has been a public servant in the NSW Department of Housing for 20 years. His father and grandparents were expelled from Jaffa in 1948, and his family eventually settled in Australia. He has four kids.

“I’m not who I was a year ago,” he says. “I’ve been reconnecting with family in Palestine, and seeing what they’ve been through has made it a very difficult year.”

The thought of being disciplined, even of losing his job, does not concern him.

“You’re talking to a public servant of two decades,” he says. “I live and breathe the public service. I know my department inside out. I have seen governments come and go, bureaucrats come and go, and I have always put the people of NSW first.”

“If there’s a thought that speaking out about the genocide of my family means I’ll lose my job, that’s not something that makes me angry. It makes me sad. Because if that’s true, then what’s left of humanity?”

Janice Yeung, a public servant who works in the justice sector, echoes that sentiment.

“Regardless of whether I’m worried about professional consequences, nothing can compare to what’s happening in Gaza right now and the need for everyone to take a stand, including our government,” she says.

Janet Parker is a public servants and a member of Western Australia’s CPSU/Civil Service Association. She is a founding member of Jews for Palestine WA and of Friends of Palestine WA, and a member of Unionists for Palestine.

“As public servants we’re under a lot of pressure to not be involved in politics. We’re not allowed a political voice. We have codes of conduct that restrict our ability to make comment as public servants on any political issues,” she says. “But the gravity of the situation in Palestine, and the deaths of some 36,000 people, probably more, make it absolutely essential that we do everything in our power to hold our government to account.”

“As public servants, we’re in a unique situation. We work for the government. Federal public servants are part of a governmental structure that is, on some levels, facilitating the Australian government’s actions. As a result we have a unique responsibility to speak out. We don’t want to do the work that is facilitating the murder of tens of thousands of people.”

‘I spent most of the day crying’

A common theme raised by public servants who signed the letter is the difficulty in going to work as if things are normal while a genocide takes place.

“One thing that always sticks with me is remembering the last time I was in Gaza with cousins,” Hash says. “They’ve got nothing, right? It’s an open-air prison. But they’ll feed you whatever they’ve got. You sit next to them and they hand-feed you. You go to their houses and they stuff you. Their hospitality is beyond belief.

“Remembering that, and seeing what’s happened in Khan Younis, which has been obliterated, a lot of things have changed for me, and for a lot of people I think, particularly the ones who have roots there and are trying to help their families. Hearing the stories, seeing the messages … There’s a lot of guilt. So that’s something that I’m working through at the moment.”

Omaim Al-Baghdadi, who has worked as a public servant since 2017, says “it’s very difficult to go to work every day.”

We’ve been watching the most horrific images and footage that comes out of Gaza on our phones, most recently the massacre in Rafah,” she says. “That day I had to go to the office and do my small-talk, and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bear it. I spent most of the day crying.“

“It’s really difficult to be in an environment where we’re expected to just do our jobs and go home, and ignore the fact that we’re watching genocide livestreamed on our phones. It’s nothing that we’ve ever seen before.”

“The NSW Public Sector is a safe workplace, and we strive for all our people to feel supported and respected,” the NSW Public Service Commission (PSC) said in response to questions. “Employees can access free counselling services through the Employee Assistance program. Employees can also reach out to their manager or people and culture team for support.”

‘It is not in line with our values to undertake public advocacy’

At 7.15pm on Friday night, NSW Public Service Commissioner Kathrina Lo and Secretary of the NSW Premier's Department Simon Draper sent an email to NSW public servants warning against the type of advocacy expressed in the open letter.

"Our core public sector values require us to be impartial and apolitical,” the email said. “It is not in line with our values to undertake public advocacy on matters using our position as public servants or using the authority of our agencies."

The email has raised fears among NSW public servants that they will face professional consequences for signing the open letter, although the PSC said in response to questions that it “has not requested that disciplinary action be taken” against signatories.

However, public servants say they have experienced a culture of being silenced and unofficially censured for expressions of support for Palestinians at work.

“I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to put up posters in the lunchroom advertising Palestine protests. I’ve been told it’s too political and too divisive,” Janet says. “I don’t think people in my office realised that I’m Jewish, so when I was told I might offend people, I said, ‘Look, as far as I know, I’m the only Jewish person in this office, so if you’re worried about this being perceived as some kind of antisemitic slight, then think again’.

“I’ve heard of people facing the imposition of silence, or the veiled threat of [being charged with] breaches of the Code of Conduct, across the sector,” Janice says. “The fact that public servants are signing their names to open letters shows that, regardless of that threat, they feel a need to say something.”

“I’ve been in union spaces, especially for Palestine, for a while now, and there have been various reports from people facing disciplinary action or being threatened with the Code of Conduct,” Omaim says.

‘This is union business’

Public servants have also expressed concern that their unions have not taken stronger stances against the genocide, especially when it comes to pressuring the Australian government. Only one union, the Maritime Union of Australia, has lent its support to the open letter, which was primarily organised by grassroots groups of rank-and-file union members like CPSU For Palestine and PSA Unionists For Palestine without the blessing of their union leadership.

“We’ve tried to speak with [PSA leadership] multiple times, but unfortunately we haven’t been able to engage them,” says Omaim, who is a PSA delegate. “We passed a motion in December but that’s been the extent of their involvement.”

“I can’t say 100% because I don’t know what they think personally, but it seems like executive leadership don’t want to ruffle Labor’s feathers. They’ve told us we should ‘focus on work-related issues’.”

Janice, who is also a member of the Public Service Association, agrees.

“I think the union can do and say more to support the need for the end of the genocide. The lack of support from the union has really pushed rank-and-file union members to take a stand. This is union business.”

In response to questions, the PSA said “our federal counterpart, the Community and Public Sector Union, is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. We support the statements the ACTU has issued on Palestine, which have evolved as events change in the region.

“As a union, we support any member with a genuine workplace grievance over political actions and protests. To this end, notwithstanding claims to the contrary, we are not aware of any member subject to disciplinary processes in regard to this issue.”

In WA, Janet says she also encountered pushback from her union, the CPSU/CSA.

“The thing the union seemed most anxious about was our taking flags and banners to public protests,” she says. “On one level, I think they want to be seen to be representing all of their membership’s views, and within that membership there’s significant diversity of opinion around Palestine and the war. I think they’re now very nervous and reluctant to take a public stance on this.”

“They’ve endorsed the latest ACTU statement on Gaza, which was released in April and is the strongest yet, but we need to see our union leadership at the protests to proudly promote the fact that public sector workers will not be serving a government that is waging a genocidal war against an entire people — a people who have been subject to war and siege for nearly eight decades.”

(The CPSU/CSA did not respond to questions.)

“The next step is to keep pushing for people in power — either through organising, through your union, through your workplace, to your family, your friends — to continue to say something. That it has to end,” Janice says.”

“I’ve gotten a bit sick of people saying, like, ‘oh, how brave’. I don’t think it is. I don’t think it should be considered brave,” Omaim says. “It’s the moral thing to do, to take a stance against genocide. It’s the bare minimum.”

“It’s so bizarre, this sensitivity around upsetting particular individuals when people are being burned to death and decapitated and bombed,” Janet says. “We’ve got to set some of those sensitivities aside, frankly, just as we have to set aside any fear we have as public servants of being vilified or penalised. We have to take a stand on this. History will rightly judge those who don’t.”

“Our country’s hands are not clean. Whether it’s Pine Gap, whether it’s the arms companies, we have a lot of work to do to make things better,” Hash says. “I’m hoping that certain politicians cease the celebration of my family’s mass slaughter, of the Nakba in 1948, when my father, who was only a baby, was thrown out of his home in Jaffa. I’m hoping the so-called leaders of our governments stop celebrating this continued dispossession of land and genocide that’s taken place for well over 80 years.”

“I’m not in fear of losing my job because I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m doing what’s right. Whether the letter does something or not, what is there to fear if we speak the truth? So we keep on speaking the truth. That’s what we do.”

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