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The 'student leaders' taking sponsored trips to Israel
"The trip was a massive eye-opener"
Alex McKinnon
August 28, 2024
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Federal and state lawmakers, editors, journalists and senior trade union officials have long accepted free trips to Israel that are organised and funded by Israeli advocacy groups like the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
Besides coverage in university student newspapers and domestic Jewish community news outlets like J-Wire, the longstanding practice of “student leaders” — people who are active in student politics at Australian universities — taking similar fully- or partly-sponsored trips to Israel receives relatively little scrutiny.
Most of the students who take these trips are in their late teens or early twenties, and are not public figures. But many go on to positions of influence in politicians’ offices, the public service, trade unions, prestigious law firms, and defence companies. “I have been a friend of Israel since my first trip to this country as a student leader 30 years ago,” former treasurer Peter Costello told an AIJAC dinner in 2009.
Since its founding in 1987, the National Union of Students (NUS) — Australia’s peak representative body for tertiary education students — has been a stepping stone in the careers of dozens, if not hundreds, of future politicians, political advisors, and party officials, usually (though not always) from the Labor Party.
Becoming an NUS office holder has also proven to be an excellent way to score a free or heavily subsidised trip to Israel. AIJAC’s annual Rambam Fellowship program is best known for sponsoring politicians and journalists, but also organises paid trips for “political advisors, senior public servants and student leaders” — particularly those who hold senior positions in NUS.
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) also regularly organises paid trips for politically active students through its annual Israel Mission program, which aims “to educate and challenge young leaders about the complexities of the Israeli/Arab conflict” in the hope that “when they return to their respective political groups, they will gain a greater sensitivity and understanding of the conflict’s different perspectives.”
No comprehensive public list exists of students who have travelled to Israel on trips sponsored by groups like AIJAC and AUJS. I’ve asked both organisations to provide one, but have not heard back. (The International Programs page on AUJS’ website, which contained information about the Israel Mission, has since been taken down. An archived version is here.)
What follows is not a comprehensive list of all NUS office bearers who have taken such trips. Nor does it include students who have accepted such trips while holding office in other organisations, like university student councils. However, it is a good indicator of how prevalent the practice is. Information is taken from publicly available media articles, Linkedin profiles and parliamentary speeches. Where possible, I have emailed and messaged people asking for comment and clarification.
Dr Elly Howse was president of the University of Sydney’s Student Representatives Council (SRC) in 2009, and took part in AIJAC’s Rambam Fellowship that year. Howse then worked as an electorate officer for Tanya Plibersek and a policy advisor for then-assistant family and communities minister Jenny McAllister, and unsuccessfully ran as Labor’s candidate in the NSW seat of Balmain in 2019. She now works as the director of policy for NSW Aboriginal affairs and Treaty minister David Harris.
Xavier Williams travelled to Israel in 2010, the same year he served as NUS general secretary. Williams went on to work as an advisor and speechwriter for then-Victorian opposition leader Dan Andrews, and is now director of policy for Victorian premier Jacinta Allan. Williams also went back to Israel in 2013 with a delegation of Victorian Labor MPs, led by then-deputy premier James Merlino, on a trip sponsored by the Australia-Israel Labor Dialogue. (I could not reach Williams for comment.)
Jesse Marshall, NUS president in 2011, accepted an AIJAC trip in 2010. “It’s selling people short to think that just because a trip was funded by the Jewish community that it’s blindly pro-Israel,” he told Honi Soit at the time.
An excerpt from a 2013 Honi Soit article.
After finishing his presidency, Marshall worked as a research officer for Victorian Labor MP Lily D’Ambrosio and a policy advisor for then-shadow financial services minister Clare O’Neil. He now works as a senior ombudsman for the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
In 2012, New Matilda reported that then-NUS national executive member Gemma Whiting travelled to Israel in July of that year. Whiting worked as an advisor for former Liberal politicians Don Randall and Abbott-era defence minister David Johnston, as well as completing a three-month internship with the delightfully named US senator for Idaho Mike Crapo as part of the Uni-Capitol Washington Internship Program.
Whiting then became director of government relations at global weapons manufacturer Honeywell International, and is now director of Honeywell’s operations relating to AUKUS. Honeywell’s manufacture of IDF missile parts used in deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians, and its production of nuclear weapons, have seen it excluded from a growing number of Australian superannuation funds and international sovereign wealth funds.
Jon Barlow travelled to Israel as NUS general secretary in 2012, on the same trip as Whiting. He went on to work as an organiser for the SDA and as an associate with Maurice Blackburn. He is now an associate with litigation firm Phi Finney McDonald.
University of Technology Sydney Students’ Association president Jade Tyrrell reportedly travelled to Israel on the same trip as Whiting and Barlow, later being elected president of NUS for 2013. In 2018 Tyrrell was vice president of the NSW Society of Labor Lawyers, a legal advocacy group with strong ties to the state ALP. She is now a senior associate at Johnson Winter Slattery and a councillor of the Law Society of NSW, as well as a board member of the Justice and Equity Centre.
In 2013, delegates at NUS’ education conference of that year voted to condemn then-NUS general secretary Todd Pinkerton and then-NUS women’s officer Mikaela Wangmann for travelling to Israel on a trip sponsored by AIJAC.
An excerpt from a 2013 Honi Soit article.
Pinkerton went on to work for the Transport Workers Union as a campaigns officer, as an organiser for NSW Labor, and in the offices of then-NSW opposition leader Luke Foley and NSW treasurer Daniel Mookhey. He is now director of campaigns and strategy for Unions NSW. Wangmann has worked in the electorate offices of Labor MPs Kate Ellis and Michael Brown, and now works as an advisor for Senator Don Farrell.
In July 2014, nearly 600 people signed a petition urging three NUS office bearers not to participate in the Rambam program — general secretary Isabelle Kingshott, national welfare officer Jack Boyd and national ethno-cultural officer Daniel Nikoloski. The petition coincided with the 2014 Gaza War, in which Israel killed 2,251 Palestinians and injured 11,231. A month later, the University of Sydney SRC condemned the trio for taking part in the Rambam program, stating that “to visit apartheid Israel in this context and via this program is to be complicit in its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people”.
Before her tenure at NUS Kingshott worked as an electorate officer for Labor MP David Feeney. She since went on to work as an advisor to Victorian MP Jane Garrett and is now a legal policy officer at Family Safety Victoria. Nikoloski worked on federal social services minister Amanda Rishworth’s election campaign in 2013 and is now a senior public servant in South Australia’s department for infrastructure and transport.
Boyd became the national president of Australian Young Labor in 2017 and has been a councillor on Sutherland Shire Council since 2016. Of the people I contacted for comment, he was the only one who replied, asking for time to prepare a response. I’ll update this piece if and when I receive one.
(Continued below.)
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Former Victorian Labor assistant state secretary, Dan Andrews advisor and SDA union representative Cameron Petrie travelled to Israel on a Rambam study mission when he was NUS general secretary in 2016.
“It was incredible to see such a multicultural society,” he told an AIJAC luncheon shortly after the trip. “Being on the border with Syria and then Sderot made me think, wow, this country is tiny, we live in a very big country and what I’ve seen here is something I’ve never experienced.”
Former Flinders University Student Association president Jordon O’Reilly took part in AIJAC’s Student Leaders Mission in July 2018, when he was NUS’ national welfare officer and a member of Young Labor’s South Australian branch. That December, he told an AIJAC luncheon in Sydney that the trip had challenged his preconceptions, including through meeting members of Likud, which he had previously considered “ultra right-wing”. In a speech to Parliament in September 2022, Amanda Rishworth named O’Reilly as one of her electorate officers.
Speaking to an AIJAC luncheon in Melbourne in August 2018, then-NUS general secretary and La Trobe University Student Union 2017 president Jake Cripps called his trip to Israel “a massive eye-opener”. Cripps went on to work for then-Victorian Labor MP Adem Somyurek, later resigning from Labor after being caught on camera assisting the illegal branch stacking operation that saw Somyurek expelled from the party in 2020. (I could not reach Cripps for comment.)
Responding to questions, current NUS president Ngaire Bogemann said that NUS “isn’t aware of anyone in current leadership roles who has participated in such trips”.
However, the practice is very much alive and well. At NUS’ most recent national conference in December 2023, an unsuccessful motion of censure was moved against Sheldon Gait, Bogemann’s immediate predecessor, and First Nations officer Patrick Taylor for taking part in a sponsored trip to Israel in July of that year. Gait now works as a speechwriter and policy advisor to Labor MP Cassandra Fernando.
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