Share and Follow
Key Points
- NSW authorities are investigating a social media video of two nurses claiming they would kill Israeli patients.
- The two nurses have been stood down from the Western Sydney hospital where they work.
- Peter Dutton has said the case highlights the government’s powerlessness to strip people of their citizenship.
A video of shows the need for a “national conversation” on migration and citizenship, Opposition leader Peter Dutton says.
Police are examining whether to lay charges against the NSW nurses, one of whom has been identified as an Afghan refugee who recently acquired Australian citizenship.
The nurses will also be barred from working anywhere in Australia. Australia’s health practitioner watchdog on Thursday updated its public record to show Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh were forbidden from working as nurses “in any context”.
The pair earlier had their registrations suspended by the NSW Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Dutton accused of ‘hijacking’ antisemitism debate
Dutton said the case highlighted the need for debate on the “inadequacies” of Australia’s migration system, noting the government was heavily restricted in its ability to strip people of their citizenship.
“When we have somebody like this who gets through the net, obviously has breached his obligation about a loyalty to our country when he became an Australian citizen, and yet he has the ability to stay in our country, it should be of deep concern to every Australian,” Mr Dutton told 2GB radio on Thursday.
“(It’s) about how we can say to these people, ‘if you don’t share our values, if you’re here and you’re enjoying the welfare system and you’re enjoying free health and free education, then at the same time you hate our country, well, I don’t think you’ve got a place here’.”
Labor cabinet minister Anne Aly accused Dutton of “hijacking” a conversation about antisemitic hatred.
“I’m a bit angry that this conversation about anti-Semitism has been conveniently turned into a conversation about immigration. As if somehow, the two are connected,” Aly told ABC TV.
“I think that’s a very deliberate political ploy by Peter Dutton.”
There was a need to look at whether dual citizens should be stripped of their Australian citizenship if they “breached” the nation’s trust, Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan said.
As home affairs minister in the former coalition government, Dutton drafted laws seeking to strip the citizenship of dual nationals suspected of engaging in terror activity overseas.
They were later ruled by the High Court to be unlawful.
‘My client sends a very sincere apology’
Earlier on Thursday, one of the two public hospital nurses apologised through his lawyer.
The comments, which emerged in a video on social media, have been condemned by political, medical and community leaders and sparked urgent audits of patient care at the nurses’ workplace in Sydney’s south-west.
NSW Police have seized CCTV footage from Bankstown Hospital as part of their investigation. Police will also examine an unedited version of the video as they determine whether to lay charges over what is being treated as a possible hate crime.
In the video shared by Israeli influencer Max Veifer, one nurse appears to boast about sending Israeli patients to hell if they had to treat them while the other says “I won’t treat them, I’ll kill them.”
Both are wearing hospital uniforms.
The male nurse, later identified as Australian citizen and Afghan refugee Ahmad Rashad Nadir had six years of nursing experience.
He falsely claimed he was a doctor and told the Israeli man he was “going to go to” hell.
“You have no idea how many Israeli (sic) … came to this hospital and … I send them to (hell),” the nurse said.
The female nurse also said she would refuse treatment to and instead kill Israeli patients who attended the hospital.
Solicitor Mohamad Sakr, representing the male nurse, said in footage aired by Nine News that his client is trying to “make amends for what has happened”.
“My client sends a very sincere apology to not only that individual but to the Jewish community as a whole,” he added.
Police continue investigation as politicians condemn video
“This is a sad day for our country, it is unthinkable that we are confronted with, and forced to, investigate such an appalling incident,” NSW Police commissioner Karen Webb said.
“The speed in which this incident was reported by NSW Health significantly assisted detectives in what is a very serious investigation.”
Detectives have examined CCTV footage, interviewed staff and pinpointed areas within the hospital where they believe the video was allegedly filmed as part of the ongoing Strike Force Pearl investigation.
Investigators have spoken to Veifer and were awaiting a statement from him and raw footage of his conversation with the Bankstown Hospital staff, Webb said.
“It’s important that we put all these pieces together for a complete picture of what has occurred,” Webb told ABC radio on Thursday, adding it will inform the direction of the investigation and determine what charges could be laid.
An initial examination by NSW Health found no sign any Israeli patients had been affected.
The video was widely condemned by political leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said the footage was “sickening” and shameful.
Health Minister Mark Butler said in a statement that the nurses’ “sickening comments — and the hatred that underpins them — have no place in our health system and no place anywhere in Australia”.
The unfolding scandal has broken trust in the public health system, NSW Premier Chris Minns conceded.
“We cannot have examples of naked racism from public servants exhibited on social media or anywhere,” he said.
NSW will later this year hold a parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism with a wide remit from security arrangements at synagogues to Holocaust education for students.
Liberal MP Chris Rath, who put forward the motion for the inquiry and is part of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel group, vowed to fight for the Jewish community.
“We will not accept antisemitic language and graffiti, doxxing, boycotts, death threats and violence as an acceptable means of public discourse,” he said.
“This inquiry is an opportunity to address past failings and correct course, taking proactive leadership to ensure antisemitism is stopped in its tracks.”
