Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I also acknowledge my friend the member for Fisher's work on mental health. I enjoyed greatly our time working on the defence subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Committee and elsewhere. I wish you a long and illustrious career serving in opposition on parliamentary committees!

Here we are. We've survived the world's worst job interview; it's my fourth in a row! I give very grateful thanks to the people of Bruce. The defining characteristic of the Bruce electorate is its human diversity—people of every background, from literally everywhere, speaking hundreds of different languages every day, getting on with daily life together. Stretching from the rural shire of Cardinia through established greenfield areas of the city of Casey and the hyper-multicultural Greater Dandenong, and to touch the city of Monash, Bruce has the largest number of voters of any seat in Victoria and tens of thousands of future citizens as well.

Whilst campaigns are always tough, this one was especially brutal. The Liberals and News Ltd were convinced they'd win Bruce. But it turns out the magnificent people of Bruce felt differently. We achieved the largest to swing to any incumbent MP in the country—9.31 per cent, thanks to the team. It was an incredible team effort due to hundreds of volunteers who lived their values. But this election wasn't just difficult; it was the most disgraceful and dirty campaign locals have ever seen. You might ask, why so? This time it wasn't the far-right Fraser Anning neo-Nazis, which we endured in 2019, or the Palmer cookers of 2022, and not even the One Nation folks, who actually turned up this time—last time they had a candidate from Queensland, no-one even turned up, but to everybody's surprise, they were very decently behaved. No, in 2025, the truly vile and disgusting behaviour, day in day out on the ground, emanated, radiated like a nuclear cloud from the Liberal Party—the supposed alternative government over there, or what's left of them, fuelled by their choice of the dodgiest major party candidates ever seen, Mr Zahid Atal Safi and the collection of largely intimidatory, discriminatory goons he surrounded himself with. Mr Safi and his party advertised him as 'a successful small businessman' who had 'a deep commitment to his community'. A deep commitment to lying, dodging and weaving would be more accurate, as it became clear as the campaign unfolded.

What my community endured during this campaign deserves to be recorded here. What happened in Bruce is bad for Australia's democracy, and it shines light on the ongoing failure of the Liberal Party, including its new leadership cabal, to face up to it, apologise, or reform itself. I quite liked and respected my three previous Liberal opponents—I did; I never heard from them again, but I did like them. But from the moment Mr Safi was mysteriously chosen to be the Liberal candidate, locals started calling, whispering and writing to me, raising serious concerns about his personal integrity and business dealings. Over months, a number of local Liberal branch members—the small number of decent people they still retain—quietly shared their unease that someone so manifestly unsuitable to sit in our national parliament had been preselected by a party of government. As things progressed, they shared their deep dismay at the sort of campaign they were embroiled in.

Nobody has ever properly explained why he was chosen. Some have concluded it was basic idiotic racism, a simplistic offensive view that if Mr Safi was the choice then all Muslim voters, and especially all Afghan voters, would automatically vote for him, as if they were Daleks with one brain cell that would vote along ethnic or religious lines, not Australian citizens with their own hopes or dreams and diverse thoughts and views. Others quietly explained to me that Mr Safi had access to significant mysterious funds which helped to fund his own campaign as well as his patron and mentors. Whatever their reasons, as a result, my community endured a toxic, nasty, negative campaign replete with misogyny, racism, homophobia, and good old-fashioned intimidation, largely at the hands of Mr Safi's associates. It was consistent, I suppose, with their national campaign, where they literally ran out of groups of Australians to offend and alienate with their culture wars.

The serial and daily disregard for the law and community amenity in Bruce saw the most bizarre signage wars we have ever seen. There was a Liberal Party truck, which we have a video of, that went around every night, rain or shine—it wasn't shining, because it was night—nailing hundreds of signs, literally hundreds, to trees, roundabouts, schools, churches park fences, and everything that didn't move. People called my office en masse—we've never had this before—enraged that Mr Safi's face had been nailed to their own fence in the night without permission. They even tied political signs to the RSL. You can imagine how well that went. Then one night massive banners that were homophobic appeared across south-east Melbourne, on freeways, overpasses and park fences right through Isaacs and La Trobe. They didn't know the boundaries; they were actually trying to capture people going in and out work—in some bizarre personal smear. For the record, I don't have a husband, but at least they chose a nice photo of me.

The broader community was appalled. It was personally unpleasant at the time, I will acknowledge. But my heart went out to all the young people grappling with their own identity who had to see that toxic rubbish in 2025.

We weren't surprised by the banners and their vile WhatsApp groups—yes, we got the screenshots. An insider had tipped off, for months, that this was their central campaign tactic. Geniuses!

I wish I could send whichever of their goons organised the banners a lovely thankyou note. Not only has it showed the broader community what they are really like but also their tactics generated generous donations and a hell of a lot more volunteers. Unfortunately, though, they forgot to authorise their handiwork in breach of various laws and electoral regulations. The police remain on the case, so let's see who gets outed now.

But I'll go back to Mr Safi, the man that the Liberal Party still thinks should've been elected to sit in this House. Turns out Mr Safi, the businessman, actually owns three NDIS providers. One of them, Willow Support Services, was registered to a residential address, yet the people living there said they had no idea about the business. They did, however, receive mail for it from time to time, which they put in the bin—exactly what the Liberal Party should've done much earlier with their candidate. Another business, No. 2 of Mr Safi's NDIS businesses, was recently deregistered for unpaid fees.

But then there's Infinite Community Supports. This seems a bit more promising if you read the glowing online reviews. I'll read some. John lswanto from St Kilda wrote:

The ICS team broke down my plan in a way that was easy to understand and helped me find the best providers to suit my needs.

Another positive review was left by Numen Khan from Richmond, who said:

They helped me set and achieve meaningful goals.

A basic Google search though reveals all is not as it seems. Mr Iswanto's photo actually fronts hundreds of fake reviews globally, including as a student in London and the head of marketing at crown plaza sweets in Sydney. He's even a general project coordinator in Azerbaijan.

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