Dear colleagues and friends,

We are very seriously holding the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) to account for platforming complicit power amid Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Thank you for adding your name.

Four hundred Australian academics, journalists, politicians, economists, and First Nations leaders have now signed our Open Letter to APSA, calling for the immediate withdrawal of Bill Shorten's keynote address at the 2025 conference.

The signatories' list reveals a powerful national coalition of experts across various disciplines, including political science, political theory, political economy, feminist economics, labour policy, sociology, criminology, psychology, economics, urban planning, Australian politics, moral philosophy, and ethics.

Signatories include scholars from nineteen universities across Australia, among them the University of Melbourne, Monash University, RMIT, La Trobe University, Deakin University, the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, the University of Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University, and the Australian National University, alongside independent researchers, writers, journalists, artists, economists, policy experts, and community leaders.

Nineteen universities, cross-disciplinary expertise, and hundreds of respected signatories stand together to ask APSA one urgent question:

While ordinary Australians face worsening wealth inequality, housing scarcity, and a mental health crisis, and as Palestinians endure incomprehensible grief and loss, how can an association claiming to represent Australian political science justify platforming a prominent supporter of Israel earning $850,000 a year?

Here's what we say:

No association claiming to represent Australian politics, economics, or our collective public life should offer its keynote and favourably promote a prominent supporter of Israel earning $850,000 a year while students, single parents, older Australians, people with disabilities, and the working poor struggle.

This political moment is far from normal or acceptable.

The APSA conference is only weeks away. Bill Shorten's keynote is scheduled for Wednesday, 26 November 2025, during the morning plenary session at the University of Melbourne, Parkville campus.

Please take five minutes today to:

1. Share the Open Letter: Link to Open Letter
2. Invite colleagues in your university, discipline, and networks to sign.
3. Post or forward the link on your social media or LinkedIn with a short note about why you signed.

If every one of us brings just two new signatories this week, we'll reach 1,000 by Friday—a thousand voices for accountability, integrity, and justice in political science.

Using the influence and privilege each of us has to speak up against genocide is a moral obligation. As Dua Lipa, UK artist, recently said:  "I'm willing to take backlash over support for Palestinians. I don't care if I'm harassed, blacklisted, or denied work opportunities. Palestine is bigger than me." A 30-year-old showing us how it's done.

Sincerely,

The APSA Open Letter team, including 

• Nasser Mashni, President, Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network; son of Palestinian refugees; regular advisor to Australian and international media
• Kara Beavis, feminist economist and gender-based violence scholar and educator, former policy manager and research director with experience in Sydney, London, and Johannesburg
• Antony Loewenstein, award-winning journalist, documentary maker, and author of The Palestine Laboratory, with writing published in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera, and translated into more than a dozen languages.