By Lawrence Meyers
Australian taxpayers are underwriting a news organization whose journalist used his personal social media platform to propagate the ugliest strains of twentieth-century antisemitism, and kept his job despite violating the organization’s social media policy.
The Australian Associated Press (AAP), recipient of a $12 million Commonwealth grant to support “fact-based” journalism, merely “reprimanded” markets reporter Derek Rose after he published multiple Facebook posts denying or minimizing the atrocities of October 7, accusing Israel of “genocide,” and likening the Jewish state to Nazi Germany. This followed an “internal investigation” resulting from this reporter’s filing of a formal complaint in June with the AAP regarding Rose’s antisemitic rhetoric.
Despite concluding that Rose had indeed violated its Rules of Practice, the AAP’s only response was a quiet “reprimand.” Meanwhile, Rose propagates Jew-hatred under the name “Derek Martin,” and remains employed by AAP, continuing to benefit from the grant intended to sustain this “independent, fact-based, public-interest newswire and fact-checking service.”
AAP did not bother to “fact-check” Derek Rose’s blood libel. His posts are arguably criminal offenses under both New South Wales and Commonwealth law.
Derek Rose’s Facebook Posts
Rose’s language is explicit, cruel, and historically illiterate. It recycles the same tropes that have long accompanied antisemitic violence: Holocaust inversion, collective guilt, the grotesque suggestion that Jews — the targets of extermination — are now the perpetrators of it.
Some of the milder quotations, stretching back over the past year and preserved via screenshots, include:
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“The Zionists have become the thing they claim to hate.”
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“They’re doing to Gaza what the Nazis did to the Warsaw Ghetto.”
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“Israel lies. Hamas didn’t do what they claim on October 7.”
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“Israel has no right to exist.”
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“The IDF makes up atrocities to justify killing Palestinians.”
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“The media is controlled by Zionists, so of course they push their propaganda.”
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“There’s no real evidence Hamas committed atrocities.”
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“Israel staged October 7.”
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“The Holocaust doesn’t give you a free pass to commit crimes.”
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“You don’t get to be Nazis just because Nazis hurt you.”
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“Zionists don’t want peace. They want to kill Arabs.”
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“Zionism is evil.”
AAP issued a toothless “reprimand” and buried my complaint. AAP’s Editor-in-Chief, Andrew Drummond, told me, “AAP considers the matter addressed and closed.”
Following Drummond’s failure to properly address Rose’s actions, I escalated the matter by filing a formal complaint with the Australian Press Council. There has been no reply.
Grant Requirements
Drummond’s reply might suffice as an internal HR matter were AAP a private company. However, documents obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts (DITRDCA) show that AAP’s Core Services Continuity Grant was established to keep its newswire alive after the agency’s near-collapse in 2020. The 2024-25 allocation of roughly $12 million (of $33 million over three years) was justified as an investment in “media diversity” and “fact-checking services” for rural and regional Australia.
The grant’s contractual requirements are unambiguous:
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AAP must maintain “an independent, fact-based wholesale newswire.”
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It must “uphold public-interest journalism” and comply with all Commonwealth and State laws.
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DITRDCA reserves the right to recover grant funds if AAP breaches these obligations.
When a taxpayer-subsidized journalist uses online platforms to publish material that vilifies Jews and spreads disinformation, there is a potential breach of grant conditions.
DITRDCA dismissed my complaint, saying it was “aware of the complaint and understands that the Australian Associated Press Pty Ltd has taken disciplinary action in relation to the relevant individual. The Department will continue to administer and undertake its usual governance practices in relation to the Grant Agreement.”
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Legal Standards
Australia’s laws against racial vilification are clear and well-established.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 makes it unlawful to perform any public act “reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate” another person or group on the basis of race or ethnicity.
The NSW Anti-Discrimination Act goes further, criminalizing public incitement of hatred or serious contempt on racial grounds.
And the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), amended in 2018, creates a specific offense for “public threats or incitement of violence” motivated by race or religion.
These statutes don’t censor legitimate debate about Israel or government policy. They do, however, draw a line at Holocaust inversion, denial of documented atrocities, and collective vilification of Jews.
A criminal complaint was filed regarding Derek Rose. I spoke with a constable at the NSW Police, sent the requested materials, yet my follow-up emails have been ignored.
A Bureaucracy of Silence
This silence fits a familiar pattern. Regulatory bodies treat antisemitism as a reputational inconvenience. They issue codes of ethics that sound robust but enforce them selectively. Conduct a review, tick the box, and hope the controversy fades before the next grant cycle.
In this case, AAP’s own Code of Practice mirrors the grant’s language about factual integrity and independence. A code is meaningless without consequences. When an organization admits misconduct yet imposes no material penalty, it signals that antisemitism is negotiable.
The Problem of Government-Funded Journalism
The AAP case illustrates that when taxpayers underwrite an outlet, the government assumes partial responsibility for that outlet’s standards.
That creates two imperatives:
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Editorial independence, to prevent political interference; and
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Legal and ethical compliance, to prevent public funds from enabling unlawful or discriminatory behavior.
AAP’s grant was meant to safeguard both. Yet independence does not excuse inaction, and compliance cannot coexist with antisemitic rhetoric.
When the Commonwealth provides multimillion-dollar support to an organization whose employee circulates falsehoods about Jews and Israel, it raises questions:
AAP’s credibility, and by extension the credibility of the government that funds it, rests on the perception that its reporters operate within the boundaries of truth and law, both as employees and private citizens. Derek Rose is no exception.
If a publicly-subsidized journalist can breach those boundaries without consequence, then the grant’s language about “fact-based, public-interest journalism” becomes little more than bureaucratic poetry.
Australia’s taxpayers deserve better. So do the world’s Jews.
Lawrence Meyers is a reporter and policy analyst.
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