Josh Burns recalls the stink of smoke, paint and kerosene in his office. Shattered glass all over the floor. Pockmarks in the windows from a hammer. Red horns, an antisemitic trope, scrawled on a photo of his head. “I remember walking through, and thinking – how did it get to this?” he says.

Burns is a Jewish federal Labor MP. His grandmother fled Germany in 1938, the year of the Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) when Nazis smashed the windows of Jewish-owned stores and synagogues. In 2024 in Melbourne, he picked through the glass shards in his own office.

He was struck by the pointlessness. “If you’re going after a Jewish MP’s office in Australia thinking it’s somehow going to influence the Israeli government, you’re on another planet,” he says. “If punching a hole in my office window was going to bring about peace in the Middle East, I would have done it myself.”

In Sydney, another Jewish MP was horrified by the news. Julian Leeser, the Liberal member for Berowra, has also spoken up against the vilification of his community. He has worked closely with Burns on the issue, earning the respect of both sides for co-operation across the political divide.

Leeser sent cakes to Burns’ staff, as well as his support. “There’s a relationship of real mutual respect between us,” he says. “He’s got such a lovely sense of humour; we get along very well. [We] acknowledge that we happen to be from our different political tribes, but we have things in common.”

For their principled approach, Leeser and Burns are the joint recipients of this year’s prestigious McKinnon Prize for federal political leadership. “[They] showed courage and integrity in addressing antisemitism on the national stage,” says the citation, which praises their moderate and respectful approach.

“Both MPs are considered to be rising political stars, who embody dignity, maturity and respect in their conduct.” They have advocated for a national approach to social cohesion, including the appointment of a special envoy, and for taskforces to address antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Leeser was also commended for his principled stance on another issue. In early 2023, he resigned as shadow attorney-general and opposition spokesman for Indigenous Australians so he could campaign for a yes vote in the Voice referendum after his Liberal colleagues decided not to support constitutional change.

It’s not easy being at odds with the prevailing view of your party, says Leeser. “You really wrestle with some of these issues, but you have to stand up for the things you think are right, because it’s your name on the door, your name on the seat, and you have to be able to look back and reflect on those,” he says.

“We’re not independents; you’re part of a party system, and being part of a party is you work within the confines of the party and its structure. But there are things that you need to have lines in the sand for, whether it’s the Voice, or dealing with antisemitism. There are a lot of compromises in politics, and you’ve got to say, where are the lines in the sand?”

When he has a difficult decision to make, he looks at a photograph of his children and asks himself: “Am I making it freer for them? And am I creating more opportunities for them and their generation?”

Burns’ position on antisemitism also put him at odds with some in his own party. He tries to avoid public disagreement, but “in any organisation, when you’ve got such strong and diverse and difficult issues, it’s only natural that there will be disagreements”, he says. “How you disagree, and how you make your position is also really important.

“I don’t seek to be anything other than to be a respectful colleague. People know I will stand by my convictions, and do so in a way that doesn’t diminish other people.”

Burns’ and Leeser’s friendship is not as unusual in parliament as it might appear to those whose impressions are formed by the rough and tumble of question time. “Most often you have to get along with people on the other side,” he says. “It does bolster the ability to try to get things done.”

Still, Burns and Leeser are closer than most. “We disagree on many topics,” says Burns, “and we’ve had long and detailed conversations about points over which we fundamentally disagree, and I can leave that conversation liking Julian a little bit more.”

Burns believes the wider political discourse could do with a bit more of that.

“What does it achieve, to put people down, to scream at one another, to think that you understand where they’re coming from and what they believe? At what point does that bring us closer to peace on the other side of the world?”

This article is part of a content partnership between the Herald, The Age and McKinnon, an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit that focuses on the importance of democracy and good government.