Peter Lavak, a Sydney criminal barrister with a background as a former Hong Kong Crown Prosecutor, condemns Australia’s handling of October 7’s fallout, accusing PM Albanese and Penny Wong of enabling anti-Semitism while blocking Israeli politicians over security concerns. His family’s WWII-era refugee trauma—including his father’s Gestapo arrest and escape via armed smugglers—fuels his support for Israel’s fight against Hamas and Iran’s morality police brutality. At a May 17 Manly Council meeting, Lavak was silenced mid-speech opposing pro-Hamas protests but later helped defeat the motion, vowing legal action. He warns Western councils risk undermining democracy by meddling in foreign policy, predicting Trump’s AUKUS opposition due to Albanese’s perceived betrayal of Jewish allies. [Automatically generated summary]
You're tuned into the free audio version of this episode, which is solid, but it's just a taste of the full experience.
Over at YaminiReport.com, the full video edition is ready for you and it takes things to the next level.
Why not head there now and join Rebel News Plus?
Because for just $8 a month, you get access to the video version of this show, plus every Rebel program and documentary.
We're not backed by corporate sponsors or government cash.
We're backed by you.
So if you believe in independent journalism, go to yuminireport.com, sign up for Rebel News Plus and be a part of the fight for truth.
Welcome back to the Yominia Report.
Today's guest, exciting because we've introduced him to you only a couple of weeks ago and the response has been phenomenal.
A lot of you calling him a local Aussie hero, Peter Lavak, the barrister from Sydney.
Peter, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Arvi.
It's a pleasure to be here, mate.
Not only a pleasure, it's an honour.
Now, a lot of people, the response that we got, and I'm sure you've got some sort of response as well, is people want to know more about you and why, why you did this.
Why did you rock up, you know, from Sydney to Melbourne and all the work you've done prior to that?
Who are you?
Let's start there.
Who is Peter Lavak?
Right, Arvi, I'm a criminal barrister.
I've prosecuted and defended in over 100 murder trials, not only in Sydney, but also in Hong Kong, where I worked for 18 years.
First eight years, a crown prosecutor, locking up tried gangsters and killers.
Then I switched to private practice and for 10 years I was defending tried gangsters and killers.
Now in the course of my job, mate, I have seen the absolute worst of humanity, but nothing, absolutely nothing prepared me for the horrors of October 7 when Israel was invaded by these Hamas terrorists.
Nothing prepared me for that.
And then not long after that, October the 9th, when all these anti-Semitic thugs were spewing hatred and vitriol on our iconic steps of our iconic opera house, fuck the Jews, gas the Jews, and our police stood around like stuffed dummies, did absolutely nothing.
I was absolutely disgusted with that.
And then our government, our useless, hopeless, gutless Prime Minister and Penny Wong, then threw Israel under the bus, betrayed Israel, betrayed Aussie Jews, and I've been absolutely disgusted by that.
And it's because of our useless, gutless cops, our useless, gutless government that anti-Semitism is now raging out of control in this country.
So I've come on board, mate, because I absolutely hate injustice.
And wherever I see injustice, mate, I will move heaven and earth to try and fix it.
That's why I've come on board.
And I've been helping the Jewish community ever since to try and help them.
Legal advice, free legal advice, free legal services, interviews with the media, press, radio, television.
And I've been doing everything in my power to help the Australian Jewish community.
So what was your relationship before October 7?
So what was your relationship to the Jewish community?
Do you have any sort of connection or was that really the start of it?
Well mate, no, I have always greatly admired Israel and I think Israel, why?
Because I think the Jews are the most amazing people that have walked the earth.
I admire what they've done with their tiny little state there.
I've admired the fact that they're surrounded by enemies on all sides.
I've admired the fact that whenever they're attacked by these enemies and want to wipe them off the mat. map, I've admired how Israel has always fought back and most importantly, always won.
Israel is fantastic.
They've got tenacity, strength, courage and most of all, invincibility.
And that impresses the shit out of me.
So when did this love for Israel start?
Because obviously, what's your background?
Lavak, is that a wog?
Mate, mate, yeah, I'm a wog, absolutely.
I was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, just after the war.
Czech, I'm Czech.
And dad was, during the war, he was arrested by the Gestapo because he was suspected of being involved in the Czech underground, the resistance movement against the Nazis.
He was also suspected of being involved with the wife of a high-ranking German officer.
Dad was a bit of a player back in the day.
And when they finally released him, it left a lot of mental scars.
And then after the Russians came in, the Nazis were defeated.
The Russians came in and in a lot of ways they were worse than the Nazis.
Dad was again hauled in for pretty savage interrogation by the Russian secret police because they perceived intellectuals and professionals to be a threat to the communist regime.
Dad was a lawyer, so he was perceived to be a threat.
So they brought him in for some pretty rough treatment.
And when he was finally released, Dad decided it was time to get the hell out of there.
So we hired people smugglers to get the whole family out.
Mum and dad went first across the Austrian border.
Then they hired more people smugglers to get me and my young brother out with our grandparents.
And I'll never forget that.
There was a party of 30 refugees, half a dozen heavily armed people smugglers.
The reason they're heavily armed, mate, because people were getting shot dead trying to cross the border.
People were getting killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall.
That's why they called it the Iron Curtain.
And I remember one morning, early one morning, we'd gone through across streams, through forests, open fields.
One morning we were very close to the Czech border and a Russian border guard spotted us and he came roaring up to where we were on a motorbike.
The leader of our party motioned for us all to get down in the tall grass to avoid detection.
It was too late.
He'd already seen us, came right up to where we were.
The leader of our group stood up, pulled out his revolver, pointed and shot him right in the face in front of my eyes.
I was only five years old, mate.
And you remember it?
It's indelibly imprinted on my brain for all time.
I will never unsee that, what I saw.
And that made me realise, mate, how ephemeral life is, how easily and quickly it can end and how precious it is and how precious freedom is.
So then you guys, how'd you get to Australia?
Well, eventually, after we got across to Austria, after a couple of months, we ended up in Australia as refugees and we settled in Sydney.
And I grew up in Australia.
What a fascinating story.
Now you've obviously grown up with appreciation and love for this country.
Absolutely.
A lot of the time, and is that because of the light?
Why do you have such love for Australia after, you know, obviously you came here as a refugee?
Not all refugees today love Australia as much as you do.
So what was it about your experience that made you love it?
Well, mate, I love the freedom, the democracy.
the ability to get ahead in life, the ability to follow your dreams and your opportunities, which a lot of countries don't have.
And Australia's been very good to me.
I've been a champion in athletic pursuits.
I was a wrestling champion, bodybuilder, surf ski champion.
I hold a world record for paddling a surf ski across the South China Sea from Hong Kong to the Philippines, 1,000 kilometers.
We raised $100,000 for Hong Kong orphans doing that.
So I've always had a love of sport, physical fitness.
I'm a race car driver.
I race the Lamborghini Hurricane.
So I'm able to do all these things in Australia.
I've got the freedom to do all this.
I was able to study law and I'm now practicing law as a high-powered, high-profile criminal barrister.
And I'm very pleased that I'm able to use my high-profile, my legal skills and expertise to help the Jewish people.
And that's not only a great pleasure, it's a great honour.
You say your family escaped.
Your family escaped from, I guess, the communists at the time.
Communist regime.
But you worked for many years in Hong Kong.
When did you leave Hong Kong?
Okay, I left Hong Kong in 2003.
That was after the handover to Communist China, the People's Republic of China.
Hong Kong was fantastic when I was there.
It was the best 18 years of my life.
And it all started to change in 1997 when the PRC, People's Republic of China, took it over from the Brits.
The place started going down the drain very quickly after that.
I hung in for another six years, but I could see the writing on the wall.
China promised that the system would remain the same for 50 years, but it didn't.
It started going down the drain very quickly.
So I hung in another six years and I left there in 2003.
Yeah, because I actually covered the big protests in 2018, 2019, which were quashed by essentially the COVID pandemic, which seemed very convenient for the Communist Party.
And now it seems like it's gone.
It's essentially, it's part of China now, which is super sad because even in 2018, 2019, where you saw most of the country out on the streets.
There was one protest where there was, they say, I think it was two, what's the population?
I'm trying to remember because I remember it was like one in four, but it was a quarter of the population was literally out on the streets at this one protest and it was the most peaceful protest ever.
They didn't want to be part of communist China.
Was that what you experienced when you were there in those 80s?
Yes, yes.
Mate, the Hong Kong Chinese love democracy.
And what happened with crackdowns, mate, they started arresting protesters who were holding up signs, pro-democracy placards.
They're arresting them and they were arrested, dragged through the courts and locked up.
So what the protesters then did, they were holding up placards that were blank, completely blank, as a symbol of their activism for pro-democracy.
The cops started arresting them for holding up blank placards.
Those people were arrested and locked up.
And they have now completely crushed any remnants of rebellion against the Chinese government.
They've completely crushed democracy.
The place has never been the same.
And I will never go back.
And I think that's like a warning that we should, that the West should heed is, you know, if you don't stand up to the communists, to China, to Russia, to Iran, to North Korea, if you don't stand up to these authoritarian dictatorships, they're going to spread because that's really their wish.
Their wish is to take over the world.
Of course, mate, of course.
And the whole world should be on its knees thanking Israel for taking out Hamas, terrorists.
The whole world should be on its knees for now going after Iran.
And especially the Iranian people should be thanking Israel.
I think many are.
What's that, mate?
I think many are.
Yeah, and I hope there's an uprising, mate, because the Iranian people have been brutalized and oppressed by this brutal, murderous regime.
This is the regime that sends morality police around the place to arrest little girls who aren't wearing their hijabs properly, dragging back to the police station and beating them to death.
That's the Iranian regime, mate.
Iranians have had a gut full of that.
And they're cheering now that Israel is attacking Iran and going after the regime, mate.
And the whole world should be cheering.
Let Aussies Know00:15:55
Tell me, so in your experience, it's a fascinating story.
I didn't know it, about how your family got here to Australia and your experience there escaping the commies.
You said you, did I hear you correctly?
You had a brother with you when you escaped?
Yeah, yeah.
I had a little brother.
He came with me.
I was five years old.
He was only three.
He was on my grandfather's shoulders for the whole journey.
And sadly, he's now dead.
He died eight years ago of breast cancer.
So we lost him.
And did you have any other siblings?
Or it was just that?
No, just the two of us.
And I guess, was the family's love for the Jewish people and Israel also there?
Or was that something that you just picked up from your experience?
Oh, no, no, mate.
The whole family loved Israel.
Everyone in my circle loved Israel.
Not only loved Israel, but admired Israel for everything they've done with their little nation since they were born.
No, there's always been a great admiration and love for Israel in my family, in my circle of friends.
Now, you're a barrister.
You often, I'm sure, you're up against Jews.
Do they give you a good run for your money?
What do you mean, up against Jews?
Well, in the courts, there's a lot of lawyers from our community.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm a criminal barrister.
In Hong Kong, for the first eight years, I was a crown prosecutor, locking up tried gangsters and killers.
They weren't Jews.
They were tried gangsters.
No, no, no, no.
I mean the lawyers.
I mean the lawyers.
I'm not in the Hospital.
No, no, I'm a criminal lawyer, which means I do alleged criminals.
I'm against the cops.
You're up against the police prosecution, yeah.
So I do not come up against you.
Mind you, mind you, I have a good friend.
I have a good friend who I will not name.
She is a crown prosecutor in Australia.
She's Jewish?
She's Jewish, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
But she's not in your state.
Now, can I just say this, mate?
One of my good mates is Robert Richter, QC.
He's a barrister in Melbourne.
He's one of the best, one of the most high-profile, one of the most high-powered criminal barristers in the country.
Even more than Peter Larvac, if you can believe that.
Me and Robert Richter, well, it is.
Robert Richter and me are good mates.
He's actually helping me as we speak with a murder trial in Tasmania that I've been working on.
A little girl 10 years ago, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, was found hanging in a tree.
And I got involved in that case when I met the family purely by accident.
And I was horrified by what they told me.
Initially, I thought it was a badly bungled, botched investigation by the cops.
But once I started looking into it, I realized, no, it wasn't badly bungled and botched.
The cops covered it up.
They covered it up as a suicide.
This little girl was met with foul play.
She was strung up in the tree and hung to make it look like suicide.
And I've been now fighting for four years to get the case reopened.
And Robert Richter's just come on board to help me with that one.
Well, you're going to have to keep us posted on that.
That sounds shocking, fascinating story.
Mate, mate, just watch this space.
I know the names of three killers.
I know the names of the cops who covered it up.
I know the names of a pedophile cop.
Can you tell us why you think they covered it up?
What was the reason?
Why?
Well, my belief, my very strong belief, is that the cops were protecting a pedophile ring in the town at that time.
And I know from evidence I've uncovered in the form of witness statements that at least one police officer and one school teacher in the town were involved in pedophile criminal activities.
Oh, God.
All right.
This sounds, this is taking a really dark turn.
So let's get back to Peter Lavak and what's next besides for obviously that case.
What can we expect from you?
Because you don't seem to be somebody that's just going to sit down and sit anything out.
There's a lot happening in the world.
You're super passionate about it.
You've been defending Jews both in New South Wales and in Melbourne.
What's next for you?
Well, mate, I'm an absolute adrenaline junkie.
I was due to fly out to Israel yesterday, would you believe, with a film crew in tow.
We are planning to do a documentary in Israel.
And because the war started, that's been delayed for a while.
As soon as the airspace over Israel reopens, we'll be on a plane.
We'll be there in no time at all.
I've got a lot of people.
What are you hoping to see then?
Okay, mate, there's two reasons why we're going to Israel.
Number one, I want to reassure the Israeli people that our gutless, useless Prime Minister does not speak for me.
He does not speak for the vast majority of ordinary Aussies when he vilifies Israel, when he betrays Israel, when he defames Israel with blood libels, for example, claiming that Israel is causing starvation in Gaza.
That's total bullshit.
That's caused by Hamas gunmen who hijack the aid supplies at gunpoint.
That's why there's a starvation problem there.
Albanese should go over there and get his facts straight, but he won't because he's too gutless.
Penny Wong, when she was there, she was too gutless to visit the sites of the atrocities, which is a massive slap in the face to the Israeli people.
Now, that's the first reason we want to go and do this.
The second reason, I've got a lot of contacts already in Israel.
We are going to interview survivors of the massacre.
We are going to interview returned hostages.
I'm going to interview IDF soldiers and commanders.
I'm going to give talks at synagogues to rabbis.
I'm going to give press conferences to the media.
And my hope is, and I'm also hoping that my contacts can persuade the IDF to get us into Gaza, into the combat zones, so we can film some of the fighting.
But most important of all, I'm hoping, I'm hoping, this is my biggest hope, is to interview Gazan citizens who are now standing up and protesting and rising up against Hamas because they now realise that Hamas is the source of all their problems, not Israel.
So I'm hoping to talk to them.
I'm also hoping to talk to politicians.
What's the objective?
Why do you want to do this so much?
Okay, okay.
I want to bring a documentary back to Australia to educate ordinary Aussies about what's going on over there.
A lot of ordinary Aussies know that something's happening there, but Aussies I've spoken to, amazingly, a lot of them don't even know what happened on October 7.
I find that absolutely perplexing.
Aussies generally are very complacent, very apathetic, and I've got to let Aussies know what's really happening there to counter all this bullshit propaganda spouted by Hamas and regurgitated by the left-wing neo-Marxist media in this country.
That's the only source of information Aussies are getting, the neo-Marxist left-wing media, which is perpetrated by Hamas.
I want to fix that.
I want to set the record straight to let ordinary Aussies know what's actually happening over there.
Mate, I hear you.
I wish you luck with that mission, and we'll watch it closely.
It sounds interesting.
Sounds fascinating.
Take care there.
I've had some experience.
It can be a little bit dangerous at times, but I know you're not somebody to fear too much about those sorts of dangers.
Now, before I let you go, I just want to talk about, I know you've been fighting even in the last week.
I want you to tell us about, tell the viewers about what happened in your local council area just this past week.
Yep, yep.
This is very interesting, mate.
Council culture reared its ugly head a couple of nights ago, Tuesday, 17th of May, only a couple of days ago.
I went there with my personal assistant and a number of members of the Jewish community to vigorously oppose a motion that was put forward by the Greens, which would have effectively allowed pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist thugs to spew vitriol and hatred on the beautiful beaches of Manly, the peaceful streets of Manly,
which is right in my front yard where I live, and I will not allow that to happen.
So what was the motion exactly?
The motion, the motion basically, I haven't got the details, but the motion would have given the green light to pro-Palestinian demonstrators to come to Manly and protest with their flags and scream abuse and vitriol, as they have been doing at Hyde Park, as they did on the opera house stairs, as they've been doing regularly in Melbourne.
That would have been the effect of that motion.
Now, what happened was my personal assistant wrote to the council, he registered me as a speaker.
They then replied and said, Look, we're going to put Peter Larvac on a wait list.
If any speaker withdraws, he can slide into his spot and he can then speak.
So we went along there, and a number of speakers said what they wanted to say.
Then they called the name of a guy named McNamara.
There's no response.
He obviously didn't turn up.
So I then approached the lecton and I said, Look, my name's Peter Larvac.
I'm a criminal barrister.
I represent the Jewish community, not only in Sydney, but also in Melbourne.
And I'm here to speak tonight.
My PA wrote to you guys.
You told him that I'd be on a wait list.
If somebody withdrew, I could slot into their spot.
McNamara hasn't turned up.
I now want to speak.
And the mayor, a short older woman with grey hair, promptly cut me off.
She switched off my microphone and started very rudely speaking over me, which I found not only rude, I found it to be disrespectful, I found it to be offensive and insulting.
And I said to them, you don't want me to speak.
You are too scared to let me speak.
You are terrified to let me speak because you know who I am.
You know what I've been doing for the Jewish community.
You know exactly what happened in Melbourne a few weeks ago when I literally brought Victoria Police Force to its knees.
And as you know, that was when I was helping the Lions of Zion down there.
You people know exactly who I am.
That's why you're too scared to let me speak.
And what happened next?
The whole crowd in the audience started chanting, let him speak, let him speak.
And then a woman came down from the audience, a blonde lady named Lisa Cotton.
She came up to me and says, look, I'm willing to give up my spot for you as well as this other guy so that you can speak.
I then conveyed that message to the mayor and it fell on deaf ears.
She continued to speak over me very, very rudely.
Now I have three very simple rules in my life, mate.
One, I do not suffer fools gladly.
Number two, I do not allow anyone to disrespect me.
Number three, I never allow anyone to insult me.
Now, what happened next?
A guy named Vincent DeLuca, who's one of the councillors there, he moved a motion to the council to let me speak.
So a number of his fellow councillors put their hands up and supported his motion.
A number of them voted against that because they wanted to muzzle me, silence me, gag me.
And one of the councillors who voted against that was a young female with the kefir, with a kefir.
So they were trying to gag me.
And I then said that that motion failed.
The mayor again started speaking over me.
What she'd done also, she switched off my microphone the moment I told her who I was.
So I had to raise my voice so everyone could hear me.
And I said to her very loudly, look, you people want to silence me, obviously.
There's no way you're going to do that.
I will never ever allow this motion to take place, not on my turf, not on my watch.
And I will drag the entire council into court and I will give you a war you will not believe.
So that was my altercation with the council.
And this was quite clearly cancel culture raising its ugly head.
And I will never ever allow anyone to silence me or gag me or try to stop me from speaking.
So did they end up voting on the actual motion at the end?
They did, mate.
And very, very happily, the motion was defeated.
So it's never going to happen.
Miles decay.
So they didn't let you speak.
The motion that the council or the councillor moved to allow you to speak, how much was it defeated by?
That was defeated.
I think it was roughly fairly even.
There's just probably one voter that voted against you that wasn't that.
The other motion, the motion, to striking down the motion that you were originally wanting to talk on.
What was it beating?
That was defeated, mate.
That was defeated.
What was it defeated by?
Mate, I'm not sure of the exact vote.
Of course, I left.
I left not long after.
It got defeated.
That vote happened once you left.
That happened later.
I was pretty disgusted by what they did trying to muzzle me and silence me.
So I left.
My personal assistant stayed on and he informed me later that this motion to allow these thugs to spew hatred on our streets was defeated very happily.
Why Some Stay While Others Leave00:03:49
I was very happy to hear that.
Well, who knows?
Hopefully you had some part in it.
Either way, well done.
And on behalf of Australian Jews, I do want to say thank you for all the work that you do.
You know, it's, I think since October 7, we've realised who our friends are, who our real true friends are, and who all the fakers who pretended all those years, all those interfaith programs that so much of the community leadership worked so hard for so many years to build.
I, in my defense, have been calling him out for many years because I saw the writing on the wall.
I've been in a lot of these groups on Facebook and have seen what the Islamic community here actually thinks about our community, not what they say in interfaith groups when they're trying to get extra funding or whatever.
So it is amazing to see people like you from all walks of life, from Aussies around the country who have no real, I guess, dog in the fight, but you're still willing to go.
So thank you so much.
And just before I do let you go, obviously you are a refugee.
How do you feel about now that, you know, because obviously you were in the wave of Eastern European refugees.
They've been quite a success story overall in Australia.
How do you feel about the refugees our government seems adamant to bring in at the moment?
Well, mate, I'll tell you what, our country's in serious trouble.
And I realised that when I saw a video clip of NASA Mashney boasting into the camera, Melbourne is ours.
Australia is ours.
The world is ours.
Not on my watch, mate.
He's also a refugee.
Yeah, I know, but that's the sort of refugee that we're now looking at.
Now, I understand now why Donald Trump is totally pissed off with Albanese.
Not only will Albanese refuse to increase his defence spending, but he's recently barred entry to two Israeli politicians while he's allowed in 3,000 Gazan refugees who are potential terrorists.
No wonder Trump's pissed off with him.
And I reckon he's going to put the axe on this orcas deal thanks to Albanese.
Can I just say one more thing about the council?
From what happened the other night, it seems to me that these people who sit on local government councils suffer from this massive delusion that they are actually important.
Now, where does this delusion come from?
These people fix potholes and collect garbage.
They've got no business sticking their nose into foreign affairs.
That's not part of their job description.
That's way above their pay scale.
And most important of all, it's way beyond their intellectual capacities.
So my message to councils is butt out.
Stick to what you know, stick to what you're paid for.
To be fair, they don't know road rates and rubbish, but they should be.
And that's exactly what they get paid for.
Mate, but they don't even do that properly.
That's what I mean.
When I say they don't know it, I mean they don't know how to do it.
They don't do it properly.
They're so focused on everything else but what they're designed there for.
Mate, Peter, appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for everything that you do.
And keep in touch and we'll follow your trip to Israel hopefully soon.