Josh Burns on his relationship with fellow MP Georgie Purcell

He's from the Labor party and is Jewish. She's from the Animal Justice Party and happens to be pro-Palestinian.

The partnership sounds incongruous on paper, yet Victorian MP Josh Burns has just welcomed a baby girl with fellow MP Georgie Purcell, an animal rights activist and vegan.

Together with Mr Burns' seven-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, the couple divide their time between Ms Purcell's farm in Kyneton and their Melbourne home in Josh’s electorate of Macnamara, where they juggle their respective parliamentary duties.

The pair finds it "funny" when they are called political rivals, and stress they have "shared values".

"But we do talk about things. We have robust political discussion," the MP told Annabel Crabb on ABC iview's Kitchen Cabinet.

A 'normal Australian'

Elected to the lower house in 2019, Mr Burns never set out to be the "Jewish guy in parliament" but he felt "thrust" into the national spotlight, nonetheless.

"I'm just a normal Australian," he said.

When his grandparents arrived in Australia from different parts of the world they ended up in "this little community … I'm now privileged to represent".

That community includes the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield, Australia's most populous Jewish neighbourhood and where the federal MP grew up.

But in a post-October 7 world, there have been "really difficult issues" he's had to contend with as not only a parliamentarian, but also as someone who is Jewish.

His electorate is also where you'll find Ripponlea, home to the Addas Israel Synagogue that was fire-bombed in late 2024 in an incident police have said was a politically motivated attack.

It's a scene all too familiar to Mr Burns. Six months earlier his own office was targeted when, according to police, at least five people smashed windows and painted the phase "Zionism is Fascism" on the wall.

"I remember after the Adass Synagogue was burnt down and I stood there looking at a synagogue literally in ruins and in flames [with] this crisp, burnt smell in the air.

"And you think, 'I've seen this in history before' and 'How can this be happening in Australia?'"

'We are a very complex people'

It's a question that would be echoed in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach terror attack that claimed the lives of 15 people when two gunmen opened fire on a Jewish community event marking the start of Hanukkah.

Mr Burns remembers the moment a member of his staff rang to tell him shots had been fired at the popular beach.

"I knew my mum was taking my daughter to the Melbourne Hanukkah event and you're like, 'Well, what is this? What's going on? Is this something that's a national attack?'"

He called his mum urging her to stay home and then rang the Prime Minister's office.

"I've got to try and make sure our country is responding to this in a way that actually remembers who we are, what our country is [and] what our country represents," he said.

"That we are a migrant country, that people come here for refuge, for safety."

But it's come at a personal price.

"It's probably been the most difficult time of public life for me because it's so personal — it's so intrinsic to who I am," he said.

"And even when there were times when there was a conflict between being Jewish and what the Labor Government were doing, that's a conflict that's happening inside me."

As a Jewish member of parliament, Mr Burns says he is asked to distance himself from the Israeli government's actions "all the time", but he stressed that not everyone in the Jewish community is the same.

"We are a very complex people. We have a lot of different opinions. There's lots of different components of the community that make up the Australian Jewish community, even though it's such a small population."

And when it comes to having differing viewpoints to his partner, Mr Burns questioned why disagreeing with someone meant you could no longer associate with them.

"When George and I got together, there was a lot written about us as if somehow there was this conflict," he said.

"We spoke about the issue a lot and we spoke about how we would navigate it and how we would work together."

But he would never ask her to "diminish what she feels or what she wants to advocate for", he says.

"Nor would I be able to diminish my representation for the community I love and grew up in."

'How I'm wired'

Mr Burns also revealed something he's never spoken about before publicly: he was recently diagnosed with ADHD.

He said the diagnosis has given him "great strength" and it helps him focus on the things he really cares about.

"I definitely focus under the pressure and it's something I'm learning about myself, that it's actually how I'm wired.

"But also, in the day to day … if I don't consciously set out what I want to do and what I need to do throughout the day, I can get drawn in different directions really quickly."

It's helped him understand himself and has changed how he feels about his work as a parliamentarian.

"I wear glasses a lot of the time and with my glasses I can see clearly. It's the same as with ADHD," he says. 

"It's a bit blurry but then when you are on top of it and you take your medication, you can just see clearly, and you can move through things and it's not daunting to start a task.

"You just think about what you need to do, and then you go and do it."

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