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This crisis will make Albo or break him: veteran journo Paul Kelly · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, December sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Did authorities fail
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to prevent the Bondai Beach massacre? That's the raging question
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  Speaker 1: as Australia reels from the worst mass murder since Port Arthur.
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  Speaker 1: Alleged gunment Sajid Akram fifty and his son Navid Akram
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  Speaker 1: twenty four bear six apparently legal guns, their alleged links
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  Speaker 1: to Islamic state, and their patterns of association and travel.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The flourishing of antisemitic rhetoric since October seven, twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: the rise of a new insult Zio or Zionist, and
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  Speaker 1: the call by protesters from Mardi Gras to the Harbor
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  Speaker 1: Bridge to globalize the interfada which antisemitism Envoy Gillian Siegel
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  Speaker 1: says has now come true in the murder of civilians.
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  Speaker 1: The thoughts and prayers now flooding out of activists and
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  Speaker 1: social media warriors who until now have been invoking an
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  Speaker 1: equivalence between Israel a liberal democracy and Hamas a Jahadist
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  Speaker 1: death cult. The federal government's decision to agitate for recognition
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  Speaker 1: of Palestinian statehood to criticize Israel and to simultaneously say
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  Speaker 1: it was taking antisemitism seriously. And then the glimmers of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: something beautiful. A forty three year old Syrian Australian Muslim
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  Speaker 1: Man Ahmed al Ahmed, who is in hospital recovering from
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  Speaker 1: gunshot wounds he suffered when he rose up wrestling Sajid
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  Speaker 1: Akram to the ground and taking his rifle. The thousands
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of Australians who stood in hours long queues to donate blood,
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  Speaker 1: Families who responded to the Jewish communities plead to light
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  Speaker 1: a candle the symbol of Hunneker the Festival of Light,
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  Speaker 1: in their windows. At six forty seven to mark the
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  Speaker 1: minute everything changed today, The Australian's Paul Kelly joins me
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  Speaker 1: to discuss the significance of this moment and whether Anthony
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  Speaker 1: Albanesi is up to it. Paul Kelly is The Australian's
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  Speaker 1: editor at large. Paul. In the wake of the Bondai
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  Speaker 1: Beach massacre, Anthony Albanesi is trying to project calm and hope.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: He's asking Australians to light candles in their windows. What
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  Speaker 1: do you make of his response?
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  Speaker 2: So far.
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  Speaker 3: I understand the Prime Minister calling for calm, calling for unity,
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  Speaker 3: calling for hope, and I think all that's important and
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  Speaker 3: it's necessary. However, what we need to do is we
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: need to address honestly and confront what this really means.
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  Speaker 3: This is a singular and collective Australian failure. We have
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  Speaker 3: failed the Australian Jewish community. We have failed the principles
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  Speaker 3: of multiculturalism, human respect, decency, faith in religious belief. All
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  Speaker 3: these things have been failed in terms of the Bondai massacre.
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  Speaker 3: We've got to address this. We've got to be clear
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  Speaker 3: eyed and honest about it. And I think one of
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  Speaker 3: the problems the Prime Minister faces is his lack of
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  Speaker 3: credibility on this issue. Words won't do anymore. The problem
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  Speaker 3: with the Albaneser government for the past two years is
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  Speaker 3: that it has singularly failed to address this issue in
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  Speaker 3: terms of its seriousness. It's treated anti Semitism as a
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  Speaker 3: political issue to be managed as an electoral test, to
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  Speaker 3: be balanced in terms of various electoral factors. That's not
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  Speaker 3: good enough, and the legacy of that is this country
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  Speaker 3: is left with a very bitter and enduring harvest.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: What we know about the shooters, prompts a series of
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  Speaker 1: other questions. Navid Akram, twenty four, was on Azio's radar
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  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen at the age of just eighteen, when
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  Speaker 1: the intelligence agency swooped on another young Sydney sider, Isak Elmatari,
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  Speaker 1: who was in his late teens when he planned a
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  Speaker 1: terror attack for which he was later jailed.
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  Speaker 2: Cowering in the back of a police van. The man
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  Speaker 2: detectives alleged calls himself the leader of Islamic State in Australia.
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  Speaker 2: Isaac Elmatari had been questioned since Tuesday after being arrested
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  Speaker 2: in raids across Sydney. His lawyer made no application for bail.
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  Speaker 2: Its alleged he swore allegiance to is vowing to sacrifice
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  Speaker 2: himself for the cause, and had sent money offshore to
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  Speaker 2: buy guns and TNT explosives.
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  Speaker 1: But Navid Akram was not considered high risk. Here is
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  Speaker 1: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.
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  Speaker 3: The assessment of Asio was with respect to his associations
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  Speaker 3: rather than at that point they're beg a personal motivation
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  Speaker 3: from him.
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  Speaker 1: The father, Sajid Akram, who's now dead, arrived in Australia
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, aged in his early twenties, on
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  Speaker 1: a student visa. In two thousand and one, he transferred
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to a partner visa and was an Australian resident. He
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  Speaker 1: belonged to a gun club and had licenses for six firearms.
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  Speaker 1: In February this year, Mike Burgess, the Director General of ASIO,
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  Speaker 1: said in his annual Threat assessment that antisemitism was the
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  Speaker 1: number one threat that was on asio's radar. It was
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  Speaker 1: crystal clear to the government. And yet after that the
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  Speaker 1: government recognized Palestinian statehood and criticized his rail on numerous occasions.
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  Speaker 1: How do you connect that sequence of events, Paul.
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  Speaker 3: It's one thing for the Head of Asia to deliver
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  Speaker 3: that warning, and that warning in retrospect looks a particularly
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  Speaker 3: prescient warning. However, there's a difference between asiab advice on
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  Speaker 3: the one hand and government action on the other. The
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  Speaker 3: problem we face is that there's been inadequate leadership on
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  Speaker 3: this issue. And I'm talking now not just about the politicians.
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  Speaker 3: I'm talking now across the board. I'm talking about the
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  Speaker 3: leaders of institutions in this country, whether we're talking now
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  Speaker 3: about the corporate sector, the university sector, the cultural sector.
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  Speaker 3: What we've seen is We've seen Jewish students and staff,
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  Speaker 3: We've seen Jewish artists, We've seen all sorts of people
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  Speaker 3: from the Jewish community suffer. They've been the subject of harrissment,
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  Speaker 3: they've been the subjective censorship. We've seen violent attacks on
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  Speaker 3: Jewish daycare centers, on synagogues, and the response of the authorities,
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  Speaker 3: the response of the police has not been sufficiently adequate.
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  Speaker 3: The response of the politicians, state and federal has not
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  Speaker 3: been sufficiently adequate, although those responses have varied quite a lot,
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  Speaker 3: and there's been no sense of wider inspiration and a
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  Speaker 3: message of the need for the country to be resolute
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  Speaker 3: and address anti Semitism, no sense of that coming from
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  Speaker 3: the Prime Minister himself, and that is really a major problem.
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  Speaker 1: How do governments balance their goal for free speech And
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  Speaker 1: what we've heard politicians say in the wake of say,
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  Speaker 1: marches across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, or demonstrations at the
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  Speaker 1: Opera House, or somebody riding a horse down Bondi Beach
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  Speaker 1: flying a flag, is that it's okay for people to
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  Speaker 1: express their concerns, that it's natural to be distressed by
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  Speaker 1: the conflict in the Middle East, and that these are
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  Speaker 1: good people, good men and women, expressing their concerns, but
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  Speaker 1: there is a small radical element who can't be conflated
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  Speaker 1: with the ordinary mums and dads who just care a lot.
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  Speaker 1: What's your view about that and how other government should
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  Speaker 1: have actually handled that.
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  Speaker 3: One of the iron laws of human history is that
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  Speaker 3: if you allow the rhetoric of antisemitism to continue on
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  Speaker 3: and on and you don't address it, it ends in
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  Speaker 3: murder and violence. Now we know that, we know that
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  Speaker 3: that is the story of centuries and what we've seen
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  Speaker 3: in this country in recent years, the last couple of years,
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  Speaker 3: we've seen a prejudiced and complacent Australia pretending that that
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  Speaker 3: iron law of history about antisemitism didn't apply anymore. So
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  Speaker 3: that was a mistake. The related mistake was to think
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  Speaker 3: that the prevailing norms should just continue. That's not the case.
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  Speaker 3: If you've got a fundamental problem like antisemitism, it's got
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  Speaker 3: to be addressed, and that means it's got to be
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  Speaker 3: addressed with new laws, new approaches and new norms. The
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  Speaker 3: idea that the status quo can simply continue has just
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  Speaker 3: been absurd, and that's what we've learned from this massacre.
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  Speaker 3: This massacre tells us the status quo for the last
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  Speaker 3: two years was a failure and it's got to go now.
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  Speaker 3: Josh Froeddenberger is right when he said everything has got
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  Speaker 3: to be on the table. Everything has now got to
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  Speaker 3: be considered. Whether we're now talking not just about gun laws,
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  Speaker 3: whether we're talking now about racial hatred laws, whether we're
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: talking now about the interaction of the police with the community,
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  Speaker 3: whether we're talking now about the role of Asia and
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  Speaker 3: in particular the need for a coordinated, resolute response coming
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  Speaker 3: from government. All these things have got to be on
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  Speaker 3: the table. They've all got to be addressed. The status
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  Speaker 3: quo for the last two years has failed. This must
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  Speaker 3: be obvious to everybody now.
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  Speaker 1: The political consideration that I think has weighed on Anthony
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  Speaker 1: alban Easley certainly in the lead up to the May election,
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  Speaker 1: was there's a huge number of Muslim Australian voters now
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  Speaker 1: who care deeply about the Middle East. Maybe they have
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  Speaker 1: family connections. He was concerned that I think Labor would
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  Speaker 1: be punished, particularly in some Western Sydney electorates, for having
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  Speaker 1: been seen to be not critical enough of Israel or
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  Speaker 1: not neutral enough. What's the advice do you think to
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  Speaker 1: him now, Paul, in the wake of this massacre, does
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  Speaker 1: this change the perception of other Australians to give Albanzi
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  Speaker 1: the cover he needs or the justification he needs to
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  Speaker 1: take actions that will probably be very unpopular in those communities.
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  Speaker 3: This is a very difficult position Australia is now in,
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  Speaker 3: and that mister Albanesi's Prime Minister is now in. There's
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  Speaker 3: no getting away from that because essentially what's got to
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  Speaker 3: happen is there's got to be a change of approach
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  Speaker 3: and the government can't be guided anymore by these calculations
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  Speaker 3: of pure electoral balance. That's not going to work. That's
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  Speaker 3: not going to solve Australia's problem. This problem of vandy
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  Speaker 3: Semitism has got to be addressed now that means has
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  Speaker 3: got to be addressed in a whole series of ways.
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  Speaker 3: We do need a bipartisan approach coming from both Labor
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  Speaker 3: and the Coalition if that's going to be possible. We
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  Speaker 3: do need a sense of reason. We've got to be
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  Speaker 3: careful of extremes coming from the right and the left,
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  Speaker 3: but we do need to consider things such as migrants
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  Speaker 3: come into this country, the reliability of migrants, their commitment
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  Speaker 3: to Australian values. That's got to be addressed. Gun laws
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  Speaker 3: have got to be addressed, Government support for organizations that
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  Speaker 3: practice antisemitis has got to be identified and addressed. All
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  Speaker 3: these things have got to be on the table now.
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  Speaker 3: This is going to be very difficult politically, there's no
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  Speaker 3: question about that. But the government's got itself in this position.
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  Speaker 3: It tried to soft pedal these issues and perhaps that
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  Speaker 3: worked in terms of the scale of its election victory
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  Speaker 3: last May, but that has bequeathed this incredible dilemma coming
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  Speaker 3: after the Bondai massacre, and there is no escaping this.
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  Speaker 3: The Prime Minister now has got to focus on the
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  Speaker 3: national interest and social cohesion and I think that won't
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  Speaker 3: be an easy job given the electoral basis of the
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  Speaker 3: Labor Party.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Port Arthur was the moment John Howard rose
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  Speaker 1: above the muck of politics and changed Australia. Will Anthony
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  Speaker 1: Albanesi responded this crisis with similar fortitude. The nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: six Port Alpha massacre gave John Howard an opportunity to
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  Speaker 1: be courageous in ways that his critics would never have
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  Speaker 1: anticipated he could. It also gave him a legacy that
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  Speaker 1: no one can doubt. Do you think that Anthony Alberenzi
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  Speaker 1: is capable of stepping up to this moment in a
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  Speaker 1: similar sort of way.
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  Speaker 3: I think that the parallels with port Arthur are very misleading.
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  Speaker 3: They are really misleading. I know that John Howard did
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  Speaker 3: stand up and John Howard responded very effectively in one
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  Speaker 3: a lot of cutos from the strong position he took
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  Speaker 3: on gun laws, and that involved taking a series of
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  Speaker 3: political risks for Howard with his own constituency. This situation
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  Speaker 3: is very, very different. This situation goes to the heart
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: of relationships in the Australian community. It goes to the
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  Speaker 3: heart of tensions in this country inherited from communities coming
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: from the Middle East. It goes to the changing nature
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: of labor policy in relation to Israel and Palestine. These
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  Speaker 3: are now very very difficult issues that have become far
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  Speaker 3: more difficult for Anthony Albanezi. But the post of Prime Minister,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: the whole job of Prime Minister, is coming to groups
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: with crisis. It involves coming to groups with events like this,
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  Speaker 3: and in some ways this will be the making or
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: breaking of Anthony Alberisi.
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  Speaker 1: Paul Kelly is the Australian's editor at Large, Thanks Paul,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: thank you. You can read all our coverage of this
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  Speaker 1: rolling story right now at the Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: au