Latest / The Front / Leeser unleashes as PM announces hate speech law reforms
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Today's biggest news from The Australian. I'm Christinamiot with the
- 0:05Speaker 1: Front's afternoon headlines. Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi introduced a suite
- 0:10Speaker 1: of reforms designed to crack down on hate speech following
- 0:14Speaker 1: a meeting of the National Cabinet on Monday.
- 0:17Speaker 2: A summary of the legacy of measures that will be
- 0:20Speaker 2: considered creating an aggravated offense for hate preaching advocating violence
- 0:26Speaker 2: against protected groups, increasing penalties for existing offenses for hate speech,
- 0:33Speaker 2: advocating violence or property destruction against protected groups, making hate
- 0:38Speaker 2: motivation a factor in sentencing for com Wealth crimes, with
- 0:44Speaker 2: options to limit this to online threat and harassment crimes
- 0:49Speaker 2: as announced, to expand to all common Wealth crimes if
- 0:53Speaker 2: required if required. We want to list prohibited hate organizations
- 1:01Speaker 2: to make it a criminal offense to join, recruit or
- 1:04Speaker 2: support an organization listed by the Home Affairs Minister and
- 1:08Speaker 2: the Attorney General. Racial vilification and promoting racial supremacy offense.
- 1:15Speaker 2: We want the power to cancel visas where the Home
- 1:19Speaker 2: Affairs Minister suspects a person as engaged in vilification, hate speech,
- 1:24Speaker 2: promoting violence, displaying hate symbols, or associating with a terrorist
- 1:30Speaker 2: organization or prohibited hate group. We're looking at changes to
- 1:35Speaker 2: hate symbols offenses as well, and also looking at changes
- 1:39Speaker 2: to the Customs Act to ban importing extremist material or
- 1:44Speaker 2: hate symbols.
- 1:45Speaker 1: The Prime Minister said the new laws would be drafted
- 1:47Speaker 1: as soon as possible, but flagged the government will engage
- 1:51Speaker 1: in a period of community consultation. Albanesi again resisted calls
- 1:55Speaker 1: to establish a federal Royal commission into the rise in
- 1:58Speaker 1: anti Semitism, the precipitated last Sunday's terror attack at Bondi Beach.
- 2:04Speaker 2: We want urgency and unity, not division and delay. We
- 2:09Speaker 2: have commenced already the Richardson Review. The New South Wales
- 2:12Speaker 2: government have announced a Royal Commissioner and the federal government
- 2:16Speaker 2: will cooperate fully with that.
- 2:20Speaker 1: In a response to a question by The Australian's Canberra
- 2:22Speaker 1: Bureau chief Richard Ferguson, the Prime Minister said he takes
- 2:26Speaker 1: responsibility for the deadly attack where two government allegedly motivated
- 2:30Speaker 1: by extremist ideology allegedly opened fire on a Haneker event
- 2:34Speaker 1: at Bondi Beach.
- 2:36Speaker 3: Prime Minister, you said that you're sorry for the Jewish
- 2:39Speaker 3: community's experience the Foreign Minister. Today, Alster said she was
- 2:43Speaker 3: sorry for how people experienced her actions when it came
- 2:47Speaker 3: to hers to Israel. I have no doubt that you're
- 2:51Speaker 3: sorry for their experiences. But are you sorry for the
- 2:54Speaker 3: mistakes your government has meet in handling the anti Semitism crisis?
- 2:57Speaker 2: So wait take responsibility for everything that occurs on our watch.
- 3:06Speaker 2: We have taken a range of actions. We are taking
- 3:11Speaker 2: further actions, some of which we have announced today.
- 3:15Speaker 1: In a fiery address earlier on Monday, Jewish Liberal MP
- 3:18Speaker 1: Julian Lisa slammed the Prime Minister's reluctance to establish a
- 3:22Speaker 1: Federal Royal Commission.
- 3:25Speaker 4: The so called Prime Minister of this country, Anthony Albanezi,
- 3:28Speaker 4: who never misses an opportunity, to miss an opportunity. The
- 3:32Speaker 4: Jewish community of this country cannot survive on the crumbs
- 3:35Speaker 4: of this government and this appalling prime Minister, who is
- 3:39Speaker 4: always late to the party and who wants the Jewish
- 3:42Speaker 4: community of this country to live in his half measures.
- 3:46Speaker 4: For two years, We've been fighting his half measures for
- 3:49Speaker 4: two years. We've put forward proposals in the Parliament to
- 3:52Speaker 4: improve the security of Australians and he's voted consistently against them.
- 3:57Speaker 4: He's dragged his feet, he's claimed credit for them that
- 4:00Speaker 4: were not his idea or that he did, having been dragged,
- 4:04Speaker 4: kicking and screaming, and the community is sick and tired
- 4:07Speaker 4: of it. I don't want to see the memories of
- 4:11Speaker 4: the fifteen Australians who died last Sunday. I don't want
- 4:15Speaker 4: to see their memories being desecrated by this half measured
- 4:19Speaker 4: departmental review that is proposed by this Prime Minister. We
- 4:22Speaker 4: need nothing short of a Royal commission now.
- 4:26Speaker 1: Lisa lashed the Prime Minister's decision instead to order a
- 4:29Speaker 1: departmental review of Australia's intelligence capabilities.
- 4:34Speaker 4: We can't have a situation for one more day in
- 4:36Speaker 4: this country where the Jewish community, where any Australian is
- 4:41Speaker 4: forced to live in the half measures and the delayed
- 4:44Speaker 4: action and the talking out of both sides of their
- 4:48Speaker 4: mouth that this Prime Minister has given us repeatedly for
- 4:52Speaker 4: two years, Late to act on the dosing, late to
- 4:56Speaker 4: act on the banning of Nazi symbols and salutes, done
- 5:00Speaker 4: nothing about the antisemitism that is rampant on our campuses,
- 5:06Speaker 4: still even now, does nothing about the due hatred that
- 5:09Speaker 4: is everywhere in the arts and cultural sector, and rather
- 5:14Speaker 4: than looking at the root causes of what caused those
- 5:17Speaker 4: government to pick up those weapons in the first place,
- 5:21Speaker 4: that only a Royal commission will get to, he calls
- 5:24Speaker 4: for another departmental review. This is the most shameful act
- 5:29Speaker 4: in the history of our nation. Australia stands humiliated by
- 5:34Speaker 4: the failure of leadership of this man, by the failure
- 5:38Speaker 4: of leadership which has led to the extraordinary deaths in
- 5:43Speaker 4: a terrorist act on the shores of Bondai in this
- 5:48Speaker 4: great city of ours.
- 5:50Speaker 1: The Member for Barrara in Northern Sydney urged the PM
- 5:53Speaker 1: to recall parliament as a matter of urgency.
- 5:56Speaker 4: We demand the Prime Minister bring the Parliament back today
- 6:00Speaker 4: to do what Chris Mins is doing, to listen to
- 6:02Speaker 4: Susan Lee, to extend the hand of bipartisanship, and for
- 6:05Speaker 4: once in his life, to take the real action that
- 6:08Speaker 4: is needed to defeat the anti Semitism that we are
- 6:11Speaker 4: seeing and we have seen in this country for far
- 6:14Speaker 4: too long.
- 6:16Speaker 1: Federal Opposition leader Susan Lee has offered to sit down
- 6:19Speaker 1: with Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi before Christmas to discuss the
- 6:23Speaker 1: terms of reference for a Federal Royal commission. The Liberal
- 6:26Speaker 1: leader also urged the PM to recall the Federal Parliament
- 6:30Speaker 1: to pass a suite of new legislation designed to combat
- 6:33Speaker 1: extremist attacks.
- 6:35Speaker 5: Prime Minister, the time for words really is finished. We
- 6:39Speaker 5: have work to do. In order to honor the Dad.
- 6:45Speaker 5: We must confront uncomfortable truths, hard truths. That's what this
- 6:51Speaker 5: Commonwealth Royal Commission is about.
- 6:54Speaker 1: New South Wales Premier Chris Mins convened the state's parliament
- 6:58Speaker 1: in an extraordinary two day sitting period to rush through
- 7:01Speaker 1: sweeping changes to gun licensing, hate speech and protest laws.
- 7:05Speaker 1: There were rumblings on Monday the state opposition and some
- 7:08Speaker 1: crossbenches would oppose the changes, but the Premiere has defended
- 7:12Speaker 1: the changes, saying new legislation is necessary to prevent another tragedy.
- 7:17Speaker 6: In those circumstances, I do believe it leads to a
- 7:22Speaker 6: culture and environment of heightened disunity and an invitation to violence.
- 7:29Speaker 6: And ultimately I know that these changes are going to
- 7:35Speaker 6: be met with opposition, but I strongly believe that we
- 7:38Speaker 6: have to do everything we can to ensure that words
- 7:41Speaker 6: that are said at a rally are not used by
- 7:45Speaker 6: somebody at a later point for violent retribution on Sydney's trees.
- 7:49Speaker 1: Chris Minn said a new South Wales Royal commission into
- 7:52Speaker 1: the Bondai Beach massacre would encompass federal agencies like ASIO
- 7:56Speaker 1: and the Australian Federal Police.
- 7:58Speaker 6: We need a comprehensive investigation. We need to understand the
- 8:02Speaker 6: relationship between our agencies and the Commonwealth, what these two
- 8:06Speaker 6: individuals were doing overseas, what information was collected prior to
- 8:12Speaker 6: these terrible crimes, and needs to include the kindling the
- 8:18Speaker 6: fire that spread that saw so many people being killed.
- 8:22Speaker 6: It clearly needs to examine closely the inputs that led
- 8:27Speaker 6: to this anti Semitic active hate.
- 8:31Speaker 1: In Victoria, Premier Justinta Allen announced her government will crack
- 8:34Speaker 1: down on hate speech and conduct a review of the
- 8:37Speaker 1: state's gun laws. Victorian police will be given special powers
- 8:41Speaker 1: to disrupt protests under the changes, and new laws will
- 8:45Speaker 1: empower authorities to identify quote cowards who anonymously post anti
- 8:50Speaker 1: Semitic abuse online.
- 8:52Speaker 7: We won't ever tackle this with a series of short
- 8:55Speaker 7: term actions. We need a long term commitment and we
- 8:58Speaker 7: as a government under we need to be held accountable
- 9:01Speaker 7: to it. We want long term goals that are up
- 9:04Speaker 7: in lights for everyone to see and for everyone in
- 9:07Speaker 7: Victoria too to embrace and to work on together, jew
- 9:10Speaker 7: and non jew alike.
- 9:13Speaker 1: Thousands of bouquets and tributes laid by mourners in the
- 9:16Speaker 1: wake of last Sunday's massacre were cleared away from the
- 9:19Speaker 1: Bondai Pavilion forecourt on Monday morning. A Waverley Council spokesperson
- 9:23Speaker 1: said the council will work with the Jewish community on
- 9:26Speaker 1: plans for a permanent memorial. Check out those stories live
- 9:32Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au and
- 9:34Speaker 1: come back to the front first thing in the morning.