December 12, 2024
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Now, both sides of politics have now come out and talked about anti-Semitism task forces. The Prime Minister, as I say, a day late and a dollar short with all of this kind of stuff. To talk to us about this shadow Home Affairs Minister, Senator James Paterson. James, good morning.
JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you.
CENATIEMPO: There are some parallels here between what we were just talking about with Jacinta then is that social cohesion has been at its lowest ebb, particularly in the last 14 months, but certainly over the last two and a half years.
PATERSON: That's right Stephen. On the Albanese government's watch, we've had a collapse in social cohesion and not just an anti-Semitism crisis, not just an extremism crisis, but now a domestic terrorism crisis targeting the Jewish community. We have had in the last few months alone four instances of firebombing targeting the Jewish community, including a member of parliament's office, a synagogue and several cars over several incidents in Sydney. I mean, this is out of control on Labor's watch.
CENATIEMPO: The problem that I see here is and look, the Prime Minister has been late to the party on everything and I'm told by Labor insiders is that's because he's not really running the show. The bureaucrats are. But this is emblematic of the lack of leadership, the fact that we've now had a synagogue firebombed in Australia and that just, I'm flabbergasted that that even happens. The fact that he decides to fly into a donor conference or a donor event in Perth and get a round of tennis in and then come back and then pretend like this is the first we've seen of this. As you say, this is now the fourth incident we've seen. But it doesn't help when we have the national broadcaster out there questioning whether or not this is driven by anti-Semitism.
PATERSON: No, I would have thought it was fairly straightforward that when you're firebombing cars in areas where a large Jewish community live in Sydney and you're engaging in graffiti targeting Israel, it's pretty clear what your motivations are. It's also pretty clear when you're firebombing a synagogue while there are Jews inside praying what your motivations are. And unfortunately, we've had not just the public broadcaster but politicians who have been reluctant to plainly call that out. I mean, it took days before the Prime Minister could actually acknowledge this for what it is, which is terrorism. And it also took days before the Prime Minister bothered to even show up, as you say, to show his solidarity with the Adass Israel community in Melbourne. I mean, as you say, his priority was campaigning, fundraising and playing tennis in Western Australia, not standing with the Jewish community while they're being under attack in Australia's worst recent terror incidents.
CENATIEMPO: So my question is this, James. The Prime Minister has announced an anti-Semitism task force. Is this just window dressing? I mean, don't our security agencies and our law enforcement agencies already acknowledge that this kind of behaviour is a crime and should fit within our normal frameworks?
PATERSON: Well, you got it exactly right before, Stephen, when you said this is a day late and a dollar short, this should have happened 14 months ago. And actually he hasn't announced a task force at all. All it is is an AFP special operation. Now this is an utterly routine thing for the AFP to do to investigate a particular crime type. They basically just set aside some officers in a small team to investigate a particular crime type. What the Opposition has actually called for is a permanent standing taskforce incorporating all of our federal law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies funded to investigate crimes against the Jewish community, and which goes back and reviews all the reports of crimes over the last 14 months. And critically, the decisions not to proceed with prosecutions and re-evaluate those. And until and unless we do that, we're not going to improve this situation because the law has not been enforced when it should be. And that's why things have got out of hand.
CENATIEMPO: And that's the point. And I said this at the time when we allowed that rally to go on at the Opera House a couple of days after the October 7th attacks. And we've seen rallies happen almost every weekend across many cities across Australia. And we talk a big game about, you know, banning Nazi symbols and cracking down on hate speech and all these kinds of things. We don't see any prosecutions. We don't see any real action.
PATERSON: Exactly right Stephen, almost every single weekend in our major cities since the 7th of October, there have been rallies where people have displayed the flags and logos of listed terrorist organisations, including Hamas and Hezbollah. But the federal parliament criminalised that in December last year. It is a serious federal crime, and yet we still have not yet had one single prosecution of anyone breaking that law. So let's not be shocked and let's not be surprised when people are emboldened by that, and when extremists escalate their behaviour and get even worse. And let's also not be surprised when the government makes foreign policy concessions to these same extremists that they become appeased and confident that they are winning and escalate their behaviour as well.
CENATIEMPO: Well, you make an interesting point there, and I raised this yesterday that we've seen a number of well, do we call them backflips on traditional Australian positions on these things? But when the Foreign Minister comes out and says Israel needs to be a good international citizen like China and Russia. You've got to think, who was writing her speeches for her?
PATERSON: That speech by Penny Wong on Tuesday night was reckless in its nature and callous in its timing. In the middle of a domestic terrorism crisis targeting the Jewish community, to compare the only Jewish state to the authoritarian states of Russia and China was an incredibly dangerous and irresponsible thing to do and I fear will give further license and further encouragement to people targeting the Jewish community. Because anti-Semites draw no distinction between the state of Israel and the Jewish community living here in Australia, and it is very dangerous to give them encouragement, as the Foreign Minister has done.
CENATIEMPO: Absolutely. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but I just had a listener come in and tell me off air that, you know, because we talk about what's happening in Sydney and Melbourne a lot, but she had a building site that was graffitied with anti-Semitic slogans here in Canberra and she's not even Jewish. So it's happening everywhere. It's not just the mainstream or when I say mainstream, the more prominent events that we're talking about in the mainstream media every day.
PATERSON: Exactly right. It is out of control. There've been hundreds of instances of anti-Semitism, a multi factor increase in the rate of anti-Semitism in our country. And police and ASIO have been really clear about this. The number of instances of anti-Semitism far outstrips any other form of hatred in our country and it is against a very small community who are very high profile and targeted. And that's why the Prime Minister should have taken this seriously from the start, he should have realised the crisis that this was and acted on it.
CENATIEMPO: Well, it's interesting, that I spoke to the President of the ACT Jewish community a couple of days ago who tells me that the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne is one of the few synagogues that is actually not a Zionist, well doesn't support Zionism. So I mean, even the ignorance of the people carrying out these attacks is breathtaking, as is the Government's inaction. James, wonderful to talk to you. Thanks for making yourself available throughout the course of the year. Merry Christmas and we'll talk in 2025.
PATERSON: Thanks Stephen, Merry Christmas to you and your listeners.
ENDS
