December 10, 2024
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BRIDGET BRENNAN: Returning to our top story now. The Federal Police has established a task force to combat a rise in anti-Semitism in response to the arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne, which is now being investigated as a terrorist incident. But the head of ASIO has rejected suggestions that the Government should be held to blame for the attack. Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson joins us in the studio. Welcome to you, James.
JAMES PATERSON: Thank you for having me.
BRENNAN: You've been with the community a number of times. How are they going and how are people responding to this awful attack?
PATERSON: The Adass community is a small and secluded community, and they are completely shocked to be a target of an attack like this. They go about their business and their faith in an unobtrusive way without impacting on anyone else in the community. And they are descendants of Holocaust survivors who built that shule as a centre for Jewish learning and life. And for them to be attacked like this has been deeply shocking to them and traumatising to them. But they are grateful for the support that many in the wider Australian community have shown them over the weekend.
BRENNAN: What do you think they need right now, in terms of leadership, in terms of security?
PATERSON: They do feel disappointed that more political leaders haven't come and witnessed the scenes themselves and seen it. I think it is strange that we're now five days on from this happening and the prime minister still hasn't attended and nor has any senior national security minister of the government, not the Home Affairs Minister, not the Attorney-General. I think that's an important show of solidarity and it is reflective of the government's priorities that the Prime Minister has chosen to do other things rather than do this. In practical terms, what they're going to need is a lot of help rebuilding. Their synagogue has been destroyed. It was a fire, but it looks like a bomb has gone off inside. The entire interior of the synagogue has been completely destroyed. And they're going to have to raise a lot of money to do that rebuilding.
BRENNAN: So that to you would suggest a very coordinated, quite well planned attack from what you have seen down there at the scene.
PATERSON: I suspect that the people who are alleged to be behind this attack knew exactly what they were doing. They appear to be someone who's arrived prepared for this. They apparently had a tool to break into the synagogue. They had an accelerant to do the damage. And they also bought brooms to push the accelerant under the doors into the synagogue. The effect of it was an extraordinary effect. It wasn't an amateur operation, by my estimation. And it does sound like the police have made good progress in identifying the suspects and I hope they are very quickly apprehended.
BRENNAN: Let's talk about this new taskforce Avalite, which sounds like quite a comprehensive response to the rise in the concerns around anti-Semitism in the community. Do you welcome this step in this announcement?
PATERSON: I do, but to be honest, I think it's a day late and a dollar short. It's actually not really a taskforce. It's a special operation. And that sounds like a subtle distinction, but it's an important one. A special operation is a routine thing that the federal police and state police do all the time. They set it up to investigate a particular crime type. What the Opposition has called for and what the Jewish community, more importantly, has called for is a standing taskforce that brings in not just the Federal Police and ASIO, but all other arms of law enforcement, security and intelligence at the federal level, agencies like AUSTRAC and ACIC, to have a really standing investigating force with significant resources to tackle this anti-Semitic threat in our country. Because it has got out of control over the last 14 months and the Jewish community feels like they've been ignored. They have been warning that something like this was going to happen and they feel like this is their worst fears realised.
BRENNAN: What would you do differently and what would you have done differently in the months leading up to this attack? Because you have been very critical of the Federal government and I think it's important for people to understand what steps you would have taken differently.
PATERSON: I think two things have been missing since the 7th of October in our country. One is we haven't had the moral clarity and courage in calling out this cancer of anti-Semitism because it's not just a threat to the Jewish community. It's a threat to our country and our character as a country. We are a great country, but we haven't been at our best in the last year and we've tolerated too much of this. The second thing is enforcement of the law. People have been wantonly breaching the law almost every weekend at some of these rallies in Melbourne and Sydney when they're displaying flags of listed terrorist organisations and other symbols of terrorist organisations. That's a crime and yet no one has been convicted of that. And I think police and the federal government have been too slow to address that. I think if they had acted sooner, if they had shown that there were consequences for this behaviour sooner, we might have avoided the escalation that we've seen because I think extremists in our community have become emboldened.
BRENNAN: Yeah, although you hear the ASIO chief, Mike Burgess, say he doesn't think the government, it's fair to put this onto the government, given there is already, there was already a hotbed of right-wing and extremist and anti-Semitism sentiment in the community even before October 7th.
PATERSON: That's certainly true. We have had anti-Semitism in Western societies for centuries. It's not a new phenomenon. We all know that. But it has exploded since the 7th of October. And the statistics from Victoria Police are very clear. Anti-Semitism is about ten times more prevalent than the next most common hate crime type reported to Victoria Police. And Mike Burgess himself said on Insiders not that long ago that anti-Semitism is far more prolific than other forms of hatred. So I think it has required an understanding of the seriousness of that and much more resolve from the government, much earlier.
BRENNAN: Given the environment we're operating in. Mike Burgess said this yesterday, that he's concerned that there's a very volatile environment that we need to watch our words, that maybe we need to really be looking at more cohesion. Is that something you're thinking about as a political party, that we need to be building bridges and we need political parties to come together in moments like these?
PATERSON: I think that's right. I think we do need to be measured and calm in our language in responding to serious incidents like this. But it is also the job of the Opposition in a liberal democracy to hold the government to account for what we see as their failings. And we're not alone in seeing these failings. I mean, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Daniel Aghion, was quoted in the papers today saying he has not been contacted by any senior minister of the government over this weekend. That he and the Jewish community feel like they have been abandoned, that they feel like the government has been paralysed in responding to this. And he's one of many voices that has said things like that over the last few months.
BRENNAN: Was it appropriate, do you think, for Peter Dutton to criticise Josh Burns, a Jewish MP who lives in that community, who himself has been the target of anti-Semitism?
PATERSON: Well, look, as Peter said, Josh is a good guy and I see a lot of Josh and we get along very well. We are often at the same events in the community. I think the sad truth is, is that the Labor Party has stopped listening to Josh a long time ago and he hasn't been successful in influencing the government's policy when it comes to protection of the Jewish community or foreign policy, particularly relating to Israel. And I don't go to a Jewish community function these days without someone from the Jewish community coming up to me and saying they're a lifelong supporter or even a member of the Labor Party, but for the first time at this election, they won't be supporting Labor because they feel so let down by the Labor Party. I mean, just last night I was at the Mount Scopus Memorial dinner, the school, and someone came up to me and said he is seventy years old, that they have been a member of the Labor Party for decades, they have supported Michael Danby and Josh on all of their campaigns. But at this election, they will be supporting Benson Saulo, the Liberal candidate, because they just feel so let down.
BRENNAN: All right, we might ask Josh about that when he's on the program a little later. Can we move to another issue? Why wouldn't Peter Dutton stand in front of a flag that means so much to Aboriginal people?
PATERSON: Look the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander flags have a very important place in Australia and they are an important symbol for our country. But I think it's really important for any country to have one national flag and one national symbol because I think we need to have unifying symbols in the age that will-
BRENNAN: Doesn't it unify the country to acknowledge 65,000 years of heritage?
PATERSON: Of course, we should acknowledge that heritage and all Australians should be proud of that heritage. It's a remarkable heritage that we should have a responsibility to share and uphold and be custodians of. But I can't think of another country in the world that has multiple flags and is a united country-
BRENNAN: Can't think of any other countries that have that history, though, can you?
PATERSON: Well, actually there are lots of countries that have indigenous populations that have long histories. But if we're a country that decides we are different tribes, that we have different flags, that we should follow different causes, then I think we become less united-
BRENNAN: Quite a lot of different tribes in Australia, though, James, you've got hundreds, you know, and a really proud history and that means a lot to elders. I mean, I just wonder, is it a decision you've made in consultation with elders? How would you explain that to an Aboriginal elder that you don't want to stand beside the Aboriginal flag at press conferences?
PATERSON: Well, I would say that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags have an important place in our country and in the right setting at the right time of course to they have an appropriate role, and I think they will always be a feature of public life in our country. But when the Prime Minister of Australia is standing up to make a statement to the country, on behalf of the country, I think it's a unifying symbol to say this is our flag. We have one national flag and we stand beside it.
BRENNAN: Do you have a policy on welcomes to country and acknowledgements of country? And is that something you will speak about at the election?
PATERSON: We certainly haven't announced any policies there. My own personal view is that in some contexts it is appropriate and it should be done, but it doesn't need to be done at every event and it doesn't need to be done by multiple speakers at every event. I think some people find it a bit tiresome when we have five or six acknowledgements of country. I think we should do it at significant occasions and relevant occasions, but sometimes I think it is overdone.
BRENNAN: Alright thank you for your time.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS