James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a statement of no more than five minutes.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from making a statement of no more than five minutes.

The problem that the government has today, in their second attempt today of covering up about what they knew and when they knew it—about the AFP's involvement in this investigation—is that it doesn't pass the pub test. Senator Wong's argument in question time today was that they couldn't possibly answer this question because doing so would compromise an ongoing police investigation. So is Senator Wong arguing that the Premier of New South Wales has compromised a police investigation by directly answering this question when he was asked? That is a very serious charge to be made against her fellow Labor politician, New South Wales Premier Minns. And how has Premier Minns compromised a police investigation by disclosing, when asked, when he was briefed? And how would Anthony Albanese be compromising a police investigation if he answered when he was briefed? Is it material to the police investigation about this very serious attempted terrorist attack? In what way would the investigation be in any way impeded by the Prime Minister disclosing this fact?

The other problem with this argument—apart from inadvertently blaming the New South Wales Premier for compromising a police investigation—is that it's totally contrary to the past practice of the Prime Minister himself. He never talks about national security committee meetings; he never talks about briefings—except when he does; except when it's convenient; except when it is in his political interests to do so. In fact, there were six examples printed in the Australian newspaper just today—including during active and ongoing investigations into other terror incidents, including the Adass Israel Synagogue firebombing. So how did the Prime Minister compromise the investigation into the Adass Israel Synagogue bombing when he publicly disclosed the fact that he'd been briefed by the AFP and ASIO about that? How did he compromise that investigation when he said he called a National Security Committee meeting of cabinet to response to that attack?

It's very obvious that what is really happening here is that the Prime Minister is embarrassed. He's embarrassed for one of two reasons: either the AFP didn't tell him, and we have had a catastrophic failure of our national security architecture on his watch and he doesn't want to admit to that having happened; or the AFP did tell him, and he didn't act—he didn't call an NSC meeting; he didn't surge resources to the AFP and ASIO and our other intelligence and law enforcement agencies; he didn't reach out to the Jewish community; he didn't reassure them that he had their best interests at heart and he was doing everything he could to protect them.

From start to finish in the handling of this antisemitism terrorism crisis, the Prime Minister has been a day late and a dollar short. He has been too little and too late. It is so often that he finally agrees to something only after the opposition puts pressure on him to do so—like when we called for the introduction of a federal taskforce on antisemitism; like when we called for the holding of a National Cabinet meeting to talk about antisemitism. He was dragged kicking and screaming into holding those meetings, into doing those actions, because he only responds to political pressure; he never leads. He shown weakness and equivocation, every step of the way, when it comes to this crisis of antisemitism which has festered and grown out of control on his watch.

I hope that the Prime Minister doesn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming, yet again, to taking more action on antisemitism. I hope he is able to take up the opposition's suggestion from two weeks ago that there be federal mandatory minimum sentences for Commonwealth terrorism offences. On 21 January we said that the government should introduce mandatory minimum sentences to protect Australians and send a strong message to the perpetrators of these offences that there'll be serious consequences for their behaviour. The Prime Minister dismissed the need for mandatory minimum sentences when he was asked about that throughout January. He said that the government had no plans to introduce mandatory minimum sentences. When we moved a motion in this place on Tuesday afternoon calling on the government to introduce mandatory minimum sentences, the Labor Party voted against it. They voted against the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences. They have to explain why they think it would be appropriate for someone convicted of a terrorism offence to be sentenced for less than six years—to be sentenced to, perhaps, a few days or a few weeks or a few months—in response to a successful Commonwealth prosecution for a terrorism offence, or they can be dragged kicking and screaming again into finally doing what the opposition has called on them to do: to show leadership, to introduce tough laws, to put in place tough deterrence, to finally get this antisemitism terror crisis that has festered on their watch under control, so Jewish Australians and all Australians are safe again.