Albanese defends backflip on mandatory minimum sentences for antisemitism offences

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dodged questions about a backflip on mandatory jail terms for terror offences that defied the party’s own policy platform, saying Labor’s move set up the toughest possible penalties for antisemitism.

In a messy late-night session of parliament on Wednesday, Labor reversed its long-standing principled opposition to mandatory minimum jail terms by accepting a Coalition proposal.

Displaying Nazi symbols will be punished with mandatory minimum sentences of a year. These swastikas were graffitied on a Sydney synagogue.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Labor’s national platform, which is supposed to set its policy agenda, states: “Labor opposes mandatory sentencing. This practice does not reduce crime but does undermine the independence of the judiciary, lead to unjust outcomes and is often discriminatory in practice.”

The mandatory jail sentences proposed by Labor, which largely mirror a Coalition proposal from weeks ago, include six years for terror offences, three years for financing terrorism and a year for Nazi salutes. The government’s caucus of MPs did not meet to approve the planned change but Albanese said it had been through a proper process, which included a Labor committee.

Pressed repeatedly on whether he had caved to a Coalition demand, Albanese said his government had acted to clamp down on hate speech and the display of hate symbols including Nazi insignia.

“It is our legislation,” he said in an at-times testy interview on the Today show on Thursday morning, owned by this masthead’s owner Nine Entertainment.

“We believe that the strongest action is required here.”

Albanese has been under pressure to tackle antisemitism after the discovery of a caravan full of explosives in outer northern Sydney suburb of Dural. The van also had a note with a synagogue’s address inside. Federal officials briefed on the discovery last month said that Albanese was not informed before the case became public due to a communications breakdown between state and federal police.

The mandatory-minimum-sentence legislation was introduced to a secondary chamber in Parliament House on Wednesday evening, but it will be debated in the full parliament on Thursday, where it is expected to become law.

Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said on ABC TV on Thursday morning that the opposition was leading on security and fighting antisemitism. “And yet again, we’ve seen the prime minister following,” he said.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said on Wednesday night said it was extraordinary Labor MPs had given speeches earlier that day opposing the Coalition’s proposal. “I had government member after government member, stand up in this debate and say they oppose mandatory minimum sentencing,” Bandt said.

Jewish groups including the special envoy to combat antisemitism Jillian Segal had warned that antisemitic acts were not being punished harshly enough.

The prime minister continued to dodge questions on Wednesday about the timeline of his briefings on the discovery of a caravan full of explosives in outer Sydney last month with the address of a synagogue. He turned the issue on Peter Dutton, claiming the opposition leader’s own MPs believed he was acting irresponsibly by politicising the case.

Federal officials briefed on the discovery of the caravan on January 19 said NSW police did not make clear to national agencies they had briefed NSW Premier Chris Minns the next day, leading to federal ministers being blindsided when it became public nine days later.

In NSW, 12 people have been charged with offences under Strike Force Pearl, set up in December to investigate antisemitic crimes. Two men were charged yesterday in WA over antisemitic graffiti and a 64-year-old was charged on Wednesday under the joint state and federal antisemitism taskforce called Avalite.

The explosives were found inside a caravan at a Dural property in Sydney’s north-west on January 19.Credit: TNV

Albanese made his strongest defence of Labor’s handling of the Dural caravan case in Wednesday’s question time, arguing that maintaining secrecy in the investigation assisted officers to find who may be paying petty criminals to attack Jewish sites.

The opposition, Albanese said, could either “prioritise getting to the bottom of what is happening here, supporting the police and intelligence agencies, or you can choose to play politics and play these games.”

“There are other members on that side who know how irresponsible it is,” Albanese said.

The opposition has used Albanese’s delayed briefing to further its months-long claim that Labor had been slow to clamp down on antisemitic violence and inept in its management of domestic security, tapping into voters’ concerns about crime and social cohesion.

Dutton said on Wednesday that agencies kept Albanese out of the loop to avoid the information becoming public, but provided no evidence for his claim.

“The prime minister has been embarrassed because he was not advised by the police because they were worried about him leaking the information,” Dutton said.

The caravan case was not discussed at national cabinet or a federal security committee before it became public, despite Minns learning of the case on January 20. NSW police and AFP, who are both part of the joint counter-terrorism team, declined to comment.

During that period, federal sources said law enforcement was still working to determine if the caravan discovery was serious enough to brief Albanese, and whether it posed any imminent risk. No detonator was found in the dumped caravan, but it had enough explosives to produce a 40-metre blast wave and the address of a synagogue.

The AFP privately said it might have briefed Albanese had it known about their NSW counterparts telling Minns, to maintain consistency.

On January 30, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said officers were considering whether the caravan was a staged scene.

Tammie Farrugia and Scott Marshall were allegedly named in the search warrant used by police investigating the Dural caravan. Farrugia had already been charged over a separate alleged antisemitic incident in December and Marshall was in custody over unrelated weapons and drugs charges. Farrugia and Marshall have not been charged in connection to the Dural caravan.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw will face questions about the Dural case in a hearing of a parliamentary law enforcement committee on Thursday.

Kershaw is also under pressure from the opposition to explain his claim this month that foreign actors might be paying local criminals to carry out antisemitic attacks.

Meanwhile, at a joint parliamentary hearing on antisemitism on university campuses on Wednesday, Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil said she planned to accept all recommendations of an independent review her institution has commissioned of an anti-racist symposium it hosted in January.

At the same inquiry, Macquarie University’s vice-chancellor Bruce Dowton conceded one of the university’s academics, Randa Abdel-Fattah, had made previous posts that could be construed as antisemitic.

Dowton also said the university had engaged with an investigation by the Australian Research Council about Abdel-Fattah. A spokesperson for the ARC said there were “significant concerns about recent comments reportedly made” at the symposium by Abdel-Fattah, who is working on a project with $870,000 in funding.

The ARC is investigating Abdel-Fattah’s claims that she had not delivered what was intended under her grant. She was contacted for comment.

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