Anthony Albanese now challenged to match Coalition solution to criminal anti-Semitism
Peter Dutton has been trying to tap a political vein on community crime and the Israel/Palestinian conflict for more than a year in an attempt to draw a link between the two.
In its early phase, this may have been accepted as a crude attempt to draw a broader banner across two issues that had little to do with each other.
But this has now changed. And by announcing mandatory minimum sentencing for certain commonwealth terrorism offences on Monday, the Opposition Leader is seeking to puncture the artery on what has become a top order concern for voters at a national level.
The policy, which has caught Anthony Albanese flat-footed again, has two purposes. The first is a legislative and security solution to the unprecedented wave of violent anti-Semitism attacks through a mechanism that appeals to the electorate’s broader concerns about community safety.
The second is for pure political effect. Mandatory minimum sentencing is opposed by the Australian Labor Party’s national platform.
This is a political wedge that Labor should have seen coming.
For Labor, opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing has been an article of faith. There has been but one recent exception to this rule.
Labor was forced to concede to the Coalition’s mandatory minimum sentences for immigration detainee releases when it sought emergency powers to deal with that crisis in late 2023. But it is now dealing with a new national crisis in the form of anti-Semitism.
Dutton, once again, is challenging Albanese to match him on leadership on this issue.
The pledge to convene a national cabinet meeting leaves Albanese dissembled on a problem that he has genuinely tried, but failed, to navigate.
Pride will deny him the opportunity to match this, and caucus will presumably deny him movement on mandatory minimum sentencing.
The next election will be unusual for a variety of reasons, but none more so extraordinary than the fact community safety and crime has for the first time in a long time become an issue of concern at a national level.
Crime emerged as a top order national issue more than a year ago in research conducted by both side of politics. One side clearly chose to ignore it. The Australian newspaper first identified it in 2023 as a top three issue of national concern through research produced by SEC Newgate in its Pulse of the Nation polling series.
And again in May 2024, this series showed crime emerging as the third most important issue behind cost of living and housing affordability.
It ranked above grocery prices, if one can believe that.
A poll released this week by Freshwater and published in The Australian Financial Review shows that not only was the exposure of this issue still a potential vote changer at a federal level, but community concern had grown.
Dutton has been seeking to make community safety and anti-Semitism key election issues. Until recently, he has been unable to link one to the other. For the majority of Australians, the Israel/Palestinian conflict has been a foreign dispute that was of mild concern to them.
Courtesy of the weekly protests through the capital cities and useful criminal idiots thinking that firebombing cars in Vaucluse would elevate the cause of Palestinians, this view has been shifting.
Dutton’s instinct on all this may well now have been vindicated. He has succeeded in linking this into the broader crime concern.
Labor has been slow to respond on both issues. And now Anthony Albanese has a greater problem on his hands than he had anticipated.
It is notable that one of the first policies Dutton announced on returning from Christmas was the doubling of funding for the community-based Crime Stoppers.
Dutton appeared outside in supermarket in the marginal Melbourne seat of Aston – which the Liberals lost in a historic upset in 2023 – with a woman who had been held up by machete-wielding thugs.
The doubling of funding amounted to only $7.5m. Hardly a strain on the budget. But in terms of value for policy dollar it was a winner.
Mandatory minimum sentencing for commonwealth terrorism offences has cost Dutton nothing.
Although it raises the question as to why the Coalition didn’t include it in the terrorism legislation it oversaw in government, this is unlikely to become a credible defensive debating point for Labor.