Federal police are investigating whether malicious foreign actors are paying local criminals to carry out violent antisemitic acts in Australia.
Federal police are investigating whether malicious foreign actors are paying local criminals to carry out violent antisemitic acts in Australia.
By Paul Sakkal and Olivia Ireland
Updated January 21, 2025 — 3.23pmfirst published at 10.24am
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called a national cabinet meeting of state and territory leaders to talk about solutions to the spate of anti-Jewish hate crimes in Sydney and Melbourne.
Albanese announced the meeting at a press conference in western Sydney on Tuesday morning following a fire at a childcare centre. It will be held via online hook-up at 5pm on Tuesday.
The Only About Children childcare centre on Storey Street in Maroubra went up in flames just before 1am on Tuesday. When police and firefighters arrived, they found offensive graffiti reading “f— the Jews” sprayed in black paint on a wall.
Albanese last week held a meeting on antisemitism with the leaders of NSW and Victoria, the states where the vast majority of Jewish Australians live and where incidents have occurred. But the opposition and some Jewish leaders have called for the government to put greater emphasis on the scourge by holding a national cabinet meeting.
Albanese dismissed the need for “more meetings” on Monday, prompting Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who has been highly critical of Albanese’s handling of antisemitism, to call on the prime minister to drop his “pride” and convene the meeting of leaders. Albanese said on Tuesday a collective approach was needed.
“This afternoon, we will hear from the AFP commissioner, and it will be an opportunity for us to discuss collectively the responses that are being made by state and territory governments and the co-ordination with the Commonwealth,” he said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Albanese needed to deliver tangible outcomes from the meeting and a sense of optimism for Jewish Australians who he said were living in fear.
“If the prime minister thinks that he’s going to get the Australian public off his back and that he’ll have some reprieve from the media by holding this meeting, he doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation,” he said. “This is a national crisis.”
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“We are having rolling terrorist attacks in our community, and the prime minister is being dragged kicking and screaming to hold a meeting of our nation’s leaders.”
Leading Jewish groups, including the Executive Council of the Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia, welcomed the national cabinet meeting and called for anti-vilification laws, which the federal government and opposition have shunned due to free speech concerns, a tougher definition of antisemitism, permit and no-mask rules for protests, and clearer directions for police to prosecute violent hate speech.
There have been at least nine major antisemitic incidents in Sydney since the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks. Three – one in Dover Heights on Friday and two incidents in Woollahra – have involved cars being doused in flammable liquid before being set alight. An accelerant was also used in an attack on a Newtown synagogue. In October, two buildings at Bondi Beach, including a kosher restaurant, were set alight.
In Melbourne last year, the office of Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns had a fire set inside, and another fire mostly destroyed the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea.
Albanese stopped short of describing the latest attack as domestic terrorism, arguing it was up to police to make that declaration.
“The police will speak for themselves, of course, but there is no question that what this is aimed at is creating fear in the community,” he told Seven on Tuesday afternoon.
“This was done at one in the morning when there was no one, obviously, at the childcare centre at that time. And it’s designed to create that fear and that social division.”
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson criticised Albanese’s refusal to put a label on the attack.
“It’s disappointing the prime minister can’t see this crisis for what it is: a campaign of domestic terrorism targeting the Jewish community,” he said in a statement.
“If he can’t call it out, there’s no hope he’ll take the action necessary to stop it.”
Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns visited the childcare centre on Tuesday morning. Albanese said he “utterly condemned this evil hate crime”.
“Childcare centres are places of joy and harmony … what we saw overnight, in the middle of the night, with this attack, is the latest in a series of antisemitic hate crimes,” Albanese said.
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Minns said antisemitic attacks in Sydney were becoming more sophisticated.
“I don’t believe antisemitism, antisemitic attacks, begin and end with a firebombing or a graffiti attack. I think it begins with language,” he said. “It is completely disgusting, and these bastards will be rounded up by NSW Police.
“It breaks your heart that we have animals in our city that are prepared to burn down a childcare centre to make this point.”
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Paul Sakkal is federal political correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald who previously covered Victorian politics and has won two Walkley awards.Connect via Twitter.
Olivia Ireland is a workplace relations and federal breaking news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based at Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via Twitter or email.
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