Subjects: The Coalition’s commitment to real consequences for perpetrators of anti-Semitism; the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia and the need for stronger action from the Prime Minister; Labor’s cost of living crisis; offshore wind farms; Labor’s energy policy shambles; gambling advertising.
E&OE.
RO KNOX:
Good morning. Thank you all so much for coming.
I’d like to thank the leadership team of the Liberal Party for being here today in Wentworth.
Obviously, we’ve had numerous anti-Semitic and completely un-Australian attacks over the last couple of months. What our team today is going to present is their plan for stamping out these un-Australian acts. What we’d like to very clearly deliver to the Australian people today is the Liberal Party; we won’t be the silent majority. We will stand with this community and with all communities across Australia to ensure that we have action to stop these anti-Semitic and un-Australian acts.
So, I’d like to introduce the team who are going to be talking through what their plan is to stop these attacks. Thank you.
JAMES PATERSON:
Ro, thank you very much for welcoming us here to Wentworth and Rabbi, thank you very much for having us here at the synagogue today.
Following the bombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in December, Peter and I stood up and announced a range of initiatives to combat anti-Semitism and extremism, which has become completely out of control in our country on the watch of the Albanese Labor Government. Unfortunately, since then things have only gotten worse and we’ve seen a number of cars be firebombed, the homes of Jewish leaders targeted and horrific graffiti here in Sydney. So it’s clear that we have a Government in Canberra that is not willing to act, that is not willing to be decisive enough, that is not willing to do enough to confront this problem and further initiatives are necessary.
So, we announce today that a Dutton Coalition Government will undertake a number of further initiatives.
Firstly, we will convene a National Cabinet – as Peter first called the Prime Minister to do in November 2023. It is astonishing to us that still to this day no National Cabinet has been convened to respond to this crisis.
Secondly, it’s clear that people undertaking these acts of terror do not fear the consequences of their behaviour, and we need to toughen our laws to make sure those consequences are very clear. We’ll do that in a number of ways. Firstly, we’ll introduce mandatory minimum sentences for Commonwealth terrorism offences of at least six years. If someone is engaging in terrorism in our country, including firebombing synagogues, then they need to feel the full force of the law and be locked behind bars for a number of years – and that’s the bare minimum. Secondly, we’ve seen people behaving with impunity when they’re displaying prohibited hate symbols, including flags of listed terrorist organisations in our cities and streets. We believe there should be a mandatory minimum sentence of at least 12 months for those offences and the maximum sentence should be increased to five years.
It’s also very clear that the legislation before the Parliament currently is not adequate in dealing with the incitement to violence we’ve seen towards places of worship. The hate crimes prohibition legislation before the Parliament does not include a specific prohibition on urging or threatening violence towards places of worship, including synagogues. We believe that needs to be criminalised specifically at the Commonwealth level, and that would attract penalties of up to five years, or seven years for an aggravated offence.
It’s very clear that we need strong action to deter the perpetrators behind this behaviour because until they fear the consequences of their behaviour, this crisis is going to continue to get worse.
I’d now like to invite Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, to provide some comments on behalf of the community.
PETER WERTHEIM:
Well, thank you James, and thank you Mr Dutton, for your announcement today.
The recent spate of attacks that we’ve seen in this country against the Jewish community are not just a matter for the Jewish community, they are an attack on all Australians, on our way of life and on our values.
We need a coordinated response to turn back that trend. We need national, state and territory governments to be coordinated in their legislative responses, in terms of law enforcement, in terms of education, online and media protection and so on. This cannot be achieved without a National Cabinet. We need that direction from the top to ensure that Attorneys General, Education Ministers and so on, do the right thing. We need mandatory minimum sentences also for relevant state and territory laws that are directed towards hate speech and hate crimes.
So, we welcome the announcement today. We welcome the recommitment to convening a National Cabinet, and we look forward to these ideas being developed and hopefully becoming bipartisan. Thank you.
JULIAN LEESER:
Thank you Peter, and thank you James, Ro, and Peter as well for your leadership.
If you’d said to me 15 months ago that we would still be talking about anti-Semitism today and that indeed, with every day you open the paper, you turn on your social media and you see a worse and worse anti-Semitic attack being portrayed in this community, I wouldn’t have believed you; but that’s unfortunately the Australia that we are living in today.
When you’re living in an Australia like that, it is incumbent on those people in leadership to do everything that they can to address these issues. That’s why it’s so important that we are convening a National Cabinet. That is why it’s so important that we are having tough mandatory minimum sentences. But there is only one leader in Australia today who is doing everything he can to combat anti-Semitism, and that is Peter Dutton. He has done that over the last 15 months and today is just the latest in a series of announcements that he has made, to return this country to the Australia that we know and love. Peter Dutton is a person who will get Australia back on track.
Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Dutton.
PETER DUTTON:
Julian, thank you very much.
Rabbi, firstly to you, thank you very much for your leadership in the community, particularly over the course of the last 15 months, but for many years before that. Thank you very much for having us here at Central Synagogue today, and thank you to all of those participants that we spoke with and the ideas and the suggestions and the views that were expressed – we hear you very sincerely.
We were speaking with a family on the way in who have been the subject of one of these attacks. They’re an Australian family, they’ve lived in the same house for 60 years, they’ve been great neighbours, they’ve contributed to everything that’s gone on in their local street and their local community for all of their lives, they’ve been people who’ve led a peaceful existence, they’ve educated their children, they’ve given back to their community and to their country, and they’re now being treated in a way that we wouldn’t expect any Australian to be treated. So, anti-Semitism in every form is a national scourge.
Anti-Semitism has created this national crisis and it requires a national response. To do that, the Prime Minister needs to convene a National Cabinet to bring together the leaders of the states and territories and to provide the leadership that our country needs. An attack on a Jewish family, or an attack on any family is an attack on all of us. If we are anything as a country, then we should be standing with people in their hour of need.
The announcements that we’ve made today should send a very clear message to those people who are preaching hate, those people who are up waving flags and glorifying terrorist leaders, that they have no place in our country. If they want to conduct themselves in that way and target Jewish schools and synagogues and people online, then they can expect to face the full force of the law.
At the moment, the Prime Minister is playing politics with this issue because he sees political advantage in some Green seats by abrogating his responsibility as Prime Minister that he has to people of Jewish faith and to all Australians – and enough is enough. I don’t think that we should be tolerating any act whatsoever of anti-Semitism. I give this absolute commitment to the Australian people that if elected as Prime Minister, we will provide the resources, we will provide the legislation and we will provide the will to stamp out anti-Semitism in our country and to send a very clear message that that is not going to be tolerated in any form whatsoever. That will happen from day one.
I want to say thank you very much to James Paterson and also to Julian Leeser, for the work that they’ve done in relation to the policy that we’ve put forward today. I want to thank Ro Knox for her leadership in meeting with families, meeting with the rabbis, meeting with community leaders, with business leaders. Ro Knox is a person who understands this area. She is a local. She works hard. She has an incredible background and I think will make a wonderful Member of Parliament. If Ro Knox can become the next member for Wentworth and we can form a government after the election, we can get our country back on track and provide a secure environment for Australians to raise their children in.
A couple of other points; there are three young women who have been released, who have been held hostage in the most barbaric of circumstances over the course of the last 15 months. It doesn’t even bear thinking what they’ve been through, the torture and the torture of their families with those hostages being held in a cave system, in a tunnel system. There are other hostages who remain in that network today, at the hands of terrorists. Whilst it’s something that we welcome, in terms of the peace agreement that has been struck, and we hope sincerely that it holds, and it’s wonderful that three people have been released back to their families and back to their country, but our thoughts and prayers today must continue for those who are still held in captivity, those who are still suffering because of the attacks on October 7, those who survived the attacks and those who are living with the mental and physical scars of that barbaric attack – the biggest attack, the most significant and horrific attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. That’s where our thoughts and prayers should be today.
Those people who are celebrating the release of terrorists from prison only demonstrates once again the levels of their depravity, and they shouldn’t be held up as heroes. They are people that should be condemned, and that’s the very strong view that I have.
Finally, the Prime Minister’s announced today he’s going to spend $2 billion of taxpayers’ money to push up the price of electricity even further in this country. The Prime Minister went to the last election promising a $275 reduction in power prices – power prices are up by $1,000. Now the Prime Minister is promising the Australian public that their power prices will go even higher and that the likelihood of blackouts and brownouts in our country will only increase with this policy announcement.
That’s the reality of what the Prime Minister is offering today. It’s not something that we’re going to support and we’re going to make sure that we can get energy prices down, and we’ve got a plan to do that because at the moment Australians are paying way too much for their electricity, and it’s not just them, it’s the local IGA store, it’s the local farmer, the manufacturer, because they’re paying more for their cold storage, which is why because of Labor’s failed energy policy, you’re paying more when you go to the checkout to buy groceries.
There is a much better way for our country. We can manage the economy more efficiently, we can provide support to growth in the economy, and that’s exactly what we did with our announcement yesterday for small businesses, which will help 98 per cent of small businesses in the country provide support to their staff and customers, help them grow their business, and it will be an economic boom for those small businesses, particularly cafes and restaurants at the moment who are doing it tough.
Don’t forget that 26,000 small businesses have failed under the Albanese Government over the course of last two and a half years and behind every one of those 26,000 businesses, is somebody who’s lost their house, lost their life savings, lost their job, lost their sense of being, and I don’t believe that that’s in the best interests of our country.
So, we’ll have a lot more to say about how we can help people in small business over the course of the coming campaign.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, you’ve pointed to tougher sentencing as a manner to address growing rates of anti-Semitism, but there’s also the broader issue of social cohesion. I guess how would a Coalition Government address what appears to be growing levels of division in our society?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, what we needed from our Prime Minister in response to this national crisis was strength of leadership, and he just hasn’t provided that.
We do want social cohesion, we want the rule of law to be enforced, we want people, regardless of their religious belief, or no religious belief at all, regardless of their political inclinations, regardless of their heritage, we want every Australian to be treated equally. I think the point that Peter was making before is an incredibly powerful one, that this is not just an attack on the Jewish community, this is an attack on every Australian, and it’s the Jews today, who next?
If we look back through the course of history, when good people don’t stand up and provide support to those who are in need, then the downward spiral continues and there can be no social cohesion in our country when the Prime Minister’s incapable of responding to a national crisis.
It’s only the Prime Minister’s pride at the moment that’s standing between him and a decision that he can make to convene a National Cabinet. If not now, when Prime Minister? We’re seeing the firebombing of cars, we’re seeing people doxed, we’re seeing children going to school protected by armed guards. If now is not the time for National Cabinet, when is it? When is the Prime Minister going to stand up and provide the leadership that the country craves at the moment?
For every day that the Prime Minister abrogates his responsibility and continues this weakness, our country continues to suffer, and that’s not something that we’re going to tolerate. We’ve been very clear in the announcements that we’ve made today that we will have zero tolerance from day one, and we will do whatever it takes to restore social cohesion and the rule of law, and to have people like the family we spoke to this morning who have lived peacefully in the same home in our country for 60 years, and I want them and their children and their grandchildren to enjoy that same peace and tranquillity – not what people have experienced over the course of the last 15 months.
QUESTION:
Just on the production credit scheme as well. You’ve indicated you wouldn’t support that. Do you believe, though, that we do need more aluminium being produced in Australia and how would the Coalition do that?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we certainly need more aluminium being produced in Australia for as long as we believe that we’re going to need windows for building and the use of aluminium across a developed economy like ours. If we want to export those jobs and export that industry, well that’s exactly what the Prime Minister is promising to do with his policy.
I can’t find anywhere in the world an aluminium smelter, a high energy use aluminium smelter, that is only run on wind and solar and batteries. Now, if there’s an example that Prime Minister’s got, well I’d be happy to hear it, but what I do know is that this cruel hoax that the Prime Minister’s pulling needs to be called out because for the Prime Minister’s policy to work – let’s just understand the practicalities of this; he would have to install 22,000 solar panels every single day, he would need 40 wind turbines each month and require 28,000km of poles and wires to deliver this policy. It’s a $2 billion con job and it’s going to drive up power prices and it’s going to deliver blackouts and brownouts. Over the course of the last two and a half years, we’ve seen a threefold increase in the number of manufacturing businesses who have left Australia to go and build in Minnesota, or go and build in Wyoming, or Tennessee, or in Malaysia, or wherever it might be. We lose the jobs, we lose the economic productivity, and they import the aluminium at a higher price. So it’s inflationary. That’s why under this Government inflation is staying higher for longer.
Now, just to put it into context, those numbers that I’ve just given you, according to the Clean Energy Council, only three wind farms with a total of 115 wind turbines were commissioned and connected to the grid across Australia in 2023. So, the Prime Minister needs to explain how this fantasy is going to come true.
We believe strongly in renewables, and they need to be firmed up by nuclear power, which is what 19 of the top 20 economies in the world are doing. Australia is the only one not. So I want to achieve our net zero by 2050 outcome. I want to make sure that we are responsible in terms of our environmental footprint – 22,000 solar panels a day is a big impact on the environment, on wildlife, on all sorts of economic impacts on adjoining properties and local farming communities, and the Prime Minister doesn’t talk anything of that. All he’s interested in is winning votes in Green seats in inner city Sydney and Melbourne, and he’s forgotten about people in the regions and in outer suburbs. That is not how I will run our Government, along with our senior Ministers and leadership team, if we win at the next election.
QUESTION:
And just one more if I may on gambling advertising. Labor is unlikely to introduce any federal legislation on this, this term. Is the Coalition still committed to tackling this as an issue? And how quickly do you think it needs to?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, the short answer is yes, and we’ve provided our policy. But again, I mean the Prime Minister, after the death of one of his Members of Parliament who was very passionate about this issue, committed himself to reform and change of the law in this area. Now, we’re at an election, and obviously the Prime Minister’s not going to introduce this legislation. So it’s just another demonstration of the weakness of leadership.
I’ve known seven Prime Ministers since I’ve been in Parliament, I’ve worked closely with four and observed those on the other side as well. I’ve never seen somebody so incapable of making a decision, or so captured by his own incompetence and weakness, and our country’s suffering as a result of that.
These are tough times for our country, we need to make tough decisions, and we need to make sure that we act in our country’s best interests. At the moment, it seems the Prime Minister is just not capable of doing that.
Okay, thank you very much.
[ends]