Prime minister, who has previously resisted calling the meeting, says it will focus on recent wave of attacks and graffiti
National cabinet will meet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss antisemitism in Australia, after Anthony Albanese pledged that the latest attack on a Sydney childcare centre “will lead to action”.
The prime minister previously resisted calls for such a meeting, saying on Monday Australians did not just want to see more meetings on antisemitism.
The Coalition opposition had been demanding Albanese call together state and territory leaders to discuss the issue and the government’s handpicked envoy on antisemitism, Jillian Segal, last week called for national cabinet to address a spate of recent crimes.
But hours after an antisemitic slogan was graffitied on a childcare centre in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, which was also set alight, the prime minister confirmed such a meeting would take place.
“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 coordination with the commonwealth,” Albanese told a press conference in western Sydney.
Albanese said the meeting agenda was still to be finalised, but it is expected the meeting will focus on antisemitism and the recent wave of attacks and graffiti. The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said his government would put more resources into policing and investigating such crimes and held open the potential to strengthen the state’s laws on hate speech and vilification.
Albanese visited the scene of the Maroubra attack on Tuesday morning and described the incident as “a hate crime” and “an act of vile, antisemitic violence”.
“This is something that people in this great multicultural city of Sydney should never wake up to and this news will lead to action,” Albanese said in an earlier press conference outside NSW police headquarters.
On Monday, asked if he would hold a national cabinet meeting on antisemitism, Albanese answered: “What people want to see isn’t more meetings, they want to see more action.” He noted he had held a smaller meeting last week with the premiers of NSW and Victoria to discuss the issue.
The deputy opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said Albanese “must act”.
“Enough is enough. Enough press conferences. Enough platitudes. Enough prime ministerial mealy-mouthed words,” she said on X on Tuesday.
“Synagogues, homes, childcare centres are being firebombed. An antisemitic crisis rages on our streets.”
The government has come under pressure from the Coalition, as well as peak Jewish groups, to commit to tougher action to curb antisemitic hatred.
On Monday, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, announced a Coalition government would seek to quickly convene a national cabinet meeting upon its election, as well as introducing mandatory minimum sentences of at least six years for commonwealth terrorism offences, including targeting synagogues, and of at least 12 months for displaying prohibited hate symbols or flags of terror groups.
“It is astonishing to us that still to this day no national cabinet has been convened to respond to this crisis,” the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said on Monday.
Minns, standing alongside Albanese in Sydney, said the “full resources” of NSW police would be directed into investigating the spate of antisemitic attacks across Sydney. He noted numerous recent arrests and charges against those alleged to have been behind previous incidents.
“No one in New South Wales police, the federal government, the New South Wales government is trying to downplay the seriousness of these attacks. It needs a full and comprehensive police response. It needs proper coordination between the states and the commonwealth, between our police agencies and intelligence agencies at the federal level,” Minns said.
