While police persist to hunt down the suspects of the Melbourne arson attack. The opposition criticises the government for not addressing antisemitism in Australia.
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00:00Well, we know that this fire at the synagogue in Melbourne's southeast has certainly created
00:07a heightened amount of concern amongst the Australian Jewish community.
00:12Of course, we know that the motive of that fire is still under investigation by police,
00:17but the Prime Minister has said that this is clearly an act of anti-Semitism.
00:22We have heard from the opposition in the last little while, from the Shadow Home Affairs
00:28Minister James Patterson.
00:30Now, he has certainly ramped up the Coalition's criticism of the government in regards to
00:36their response to this incident, but also to the response to anti-Semitism more generally
00:42in Australia.
00:44He says that this attack is one of the worst attacks against the Australian Jewish community
00:51that has ever been recorded.
00:54He says that the Prime Minister has some very serious questions to answer.
00:59One of those is whether or not the National Security Committee of Cabinet has been convened
01:04following this fire, but also he says that this incident needs to be declared an act
01:09of terrorism.
01:10Here's what he had to say.
01:11Why has he and his government so far refused to categorise this act as an act of terrorism?
01:19Certainly the Australian Jewish community feels like this was an act of terrorism.
01:23They feel terrorised, they feel like this was an act of terror and it is very difficult
01:28to understand what else we should call two men in the middle of the night seeking to
01:33set on fire a synagogue while there were Jews praying inside as anything other than an act
01:38of terrorism.
01:39But if the Prime Minister is in possession of information that leads him to a different
01:43conclusion then he should stand up today and he should explain why he thinks this is not
01:47an act of terror.
01:50Now also James Patterson says that the opposition has requested a briefing from the Australian
01:55Federal Police following that incident in Melbourne, but he says that that request for
02:02that briefing hasn't been accepted by the Federal Government at this stage.
02:06And Monty, this incident is also getting some international attention.
02:10We've heard from Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
02:13What's he had to say about it?
02:15Yes, certainly these comments from Israel's Prime Minister overnight have certainly created
02:23a bit of a buzz here in Canberra.
02:27We have seen him link this Melbourne synagogue fire to Australia's vote at the United Nations
02:35earlier this week.
02:36Now we saw of course Australia vote with 156 other countries around the world demanding
02:43Israel rapidly end its occupation of the Palestinian territories.
02:49Now Benjamin Netanyahu says that this attack in Melbourne is impossible to separate from
02:57what he calls an extreme anti-Israel position held by the Labor Government here in Australia.
03:05The opposition, through James Patterson, says that the relationship between Australia and
03:12Israel has been trashed by Labor.
03:15But this morning we have seen senior members of the government out reaffirming the relationship
03:21between the two countries.
03:23We saw Federal Cabinet Minister Murray Watt say that he respectfully disagrees with those
03:29comments by the Israeli Prime Minister.
03:32Also we heard from Mark Butler, the Health Minister.
03:36He says that he is very proud of the relationship between Australia and Israel.
03:41Here's what he had to say.
03:43This firebombing of the synagogue is only the most recent of a long chain of anti-Semitic
03:49acts that have been happening here in Australia that I and other members of the government
03:53have called out.
03:54I will point out that our Prime Minister spoke with the Israeli President, President Herzog,
03:59yesterday and they had a very productive discussion about the shared values we have to combat
04:06this appalling rise in anti-Semitism.
04:11We've already got a range of things that we've been doing since the 7th of October attacks.
04:16In response to this criticism from the opposition, the government says that their position and
04:22the Australian position is very clear.
04:24There is a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism here.
04:28So certainly we'll see how the debate continues to unfold.