New hate speech laws have passed the House of Representatives after the government agreed to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for certain offences. Political reporter Olivia Caisley has more.
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00:00The Hate Crimes Bill has passed its first hurdle through the House of Representatives.
00:07It still needs to go through the Senate for it to become law, but essentially what's on
00:12the table here is minimum jail time for terror offences, so six years for those, three years
00:19for financing terror and one year for displaying hate symbols.
00:24As we know, the Albanese government has been under enormous political pressure over its
00:29response to anti-Semitism.
00:31The Coalition, they contend that the government has been much too slow to respond to a spate
00:37of anti-Semitic attacks.
00:38It's ultimately in this febrile political environment that just two weeks ago, the Coalition
00:44announced that should it win the next election, it'll introduce these minimum terms for terror
00:50offences.
00:51Originally, Anthony Albanese was resistant to do so.
00:55Traditionally, Labor has been opposed to mandatory minimum jail terms over questions
01:00regarding their effectiveness, but late last night, Federal Labor moved to introduce this
01:07very legislation.
01:08It was quietly introduced in an overflow chamber.
01:12Mr Albanese was quizzed on ABC News this morning regarding this apparent backflip.
01:19He says these laws are really important to protect the Jewish community and he's calling
01:24on the rest of parliament to give them the green light.
01:27And Olivia, separately, as we've just been discussing with John Lyons, the opposition
01:31leader Peter Dutton has described Donald Trump as a big thinker after he revealed his radical
01:37proposal to take over Gaza and remove millions of Palestinians from the region.
01:43Both Australian leaders have responded to those developments in Washington yesterday
01:47now.
01:48Yes, so there was some praise there from the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, describing
01:52him as a dealmaker, but he didn't implicitly endorse Donald Trump's plan announced yesterday
01:59to great surprise to, you could say, the international community.
02:03Ultimately, Mr Dutton telling 2GB this morning that he believes that Donald Trump's comments
02:10were about his desire to bring peace to the Middle East.
02:14The White House, notably, as we've heard this morning, has walked back some of that commentary
02:19saying that ultimately Palestinians would be temporarily relocated rather than permanently
02:25displaced.
02:26And he also said no decision had been made about sending US troops.
02:31We did hear from Mr Dutton early on 2GB and here's a snippet of that conversation.
02:37What I'd say about President Trump, and I think a lot of people realise this, but I
02:41think a lot of coming to grips with it as well, is he's a big thinker and a dealmaker.
02:47He's not become the President of the United States for a second time by being anything
02:52other than shrewd.
02:53You've seen it in his business life.
02:55And the art of the deal is incredibly important to him, that both sides of the deal are contributing,
03:02that nobody's ripping each other off.
03:04And I think there's a desire for peace here from every reasonable person and hopefully
03:11it can be achieved.
03:13Anthony Albanese was asked about this controversial commentary from Australia's biggest ally,
03:19and he said that the government's position hasn't changed.
03:23We support the same position today that we did yesterday morning and the day before.
03:30Our position has been longstanding and bipartisan.
03:33Two states in the region, the state of Israel having the right to exist and recognised by
03:39the states around it, living in peace and security, and the right of Palestinians to
03:44live in their own state as well.
03:47That's our longstanding position.
03:49It remains our position.
03:52As we know, Parliament is sitting and security has been a major political flashpoint over
03:57the course of this week.
03:59Yesterday we heard Anthony Albanese being peppered with questions about when he was
04:04briefed or found out about the discovery of a caravan packed with explosives, which police
04:09do believe was intended to target Jewish Australians.
04:12Ultimately, the Coalition contends that it took about 10 days for the Prime Minister
04:18to be briefed on this.
04:19When asked, Mr Albanese has neither confirmed nor denied that claim, citing operational
04:25reasons for not revealing that timeline.
04:29We could get a bit more detail about that later today when the Australian, I should
04:33say, Federal Police Commissioner, Rhys Kershaw, appears before a parliamentary committee.