The Opposition Leader has rejected government claims he avoided briefings on the now-debunked caravan terror plot so he could "stoke fear." Peter Dutton says it is nonsense and he was kept up to speed through conversations with the head of ASIO.
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00:00The federal government has been pursuing opposition leader Peter Dutton over his response to the
00:07discovery of a caravan laden with explosives found alongside anti-Semitic material in Sydney
00:14in January.
00:15Police have now revealed that they believe that this was part of a fake terror plot by
00:20organised crime figures, but when it was discovered in January, it was on the back of a spate
00:26of anti-Semitic attacks, and at a time when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was under
00:31pressure from the Coalition and some Jewish community leaders to do more to stop the rise
00:36in anti-Semitism.
00:37And against that backdrop, opposition leader Peter Dutton pursued the Prime Minister over
00:42what he knew and when, when it came to the caravan, saying it was potentially one of
00:47the biggest terror acts in the nation's history, and calling for an independent inquiry into
00:53what the Prime Minister knew.
00:55Now, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke now says that Peter Dutton was conned by this
01:01plot and has even suggested that he avoided briefing so that he could continue to, in
01:06Tony Burke's words, stoke fear.
01:08Take a listen to what Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had to say earlier.
01:13They received a briefing right at the start, and as it developed and as Peter Dutton kept
01:17going, we kept publicly calling him out and saying he hasn't received a briefing.
01:23We could not have signalled it more deliberately and more loudly.
01:28Peter Dutton would have understood exactly what we were saying, and he didn't care.
01:32ASIO had publicly talked about lowering the temperature.
01:36We were publicly saying he should get a briefing from the Australian Federal Police.
01:40Peter Dutton made a decision to avoid the Australian Federal Police and to ignore the
01:45public advice of ASIO.
01:47Why did you allow the Jewish community to live in fear of the threat of a mass casualty
01:53terror event when you knew there wasn't?
01:57To do anything else and to get in the way of an operation from the police would have
02:02been deeply, deeply irresponsible.
02:07Peter Dutton has defended his comments.
02:09The opposition requested two briefings from security agencies in January.
02:14One was about the caravan plot.
02:16Mr Dutton didn't attend.
02:18He left that to his frontbench colleagues, and today, under questioning, sought to turn
02:22the spotlight back onto Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
02:25Take a listen.
02:26The thought that we didn't request a briefing is a complete and utter nonsense, and there
02:33is a home goal here by Tony Burke.
02:37I think the Prime Minister needs to answer questions about when he was advised of this
02:40being a hoax.
02:42The Premier of New South Wales, I know that New South Wales police advised at one point
02:47that the caravan and the explosives that were found in the caravan had the potential to
02:54have a 40 metre blast zone.
02:57So I just think Tony Burke here is trying to find political opportunity out of a national
03:02security issue, and frankly he should stand condemned.