00:00Federal police are essentially investigating whether overseas actors may have paid criminals
00:07in Australia to carry out some of these anti-Semitic attacks we've been seeing.
00:12The ABC understands that the Australian Federal Police strongly believes that some payments
00:18may have been made, but as to who's behind them and their motivation, that is still unclear.
00:24We do know, though, that authorities haven't yet found any links to foreign governments
00:29nor to any foreign terrorist organisation.
00:34There have been at least eight serious incidents of anti-Semitism over the past three months
00:39in Sydney and Melbourne, and at this stage there have been no links found between each
00:44of those.
00:45The Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Rhys Kershaw, has described this investigation
00:50as an incredibly complex one and ultimately says they're not ruling out anything at this
00:54stage.
00:56The AFP's investigative lines of inquiry are looking at whether some individuals have been
01:02paid to carry out some anti-Semitic acts in Australia.
01:07We believe criminals for hire may be behind some incidents.
01:13So part of our inquiries include who is paying those criminals, where those people are, whether
01:20they are in Australia or offshore, and what their motivation is.
01:27Sources have told the ABC that Commissioner Kershaw's mentioning there of overseas links
01:32has caused a bit of frustration in intelligence circles as well as state enforcement authorities.
01:38Ultimately though, we know the government's been under enormous pressure over this issue,
01:42both from the Coalition as well as the Israeli government, who argue that it's been too slow
01:47to respond and clamp down on these incidents of anti-Semitism.
01:52We did hear from the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, earlier today, and he essentially
01:56has called on the Prime Minister to be more forthright about the intelligence he's receiving.
02:02When did the Prime Minister find out that there were foreign players?
02:05Are these state actors or are they organised crime groups or are they anti-Semitic groups?
02:12What did the Prime Minister know?
02:14And frankly it just gives, shines a spotlight on the fact that the Commonwealth Government
02:19should have deployed resources much earlier to what is a rolling series of terrorist incidents
02:24in our country.
02:27And what reaction has there been from the community?
02:30Well essentially there's been calls for social cohesion.
02:32We saw a joint statement earlier today from the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils,
02:37Human Rights Watch and the Jewish Council of Australia.
02:40As you'll see here, they're calling on politicians not to politicise this issue.
02:45They say political leaders should condemn recent hate crimes and acts of discrimination.
02:50However, they should not seek to politicise racist attacks for political gain, nor should
02:54political leaders cause further community division or vilification in their response
02:59to attacks.
03:00Human rights protections should not devolve into a game of political point scoring.
03:05Now the government is going to consider legislation to crack down on hate speech when it returns
03:09to Parliament in February and these same groups have been arguing that any legislation
03:14puts forward that needs to be legitimate, necessary and proportionate.
03:18There is one caveat though to that sitting week, it won't happen of course if Anthony
03:22Albanese decides to call an election.
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