NSW Nationals refuse to support state gun reform
Penry Buckley
The NSW Nationals have indicated they will not support the government’s bill to reform gun control, splitting the Coalition on the changes.
In a statement, the Nationals leader, Gurmesh Singh, said the party “will not be supporting the legislation and will continue to stand up for the diverse communities of NSW who deserve better”.
Singh continued:
Last week, the NSW Nationals, alongside our Coalition partners, agreed to work in good faith with the Minns Labor Government on a bipartisan solution.
We had hoped to strengthen hate speech laws, illegal assembly laws, as well as review the settings on firearms laws, but bi-partisanship works both ways.
Not only has there been a clear lack of meaningful engagement with the opposition and crossbench, the Minns Labor government failed to consult key regional stakeholders including NSW Farmers and the Country Mayors Association.
We cannot support a bill that relies on arbitrary limits and doesn’t give our regional businesses the tools they need to do their jobs.
The proposed reforms would not have stopped last Sunday’s attack and fail to address the root cause of the issue – antisemitism.
The changes have been put together with changes to hate speech laws, and controversial restrictions on protests into a single bill, meaning the Nationals will be voting against the changes proposed after the Bondi Beach attack in their entirety.
Key events
Bowen defends state-level commission into Bondi attack and says federal government will cooperate ‘in every possible way’
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, was asked about the government’s response to the Bondi attack at the end of that press conference into the gas reservation policy, and specifically why they have not announced a federal royal commission.
Bowen said:
The right thing to is a thorough but sharp and quick review of the response of the policy settings and the approach of the relevant agencies. Dennis Richardson is the right man to do it. He won’t be holding back. Dennis Richardson knows that is a fiercely independent expert and he’ll be reporting quickly to government and that’ll enable us to get on with it.
Asked if the prime minister would give the proposed NSW royal commission access to federal law enforcement agencies, Bowen said:
The prime minister has indicated will be cooperating in every possible way. And, you know, obviously we’re talking to the New South Wales government, you know, when they release the terms of reference and what have you, there’ll be no doubt the federal government will cooperate with that.
Penry Buckley
State opposition leader includes pro-Palestine protests when talking about antisemitic actions that she says led to Bondi shootings
Sloane went on to name and pay tribute to each of the victims, including Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Australian Syrian man who tackled and wrested a gun from an alleged gunman, and a 14-year-old girl, Chaya, who was shot as she lay on top of two small children, protecting them from the bullets.
Sloane, who says she did not expect her first speech as NSW opposition leader to be a motion of condolence, drew a timeline of events leading up to last Sunday’s attack – and included pro-Palestine protests.
To anyone who believes that 14 December was unimaginable, it is because we have failed to hear the Jewish community. When Jews were told not to go to the Opera House on 7 October, when thugs were allowed to denigrate the steps of the Opera House and spew their hatred, we should have known then.
When students have been subjected to harassment and vile abuse on our university campuses, when Jewish parents have had to tell their children not to wear their Jewish uniforms, we should have known then.
She continued:
When protesters were allowed to descend on our city each week and scream ‘From the river to the sea’, ‘Globalise the Intifada’, we should have known then. When cars were firebombed, when neo-Nazis stood outside this parliament with a sign that said: ‘Abolish the Jewish lobby’, we should have known then. When hate becomes normalised in a nation, how can we possibly believe there is any outcome other than what we saw on last Sunday?
Penry Buckley
Kellie Sloane says ‘my community changed’ on 14 December
The NSW opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, has also spoken in favour of the motion of condolence for the 15 victims of the Bondi Beach attack.
Sloane, the local state member for Vaucluse, begins by saying, “On Sunday, 14 December, at 6.47pm, my community changed”:
Our country changed. On a summer evening filled with the laughter of children and music, beachgoers and families were coming together to celebrate the first night of Hanukah and enjoy the weekend.
It was happy and it was joyful. It was Bondi as we know it, our Bondi, the beach that is the embodiment of all that is good about Australia, our free spirit, our diversity and our optimism, a community that welcomes you with open arms no matter what your background.
In a matter of minutes, though, that Bondi was left shattered and the Jewish community’s worst fears were realised.
Penry Buckley
Minns goes on to name each victim, including the youngest, 10-year-old Matilda, who he describes as “a ray of light to everyone who’d met her”.
He also pays tribute to Marika Pogany, 82, who he says was given the New South Wales Mensch award for hand delivering 12,000 kosher Meals on Wheels over 20 years of service to the community.
And I ask you, what kind of malevolence could motivate a person to murder an 82-year-old Meals on Wheels volunteer, an elderly lady who loved her community and was looking for nothing but peace, the peace to celebrate her religion?
Minns thanks first responders, including lifesavers who ran barefoot towards danger, off-duty police officers who rushed to Bondi, and the two officers who were injured in the line of duty. He also pays tribute to doctors, nurses and blood donors.
The premier closes with a call to parliament to pass the legislation proposed today, saying “We must make these changes”:
I know I speak for all members of this Parliament, all members of this Parliament, when I say to the Jewish people of this state, this is your home, this has always been your home, and we must do everything we possibly can to ensure that you are safe and you are protected in this city.
Penry Buckley
Minns begins individual tributes to victims of Bondi shooting
Back in NSW Parliament, Chris Minns has led individual tributes to each of the victims of last Sunday’s attack, beginning with Boris and Sofia Gurman, who were killed in the terrorist attack after trying to stop one of the gunmen. He says:
Mr Speaker, eight days ago, Sofia and Boris German saw a black Isis flag on the windscreen parked along Campbell Parade at Bondi.
Now they could have easily edged away having seen the flag and put themselves in a position of safety. They were walking away from the Hanukah festival, but they didn’t do that. And instead, and despite the obvious danger, they tried to – without being armed themselves – disarm the gunman, and in the struggle, they became the first victims of this terrible crime.
With my wife, Anna, we met their sole surviving son, Alex last week, who spoke of his deep sense of gratitude that the footage of their final moments was in fact found so that he knew that they died heroes.
Sarah Basford Canales
Bowen says gas reservation policy will put downward pressure on prices
Returning to gas for a second – Chris Bowen says the cost of extracting gas is getting more expensive in Australia and that the policy is aimed at putting maximum downward pressure on prices.
The energy minister said new gas fields will be needed, given the depleting levels within the Bass Strait – which is around 12% – and that gas would be important moving forward to “calibrate and support renewables”.
He said:
The fundamentals of the market are such that gas is getting more expensive to extract in Australia, as the Bass Strait is declining that fundamental remains, but this is the way that the government can put the maximum downward pressure on prices by engineering a slight oversupply of Australian needs in relation to international counterparts.
Our economics editor, Patrick Commins, asks what the government will do in the interim about the affordability of household and industry gas prices. Bowen doesn’t quite address that but suggests there might be further responses.
Bowen said:
We’re doing it from today, in effect, to ensure that no further export contracts are entered into from today, regardless of when they might happen. That is insured, obviously, because this is a big reform, it is going to take a bit of detail to work through. We’ll do that expeditiously. This is not the only thing we’ve done. It’s not the only thing we will do, but this is a big thing.
Penry Buckley
NSW premier remembers ‘15 beautiful souls’ in motion of condolence
The NSW premier Chris Minns has moved a motion of condolence to the 15 victims of last Sunday’s attacks.
Speaking in favour of the motion to mourn for the victims of the attack on 14 December, extend sympathies to their families and friends and thank first responders for their bravery, Minns says:
We have returned to this house of parliament to acknowledge in one unanimous voice that we too are spent with grief after an hour of terror and a week of sorrow.
This morning, we remember 15 beautiful souls on Sunday, 14 December, victims of violent [anti-]Jewish hate, but in the course of their lives, wonderful, generous, big hearted members of our community, and it’s in that spirit that we mourn their death today, not by the evil that found them, but by the lives that they lived, the love that they gave, the good that they shared with us and the rest of the world.
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has taken four Origin Energy subsidiaries to the federal court for alleged breaches of the national energy retail rules and law.
In a media release today, the AER said the proceedings related to Origin allegedly continuing to receive payments from customers of the government bill-paying service Centrepay who had closed their accounts and had fully paid all amounts they owed.
You can read some background to the Centrepay issue here:
The AER said it would allege in court that Origin failed to inform these Centrepay customers about these overcharged payments or refund them within the timeframe required by the retail rules; that Origin knew its systems were processing payments in this way as early as 2017; and that it put on hold a previously approved process that could have prevented further payments from occurring.
More than 3,400 people were affected by Origin’s alleged conduct between December 2019 and March this year, with it allegedly resulting in more than 77,000 breaches and Origin retaining more than $2.5m from affected customers, including one customer who was allegedly overcharged by more than $11,000 over a period of almost 2 years, the AER said.
AER Chair Clare Savage said:
Many customers affected by this alleged conduct were likely experiencing economic vulnerability and could have otherwise used the money they were overcharged to spend on essentials.
The AER is seeking orders for pecuniary penalties, declarations, customer remediation, a compliance program and an independent review of such a program, and costs.
Ley’s response to Penny Wong suggestion on temperature: ‘I haven’t seen Penny Wong shed a single tear’
Sussan Ley has ended the press conference in Sydney, shouting in response to a question about whether she agreed with foreign minister Penny Wong’s suggestion this morning on RN that Australians needed to “take the temperature down”.
Ley said, her voice rising as she went on:
I haven’t seen Penny Wong on the streets of Bondi. I haven’t seen Penny Wong at the vigil for 15 innocent murdered Australians. I didn’t see Penny Wong at Bondi last night at the eighth night of Hanukah. I didn’t see Penny Wong attend a single funeral. I haven’t seen Penny Wong shed a single tear.
So maybe if more government members and ministers were like Mike Freelander and actually came to the streets of Bondi and listened and not just listened but heard heard the pain, heard the anguish, heard the call to action, we wouldn’t have the ridiculous remarks that she made this morning.
‘To hate Israel is to hate Jews’: Bridget McKenzie claims recognition of a Palestinian state played role in rising antisemitism
Deputy Nationals leader, Bridget McKenzie, said Albanese had “failed Jewish Australians” and claimed the Australian government’s recognition of Palestine played a role in rising antisemitism.
McKenzie said:
No one who’s been paying attention for the last two years is at all surprised that our beautiful country and this beautiful city has been hijacked as part of a global Islamic extremist terrorist campaign, a PR campaign that too many Australians signed up to in the name of compassion.
Australia formally recognised Palestine in September, following the UK and Canada. A two-state solution has long been bipartisan Australian foreign policy.
McKenzie said:
To hate Israel is to hate Jews. It that simple. Chants may seem meaningless on a beautiful summer’s day across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but prime minister, they are antisemitic, they fuel the hate, the Islamic extremism that is in our suburbs of our cities. And you cannot fix a problem, prime minister, if you are not prepared to name it.
We will know this prime minister is serious about tackling antisemitism when he names it for what it is … it’s Islamic extremism, and it’s in our suburbs. And for too long we’ve papered over that reality in some hope of, you know, this multicultural, multicultural nirvana. But it has failed. We are subject to terrorist attacks from Islamic State-inspired Australians. We can’t ignore that.
It’s been his tacit support, his equivalence of Islamophobia with antisemitism… antisemitism needs own space. It shouldn’t be joined in with other experiences of racism and hate.
She continued:
This recognition of Palestine, all of these, your government have brought this upon us. So we need a royal commission to actually uncover that and give our Jewish community and all Australians a chance to get the answers, because there are way many questions for us all and why this occurred.
Bowen announces gas reservation policy
Sarah Basford Canales
Chris Bowen has announced Australia will have a gas reservation policy preventing gas exports from going overseas unless the government is satisfied domestic demand is sufficient.
Speaking from Canberra now, the energy minister said there will be national reservation of 15% to 25%, subject to further consultation. It will apply to new contracts from today, not existing ones.
Bowen said:
Most Australians think that Australians should have first rights to the gas that’s under Australian soil, Australian waters, and that gas should be available to Australians at reasonable prices. And Australians are right about that.
Most Australians think it makes no sense that Australia can be one of the largest gas producers and exporters in the world, and yet we have report after report showing us that there are gas shortages for domestic use in coming years, and Australians are right about that as well.
Chris Bowen says the new gas policy will apply to gas contracts entered from today but will come into effect from 2027.
We have shortages forecast in coming years, not next year, but in years after that. And so it’s important that this policy start to operate. It will operate from 2027 but will apply from today in terms of any new contracts entered into by our gas companies.
NSW parliament resumes to rush through gun reform, hate speech and protest laws
Penry Buckley
NSW parliament has just resumed to vote on laws created in response to last Sunday’s attack at Bondi beach.
Parliament has been recalled for two days, today and tomorrow, to rush through gun control reforms, hate speech laws, and the controversial restrictions on protests in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The changes have been put together into a single bill.
The house speaker, Greg Piper, began with acknowledging the “extraordinary circumstances” that have seen MPs return:
I’m sure that this will be somewhat difficult for members for a number of reasons, so I’m not going to say it’s good to see you all back here, but I do wish you absolutely all the best as we go through this and into the holiday period.
Leeser joins criticism of Albanese over ‘half-measures’
Liberal MP Julian Leeser has been speaking at the Coalition press conference in Sydney.
Leeser praised Sussan Ley and NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane, particularly the latter, who he says “put herself in harm’s way and helped the many victims of the shooting that night” and whose actions he described as “heroic”. He also praised Minns for “[doing] something about” the issues.
Leeser then angrily criticised prime minister Anthony Albanese, saying the Jewish community had been subsisting on “the crumbs of this government” and fighting “his half measures”.
Leeser said:
We’ve put forward proposals in the parliament to improve the security of Australians. And he’s voted consistently against them. He’s dragged his feet. He’s claimed credit for things that were not his idea or that he did having been dragged kicking and screaming. And the community is sick and tired of it …
And rather than looking at the root causes of what caused those gunmen to pick up those weapons in the first place, that only a royal commission would get to, he calls for another departmental review.
Leeser reiterated the Coalition’s call to bring federal parliament back.
NSW Nationals refuse to support state gun reform
Penry Buckley
The NSW Nationals have indicated they will not support the government’s bill to reform gun control, splitting the Coalition on the changes.
In a statement, the Nationals leader, Gurmesh Singh, said the party “will not be supporting the legislation and will continue to stand up for the diverse communities of NSW who deserve better”.
Singh continued:
Last week, the NSW Nationals, alongside our Coalition partners, agreed to work in good faith with the Minns Labor Government on a bipartisan solution.
We had hoped to strengthen hate speech laws, illegal assembly laws, as well as review the settings on firearms laws, but bi-partisanship works both ways.
Not only has there been a clear lack of meaningful engagement with the opposition and crossbench, the Minns Labor government failed to consult key regional stakeholders including NSW Farmers and the Country Mayors Association.
We cannot support a bill that relies on arbitrary limits and doesn’t give our regional businesses the tools they need to do their jobs.
The proposed reforms would not have stopped last Sunday’s attack and fail to address the root cause of the issue – antisemitism.
The changes have been put together with changes to hate speech laws, and controversial restrictions on protests into a single bill, meaning the Nationals will be voting against the changes proposed after the Bondi Beach attack in their entirety.
Sarah Basford Canales
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, will hold a press conference in Canberra shortly alongside Tim Ayres, the industry minister, where it’s expected the government will unveil plans for an east coast gas reserve after a six-month review of the gas market.
We’ll bring you the latest when it happens.
Read more here:
Coalition say state royal commission into attack would have its ‘hands tied’ dealing with state matters
Shadow attorney general Andrew Wallace is speaking now, going into further detail about the Coalition’s justification for and preferred structure of a commonwealth royal commission.
Wallace says:
The prime minister himself may be wondering why a commonwealth royal commission is required as opposed to the state royal commission that the premier is considering.
The issues that we have experienced in this country since the 7th of October 2023 are multidimensional and multi-jurisdictional.
It is totally inappropriate and insufficient to simply have a state royal commission, which would effectively have its hands tied in dealing with state matters.
We know that there are likely to be have many failings as a result of what happened at Bondi, not the least which certainly are cross jurisdictions of our states territories and our Commonwealth.
The Coalition would like any commonwealth royal commission to be led by “at least three commissioners”, one from the Jewish community, one from law enforcement, and one “should be a current or former superior court judge”.
Ley says she will move to establish royal commission: ‘it’s up to Labor to decide’ if they support it
The prime minister’s refusal to call a commonwealth royal commission or “offer an unqualified apology” is “adding insult to the injury”, the federal opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has said.
Speaking in Sydney, Ley has been reiterating calls for a commonwealth royal commission, and says the Coalition has drafted its own terms of reference for one.
Ley said:
Australians are looking to you, prime minister. And so far you are letting them down … It requires humility and moral courage to accept responsibility and honestly deal with the failings over the last few years that have led [to] this rise in antisemitism, particularly since October 7th, 2023…
As a constructive opposition, we have listened carefully and I invite the prime minister to sit down with me immediately to refine and finalise these terms of reference so we can establish a royal Commission, a commonwealth royal commission before Christmas.
Now this is a good-faith offer to work together on a bipartisan basis to establish this very much needed commonwealth royal commission. But let me be very clear. Whenever the prime minister decides to bring the Parliament back and it should have been today, I will be moving in the House of Representatives to establish this commonwealth royal commission. Now it’s up to Labor to decide whether they support it or they don’t.
‘Come home!’ Israeli minister calls on diaspora Jews to move to Israel to escape antisemitism
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on Sunday for Jews in Western countries to move to Israel to escape rising antisemitism, one week after 15 were shot dead at a Jewish event in Sydney, AFP reports.
Saar said at a public candle lighting marking the last day of the Jewish festival of Hanukah, held with leaders of Jewish communities and organisations worldwide:
Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening, and we have a certain historical experience. Today, Jews are being hunted across the world.
Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!
Since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza in 2023 and the Hamas attack that precipitated it, Israeli leaders have repeatedly accused Western governments of failing to curb antisemitism in those countries.
On Tuesday, Israeli’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said:
I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide.
In October, Saar accused British authorities of failing to take action to curb a “toxic wave of antisemitism” following an attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in which two people were killed and four wounded.
We’re expecting the federal opposition leader, Sussan Ley, to speak to media shortly. We’ll bring that to you as it happens.