CHRIS TAYLOR, HOST: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, joins me now. Good morning, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.
TAYLOR: This is not the kind of event any Prime Minister would want to occur on their watch.
PRIME MINISTER: It certainly is not. It's not the kind of event, more importantly, that any Australian wants to happen here. It is not who we are. We are overwhelmingly a nation that embraces tolerance and respect for each other. And this act of antisemitism, this terrorist atrocity that occurred down there at Bondi, at one of our most iconic locations as well, is really shocking for all Australians. But I must say that at the worst of times, we are seeing the true Australian character come through with everyone helping out in their own way. Yesterday there were massive queues across Sydney by people wanting to donate blood. There were neighbours reaching out to neighbours. The floral tributes at Bondi, when I went down there pretty early in the morning, I think I was the fifth or sixth person to place a floral tribute. But I noted on the news last night you could see that there were many, many hundreds had done just that, just wanting to show love rather than hate.
TAYLOR: Yesterday you called a National Cabinet to discuss reforming our nation's gun laws. I'll get to that in just a moment, but first, you've also been receiving briefings by national security officials on the background of the two perpetrators, the father and son. Are you 100 per cent confident that they were acting alone?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the advice that we receive, you can't be 100 per cent at times like this, just a short period of time after these events. The investigation is ongoing, but it would appear that the advice we receive was that these two acted alone, that they hired a place in Campsie to essentially stage this terrorist act in Bondi. Clearly it was well planned. They clearly had thought through the positioning of where they would be on that bridge to give them a higher position than the people that they were seeking to harm. And this was a meticulous, calculated, cold blooded attack. Now, the investigations will of course continue. Those investigations are being led, of course, by NSW Police, but through the Joint Counter Terrorism Team. They involve not just the Australian Federal Police, but also our agencies, ASIO, who look after domestic security and ASIS, who look after our international issues. And we are certainly reaching out to Five Eyes partners, our security partners internationally as well, to see precisely if there are any links there. Those investigations will continue and we'll continue to inform Australians as those investigations proceed.
TAYLOR: We've heard that the younger of the two gunmen, the son who's still in a coma in hospital, Naveed Akram is his name. He was investigated in 2019 for links with ISIS or Islamic State. A lot of people are asking why was he not considered a threat or being monitored, given his history with ISIS?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I obviously wasn't Prime Minister in 2019. The advice that we've received, though, is ASIO investigated him, found that he wasn't subject to ongoing monitoring. They interviewed him, they interviewed his family members, they interviewed people around him. He was drawn to their attention because of his association with others. Two of the people he was associated with were charged and went to jail, but he was not seen at that time to be a person of interest. Now, whether he was radicalised further after that, what the circumstances are, that's the subject of further investigation.
TAYLOR: Prime Minister, we've been hearing a lot from the Jewish community that they're shocked, but not all that surprised by this attack. Do you feel you've done enough to counteract antisemitism in this country?
PRIME MINISTER: We're doing what we can. It would appear that this was motivated by Islamic State ideology. The ideology that has been around for more than a decade that led to this ideology of hate, and in this case, a preparedness to engage in mass murder. We are working as hard as we can. Antisemitism, tragically, has been around for a long period of time. We have been the first government to legislate for hate symbols, for Nazi symbols, for hate speech. We have established an envoy on antisemitism. We have appointed a National Student Ombudsman to look after those issues. We have a program as well into schools - that has been the first one that's been established as a result of those recommendations. We have been working as hard as we can engaging with Jewish community leaders. But antisemitism, of course, has been around for a very long period of time - that's the point. Islamic State is an ideology that, tragically, over the last decade, particularly since 2015, has led to a radicalisation of some people to this extreme position, and it is a hateful action. We have established a National Hate Crimes Register - that wasn't there before. We're screening visa applicants for antisemitism. We'll continue to work with the community to do what we can to stamp out. We want to eradicate antisemitism. That is the objective here.
TAYLOR: Are there any regrets about not adopting some of the recommendations of the Segal report sooner? I know hindsight's a wonderful thing, but in hindsight we would earlier adoption of some of those recommendations have stopped something like Sunday night?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have been rolling them out, but quite clearly it is the case that, we adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. I've made it clear that that's my government's position. There wasn't an antisemitism envoy before our government established one. And antisemitism didn't begin in 2022. And the fact that, as you've just said to me, these people were investigated. The younger man was, the son was investigated in 2019 is one of the indications of that.
TAYLOR: Let's get to gun laws now. The National Cabinet met yesterday to talk about tightening Australia's national gun laws. What are you looking at? What are you proposing?
PRIME MINISTER: We want to accelerate the work on standing up the National Firearms Register. That wasn't in place prior to the end of 2023. And what that's about is making sure that we avoid the situation that occurred in Queensland, where the states across boundaries weren't talking to each other. There wasn't a national system, indeed, some state governments still have paper processes for registration of firearms. So, it's impossible to check if you don't have a digitised system, and so we're accelerating that. That's a more than $160 million program. More than $100 million has been provided to states and territories which is where guns are registered through to enable them to digitise their system. And the agreement yesterday from state and territory First Ministers was to accelerate that process. We want to, in addition to that, allow additional use of criminal intelligence to underpin firearms licencing. We want to look at, and consider limiting, the number of firearms to be held by any one individual. The father in this –
TAYLOR: To what number?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that is being looked at by the NSW and the WA Premier to coordinate and to come back to National Cabinet. We know though that common sense tells me, and I'm sure your listeners, why has someone in Bonnyrigg got six firearms? Because they're a member of a local gun club? That seems on the face of it to just not stack up to common sense. So limiting open ended firearms licencing as well, and the type of guns that are legal. In addition to that we're looking at what can do as well to tighten some of the customs restrictions as well on what can come into the country, given the development of new technology such as 3D printing, for example.
TAYLOR: And is it true you're also looking at a proposal that only Australian citizens can own a firearm?
PRIME MINISTER: We are. I think, it seems to me, that would be a sensible change when we discussed it yesterday, that's one of the things that will be considered by the Premiers and Chief Ministers and I hope that it receives support.
TAYLOR: You've been around politics long enough to know whenever there is a suggestion of gun law reform, there's always a fairly strong gun lobby to resist it. Are you ready for the fight?
PRIME MINISTER: I am absolutely ready for the fight. These are common sense changes that we discussed yesterday. Chris Minns and Roger Cook, as NSW Premier, obviously is front and centre here, in WA, Premier Cook is going to be the head of the Council of Australian Federation. They rotate who the chair is, essentially who the boss of the Premiers are at any time. So that's why he's taking that role. But it's important that NSW not just act alone because the system is only as strong as its weakest link. And if you have NSW laws tightened but not changes made in all of the other states and that won't be as effective as it can be, which is why I brought together National Cabinet.
TAYLOR: Prime Minister, it's been a challenging week for you, I'm sure, but I thank you for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Chris. And just to all of your listeners out there, the people who are reaching out to neighbours and strangers alike with words of comfort, thank you for what you're doing. This needs to be a moment where our nation comes together and that is something I know that people want to see.
TAYLOR: Indeed.