HAMISH MACDONALD, HOST: The Prime Minister is here this morning. Welcome back to 702 Mornings for the start of the year.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Hamish, and welcome back to yourself.
MACDONALD: Thank you very much. And we are looking to chat to you about the fish markets a little later in this conversation, I know you grew up just down the road. But let's start with these laws going before Parliament. We understand you spent the weekend negotiating with the opposition on the hate speech dimensions. Where does that stand this morning? What support do you have for which dimensions of the laws?
PRIME MINISTER: Well we will have a meeting this morning. Today in Parliament will be the condolence motion to pay our respects to the 15 Australians who tragically lost their life in the antisemitic terrorist attack on December 14th. And then tomorrow we'll deal with the legislation. As you said in your intro, the provisions, there are four parts of the original bill, two of them will pass with the support of The Greens. That's about getting weapons off our streets and dealing with gun reform, really sensible reform. The other laws go to migration. Greater power for the Minister to cancel visas, or to not allow visas on character grounds. But also provisions as well about organisations such as the neo-Nazi organisations and Hizb ut-Tahrir and other organisations that promote hate to be able to give the authorities the power to deal with them.
MACDONALD: So, just to help listeners understand exactly what you'll be able to do, because the anti-vilification components of this have now been taken out, but you would look to ban organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir, for example. On what grounds?
PRIME MINISTER: On the grounds that at the moment that what they've done is sail pretty close to the wind. They've used the laws, in that they haven't explicitly broken laws, they haven't called for violence - but some of what they have done, of course, leads to people to have those approaches as well. So, this is a complex area of law. The racial vilification elements were things that were recommended by the Envoy on Antisemitism. The opposition said that they supported the Antisemitism Envoys report and wanted it implemented in full. But when it came to us presenting the laws, they walked away from them. That's up to them to explain why they did that.
MACDONALD: Yeah, we understand there's some politics to it, but I suppose I suspect listeners are really interested in the substance of this. When you describe what Hizb ut-Tahrir does or refer to it, I would imagine a lot of that would fall pretty neatly under the sort of racial vilification terminology. So if that's not there, but you might ban the organisation, technically, what would you be saying to them? Why are you banned?
PRIME MINISTER: The truth is that getting rid of the racial vilification laws makes it more difficult. But we'll be banning them because they're an organisation which promote hatred as an organisation as part of their ideology. And we need to -
MACDONALD: Some other countries have gotten rid of Hizb ut-Tahrir, already banned them some time ago. Should we have done that earlier?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, but the law didn't allow us to do so - which is why we are doing that, precisely. We list, as terrorist organisations, a range of explicit organisations such as Hezbollah. That makes it illegal for the display of Hezbollah flags for people to be members or engage with Hezbollah. But this organisation that essentially has a very dangerous ideological position, promotes extremism, at the moment, has been allowed to continue to exist for a number of years. We want to have the power to be able to list it and to outlaw it. And I think that is a common sense position that I hope receives the support of the Parliament.
MACDONALD: Obviously you've received a lot of criticism over the last month or so in the wake of the Bondi attacks. And part of that is to do with the government's response to the Segal Review, which was handed down last July. Part of that is also to do with your initial position of not calling a royal commission. I wonder if, whether you had your time again, whether you could have done anything differently either this summer or over this last sort of six-seven months in relation to these issues. Do you reflect on it in that way?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, on the Segal Review, we tried to implement it and the Liberals and the Nationals and One Nation and The Greens have all said that they'll oppose what was a key recommendation, a key part of it. On the processes that occurred, I think that your listeners would be conscious that after December 14, in the days immediately afterwards, our priority was working with the security agencies. Was this a part of a cell that would lead to other terrorist attacks in Sydney or other places around Australia? What were the networks? Who was involved? Were they connected with overseas? Keeping people safe - that was absolutely our priority. And unlike previous national crises such as the Lindt Siege or Port Arthur or the Bali Bombings, what we saw was an immediate politicisation of this issue and I think that is very unfortunate that that occurred. What my focus was on was keeping people safe and doing what we needed to do. So establishing immediately, Dennis Richardson, to do the review of the security agencies. Were there any gaps? Was there proper communication between the Commonwealth and State police and intelligence organisations? What changes do we need to make there?
MACDONALD: Can I take it from what you're saying, Prime Minister, no regrets, no reflection on the sequence of events around this from you?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this was an unprecedented terrorist attack and could you, if you had your time again, would you do everything exactly the same? Of course you wouldn't. But you're dealing with a real crisis in real-time and dealing with it in the context of people immediately, the day afterwards, saying a politicisation of it, including suggesting that the government's recognition of two states was somehow connected up with this. This was an ISIS inspired attack by two individuals -
MACDONALD: Can I ask you about that? Did that take you by surprise somewhat? Like we were down there broadcasting this program from Bondi the morning after, and immediately we started to hear that criticism of you, of your government, of Penny Wong. Not from politicians, from members of Sydney's Jewish community. Did that take you by surprise, the visceral reaction?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh look, I think that, I have every respect for members of the community who were traumatised, who there has been a rise in antisemitism, not just in Australia but around the world. And one of the things that I've done is, is not with TV cameras and radio hosts, go into people's homes, sit down, listen to their concerns, responded to their concerns, treat them respectfully and engaged in that. I think that the issues of the Middle East, of course, are complex. They have been around for a long period of time, not since 2022 - since I was elected, and they provoke very strong views across the board. What my concern is for the ramping up of issues by politicians is my concern and that made it more difficult to respond.
MACDONALD: I think we can hear Toto in the background. I suspect it's not a happy morning for Toto with everything that’s going on there.
PRIME MINISTER: It's my security arriving. She knows that they take me away so she is not happy when they come. So, my apologies.
MACDONALD: No, no, that's all right. Just to let listeners know that's what they can hear in the background. Reports this morning that US President, Donald Trump has invited you to join this so called, Board of Peace, overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza. Can you confirm you've received that invitation?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we've received correspondence from the President that arrived, I think, last night. That's something we haven't had time to consider. We'll consider all of these approaches respectfully and through our proper processes.
MACDONALD: So to be clear, you are open to joining it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I haven't looked in detail at it. I've been focused on what we're doing today and tomorrow in the Parliament. Something has come in, my understanding is, overnight and I'll have a look at that when I'm in the office this morning. But I'm not going to respond to something that I haven't had the opportunity to give proper consideration to.
MACDONALD: We're talking to you this morning from Sydney's new Fish Market. How far down the road did you grow up, PM?
PRIME MINISTER: I grew up on Pyrmont Bridge Road, Camperdown. So if you just go under the bridge there, which is now the light rail line, and keep going down the bottom of the hill there through Glebe, you hit the, what's still public housing there in Camperdown on the left side opposite where the old Children's hospital was. So, I used to catch the 459 bus to school every day into the city there and spent a lot of my time, of course around there. My life revolved from Camperdown into the city there. We didn't have a car and so I'm very familiar with that site. And my son went to the Blackwattle School there at the old Glebe High School that's now called Sydney College, went to year 11 and 12 there. He did his HSC just next door to the new Fish Market. So it's quite an exciting development.
MACDONALD: It's pretty flash. I was going to say you probably wouldn't recognise it from your student days. Are you one of these people that bemoans the gentrification, the huge changes, the big development? Or do you celebrate it?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, change happens and we need to make sure that change happens in the right way. But more people having the opportunity to live close to the city is a good thing. I think the old Fish Markets are going to be developed into housing - that's a great thing. The inner city has changed since when I grew up there where Glebe and Camperdown were mainly public housing tenants there with the big estate that Tom Uren, my mentor, helped save when they were going to put a road through the whole thing. But the Fish Markets, I'm sure will be, I'm really looking forward to seeing it. I used to go down to the old Fish Markets, spend many a Sunday lunch with my mum. It was a place where you could go and get a cheap feed as a big day out.
MACDONALD: All right, Prime Minister, we'll let you get to business and looking after Toto before the security detail takes you away. Thank you very much. We'll look forward to talking to you through the year.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Hamish.