Asio says antisemitism is its ‘number one priority’
Krishani Dhanji
The Asio director general, Mike Burgess, is appearing at senate estimates this evening, where he has said that, for the first time, antisemitism has become the agency’s number one priority, in terms of threats to life.
Burgess said:
In terms of threats to life, it’s my agency’s number one priority because of the weight of incidents we’re seeing play out in this country.
I don’t believe we’ve done that in our history, certainly not in my six years as director general… It’s the volume of incidents that we are dealing with.
Burgess again urged the public to let the agency “do our job”, as pressure mounts for more action to be taken against antisemitic acts.
Senator James Paterson suggested investigations into incidents have taken a long time, but Burgess retorted the agency isn’t “sitting back”.
Burgess said:
Let us do our job, sometimes these investigations do take time. It’s not because we’re sitting back admiring the problem… [Investigations] require some capabilities to be put in place that allows us and police to do their job.
Key events
Daisy Dumas
Five hundred prominent Jewish Australians publicly decry Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal
Five hundred prominent Jewish Australians have taken out a full-page ad in today’s Sydney Morning Herald and the Age newspapers urging Australia to reject Donald Trump’s plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
The petition was organised by an independent collective of Jews and was signed by musician Ben Lee, actor Miriam Margolyes, lawyers Andrea Durbach, Robert Richter, Josh Bornstein and George Newhouse, disability commissioner Dr Rhonda Galbally, businessman Ron Finkel and award-winning authors Anna Fienberg, Eleanor Limprecht, Dennis Altman and Clare Wright.
The executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, was also a signatory.
She said the repression of Jewish dissenters was at an “all-time high” and that:
Publicly signing on to something like this is not easy.
The fact that so many were willing to sign their name, standing on the shoulders of our Jewish ancestors who stood up against injustice, shows that Jewish voices in support of Palestinians can no longer be ignored.
Josh Taylor
Inman Grant has also revealed during the Senate estimates hearing the difficulty the regulator had in getting responses from encrypted messaging app Telegram on what the app was doing to tackle terrorism and child abuse content.
Inman Grant fined Telegram nearly $1m earlier this week for taking more than five months to respond to a transparency request from her office.
Telegram has since answered all questions with no outstanding issues but Inman Grant said the delay had impeded her work in deciding to issue the fine.
Inman Grant told Senate estimates “they wouldn’t accept the notice” and, when asked where it should be sent, the company would not respond.
She said:
It was very sporadic, and frankly quite shady.
She said the company ultimately decided to engage with her office in late August last year.
The Telegram chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France in late August last year on charges of failing to curb extremist and terrorist content.
Telegram is appealing against the fine.
Josh Taylor
eSafety commissioner writes to generative AI companies trying to stop child abuse material
Australia’s online safety regulator has written to generative AI companies calling on them to take action on their technology being used by nudify-type apps that are being used to create child abuse material of school-aged girls in Australia.
There have been a spate of cases in Australia of apps that generate nude images of people being used by school students to create fake nude images of girls under 18.
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told Senate estimates on Tuesday she had written to generative AI providers “whose technology has been implicated in the creation of deepfake image-based abuse of under 18s in classrooms across Australia, enabling the creation of synthetic CSAM [child sexual abuse material] to the great detriment of these schoolgirls”.
She said:
We have let them know of their safety obligations and that we’ll take enforcement action in earnest.
Ben Smee
Queensland reports 12 deaths amid spike in tropical bacterial infection melioidosis
Public health authorities in north Queensland say there have been a “large number of deaths” – now 12 across the state – amid a spike in cases of melioidosis, a tropical bacterial infection.
Melioidosis is endemic in parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, where it is often contracted from contaminated soil. It can also be spread via water or the air.
There have been a record number of cases in the Queensland tropics since the start of the year.
In Cairns there have been 53 reported cases and 9 deaths since 1 January.
Most of those have been in the city’s “southern corridor”, a strip of suburbs extending to the south of the city.
There have also been three deaths in the Townsville area.
Case numbers have soared compared with previous years and authorities believe large amounts of rain could be a cause.
The Tropical Public Health Services director, Dr Jacqueline Murdoch, said:
The deaths are reflective of the cases. It’s a very severe disease and it has a very high fatality rate and we do have a large number of deaths now that is reflecting the large number of cases that we have.
Heavy rainfall can bring the disease-causing bacteria into surface water and soil.
We are yet to pinpoint exactly why we are seeing so many cases now, and there is likely to be many factors at play.
Murdoch said people in high-risk categories – people with diabetes, kidney or lung problems, or undergoing cancer treatment – should be aware of potential symptoms and present to hospital early.
Amanda Meade
ABC’s editorial director asked about use of term ‘genocide’ in relation to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza
ABC journalists may use the term “genocide” in relation to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza but they must also reference Israel’s denial that they are committing genocide, the ABC’s editorial director has told Senate estimates.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi asked if the ABC had changed its editorial guidance in relation to the use of the word “genocide”.
The public broadcaster’s editorial director, Gavin Fang, said:
I don’t believe we’ve actually changed our guidance on genocide, nor have we ever said that the term genocide could not be used.
What we’ve put in our guidance to staff is that it’s a highly contentious matter and that, by and large, on most occasions that you would, if you are reporting on allegations of genocide, you need to provide the other perspective on that.
Lisa Cox
Confusion over whether Labor will try again to establish national environment watchdog
There was a very confusing exchange in environment estimates overnight about whether a re-elected Albanese government would reintroduce laws to establish a national environment protection agency.
The Labor senator Tim Ayres initially made some clear remarks, telling Coalition senator Jonno Duniam “the legislation will not be reintroduced” and:
I think it would have been much better for the country if the Senate had engaged in a serious way with the government’s reform agenda but that legislation won’t be re-introduced.
And that opportunity for reform has been missed but of course there are still issues there that need to be resolved.
Duniam interpreted this as meaning the national “EPA is never coming back” but he was then told by another participant that was not what Ayres had said.
A confusing exchange ensued.
By the end it was unclear whether Ayres meant the very same bill that had been put to the parliament this term would not be reintroduced – but perhaps Labor would introduce different legislation for an EPA at a future date – or if the proposal for an EPA was off the table entirely.
We sought clarification from the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, who declined to provide a comment on record.
Ayres and environment officials told the estimates hearing that broad work on environmental reform – a much larger task than the single issue of an EPA – continued.
Duniam did try rephrasing his question to ask whether legislation to establish an EPA could be introduced in the next term of parliament and pressed Ayres to clarify whether he meant Labor would not reintroduce it at all.
To which Ayres replied:
What I said was the legislation that was before the parliament will not be reintroduced.
Labor senator Penny Wong has previously told the Senate the legislation that was before the parliament would not be reintroduced this term.
Andrew Messenger
Tens of thousands to be inconvenienced by bus strike, Brisbane council says
More than 75,000 residents of Brisbane would be inconvenienced if the bus drivers’ union goes ahead with planned strike action on Friday, according to their employer.
Brisbane city council is locked in negotiations with the Rail Tram and Bus Union.
Members walked off the job for two hours last week at 4am on Thursday but disruption was limited because the industrial action was so early in the day.
However, the council says plans by the union to strike between 4pm and 6pm on Friday – during afternoon peak hour – would affect about six times as many services.
The deputy mayor, Fiona Cunningham, said residents should plan for “traffic chaos”, accusing the union of holding the city to random.
Cunningham said:
Disrupting afternoon peak-hour could cause mass mayhem and people should expect significant impacts right across the network.
Bus union bosses aren’t just disrupting Brisbane residents heading home for the weekend.
They’re also disrupting thousands of people heading to Boondall to see one of the world’s biggest country music stars [Chris Stapleton] play to a sold-out crowd.
The strike only affects services contracted out to Brisbane city council, not other transport providers in south-east Queensland.
Amanda Meade
ABC regularly defends its journalists from Murdoch media queries, Senate estimates told
The ABC news director, Justin Stevens, has told Senate estimates that the ABC regularly defends its journalists from “multiple queries” from Murdoch outlets, including The Australian.
In a response to a question from Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Stevens said:
Despite the very small readership, we do engage and respond to a lot of their queries quite regularly, and we do defend the work of our journalists. Almost every week there’s multiple queries.
Having said that, as a public broadcaster, we must be subjected to scrutiny, and we must have a culture of accepting scrutiny and self-reflection where we get things wrong and be transparent about that.
ABC has spent $1.1m on external lawyers in Antoinette Lattouf case, Senate estimates told
Amanda Meade
The ABC has tried to settle out of court the Antoinette Lattouf unlawful termination case multiple times and has spent $1.1m on external lawyers so far, the broadcaster has told Senate estimates.
The acting ABC managing director, Melanie Kleyn, who is standing in for the outgoing managing director, David Anderson, said the ABC maintains “that it did not terminate” Lattouf.
Kleyn:
The ABC has tried on multiple occasions to settle the matter on a commercial basis without admission or liability.
We do understand this is an impost on public funds.
Kleyn announced the launch of Your Vote, Your Say across the ABC on Thursday before the federal election.
She said:
This initiative harnesses our unmatched network of reporters and radio programs – based in more than 60 locations across remote, regional and metro Australia – to make sure people’s voices are heard and their concerns are addressed.
Coalition senator James McGrath labels the Greens ‘racist’ and ‘antisemitic’
Coalition senator James McGrath has called the Greens a “racist, antisemitic political party” during a heated exchange in budget estimates.
McGrath got into a disagreement with the Greens senator Barbara Pocock after she accused him of “speaking over the top of women” during the estimates hearing.
Pocock accused McGrath of having referred to her as “antisemitic”, saying:
I am the only Greens senator in this room, and you have referred to me, and my party, as antisemitic.
It is a lie. It is not true and I insist that you withdraw it.
McGrath, a Queensland Liberal National party senator, said he had not described Pocock “personally” as being antisemitic or racist but he had described her political party in this way.
He was asked three times by the chair of the committee to withdraw his remarks but he refused.
McGrath said:
I am not withdrawing that the Greens are a racist, antisemitic political party. I am not withdrawing that.
Caitlin Cassidy
Mostyn defends appointment as governor general and says you need ‘diversity’ in career to understand role
Continuing from our last post: Sam Mostyn said she knows why people criticise her appointment but you “need diversity” in your career to understand the role, particularly one that has been defined by modernity.
When the term is governor general, and the word general is there, and it’s constitutional, and the history of this role is people who have often been generals … and done magnificent jobs …
There’s nothing here that says you have to be someone that has a military background or been a general elsewhere … but someone who in a modern sense has enough general skills and understanding to bring together the things this job uniquely gets to see, and reflect that back to those that need to hear it.