Government pledges legislative change after Bondi attack
RADIO HOST:
The State and Federal governments, along with the Territory governments have announced immediate action on gun laws in the wake of the Bondi killings, as law enforcement reveals one of the gunmen was on the terror radar. Mark Dreyfus is an MP for the Melbourne seat of Isaacs, a Jewish member of the government and former Attorney General. Mark Dreyfus welcome back.
MARK DREYFUS:
Thank you very much for having me on Mel.
RADIO HOST:
You were appointed a Special Envoy for International Human Rights last month. How do you reflect on the rights of Jewish people in Australia and around the world at this moment?
MARK DREYFUS:
What we experienced on Sunday at Bondi was an extraordinarily distressing event for the Australian Jewish Community. It was a distressing event for all Australians. I went to Bondi yesterday, and what I saw at Bondi yesterday was the real Australia. The thousands of people who are, well even as we speak, people are continuing to turn Bondi into a sea of flowers and a sea of love. I didn't experience hatred at Bondi yesterday. What I heard was grief and love and compassion. I heard people talking about the heroic police who ran to danger, and I'd like to mention, Constable Scott Dyson and Constable Jack Hibbert, the two police who are still in hospital, for their heroism. People talked about the lifesavers who sheltered people on the beach and about the surfers who carried injured people on their boards and people were talking about the thousands of Australians queueing for hours, right across the country, to donate blood. That's the Australian people. That's what's happening here. We've got the Australian people embracing the Jewish Community, wrapping their arms around the Jewish Community, but it has been an extraordinarily distressing event.
RADIO HOST:
How do you marry that display of goodwill and support, with the pain and the fear that is there for Jewish families today?
MARK DREYFUS:
That's why the government has been saying so clearly that we need to do more, calling on everyone in the Australian community to unite. I know that this kind of act of hatred might be meant to divide us, but it will fail. It's failed before. The Australian people are going to unite to reject hatred, and that's what Jewish people can, around Australia, can see. It has been an appalling event. It's much worse than anyone's worst nightmares. It's the event that we in the Jewish community feared, this murder of fifteen of our community, celebrating Hanukkah. It's unimaginable that it has happened, but it has happened, and Australians are rising to support the Jewish community, as indeed, is the government. Of course, we can do more. We will do more.
RADIO HOST:
National Cabinet met yesterday afternoon, and we've seen a signal of a move towards tougher gun laws. Is that the right priority for action at this point in time, in your view?
MARK DREYFUS:
It's one of the things that we can do. It’s obvious to people that having six guns, possibly rapid firing, in your possession is more than anyone could want, and so, for National Cabinet to meet yesterday and say right away, we think we should require citizenship to get a gun licence, and we think there should be more limitations on the number of guns- they seem obvious reforms. We've got an agreement by National Cabinet, by the premiers, and the Prime Minister, to strengthen Australia's already strict gun laws. This is building on the work that I did as Police Minister, that the Prime Minister did in the last term, to implement a National Firearms Register across the country, something promised after the Port Arthur Massacre back in 1996, which hadn't been achieved, but we achieved at the end of 2023. There's more to be done, but that's an example of not resting, not saying, “oh, well that's too hard” but saying “it's not too hard, we're going to make these reforms, we're going to keep acting to make our already strict gun laws, even stricter”, and I think that's apparent to all Australians.
RADIO HOST:
Some in the opposition have said that a crucial issue in this case is not gun laws, but immigration, given that one of the assailants was not an Australian citizen. Do you think that immigration is a key issue in this?
MARK DREYFUS:
I think that we should resist quick answers like that. I’d take a lot of convincing to say “immigration”, I don't even know what people are saying there. I think that we should be looking more at what further steps we can take with the settings in our criminal law. In in the last term, we criminalised doxing, we criminalised the Nazi salute, we toughened our hate speech laws, we gave massive increases in funding for Jewish Community security. These are all practical measures, direct measures, that are worth considering. We've now got Jillian Segal’s report, some of which is already underway, which is work with universities, work with schools on curriculum to deal with anti-Semitism, because the one thing that is absolutely clear is that we've got to resolutely, as an entire community, turn our face against Jew hatred and anti-Semitism. That's the thing that needs to be worked on and just broad level slogans, almost, saying “let's do something about immigration”, I challenge that, because what we need to do is practical measures, working on the oldest hatred that has sadly been with us for thousands of years, and everyone in the Jewish Community knows that. We can do more but let's resist cheap slogans.
RADIO HOST:
Mr. Dreyfus, you mentioned there the report by Jillian Segal. The government hasn't officially given a response yet or formally committed to adopting all of the recommendations. Is that something the government should do?
MARK DREYFUS:
Jillian Segal herself gave some interviews yesterday where she explained that many aspects of her report, a lot of which is directed at the wider community, are already being acted on. She said, very directly, that blame's not a very useful sentiment, that's what Jillian said, and then she said, what we need to do now is work together and accelerate the plan, and of course, that's right. Many of the recommendations are directed not at the Federal Government, but at other sectors of the Australian community. We need to tackle hate wherever we see it. I'm looking forward to more work being done with the universities, Jillian Segal herself has embarked on that. I'm looking forward to work being done on school curriculums. People have talked about further changes to our hate speech laws. Of course, if the already tough hate speech laws that I brought to the parliament in 2024 are not enough, because people see hate speech still occurring, and there's no prosecutions, then we have to keep looking at whether the settings are right.
RADIO HOST:
Yeah, I understand that there haven't been prosecutions under those laws, is that right?
MARK DREYFUS:
As I understand it, there have been some prosecutions, but whether or not the charges are being laid under the Commonwealth laws or under state laws, I couldn't directly say, I haven't been in office since May.
RADIO HOST:
All right, Mark Dreyfus, we are running out of time but thank you very much for joining me on Radio National Breakfast.
MARK DREYFUS:
Thank you for giving me the time.
Government pledges legislative change after Bondi attack - ABC listen
