Anti-Semitic attacks: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls national cabinet meeting over deepening crisis

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has caved to pressure and convened an urgent national cabinet meeting to tackle the escalating anti-Semitism crisis, after a Sydney childcare centre was vandalised and set alight.

Following weeks of resisting calls from the Coalition, the peak Jewish body, and his own hand-picked anti-Semitism envoy — while saying people don’t want “more meetings, they want to see more action” — Mr Albanese met with state and territory leaders on Tuesday evening.

The first ministers announced they would establish a national database to “track anti-Semitic crime and other incidents and behaviours”, stating the purpose would be to “better inform and coordinate responses to anti-Semitic incidents”.

It falls short of pleas from the PM’s handpicked anti-Semitism envoy Jillian Segal, who called for a national cabinet meeting to coordinate a nationwide crackdown of bail and sentencing laws for hate crimes and on Tuesday said she wanted “any outcome that leads to meaningful legal reform”.

Mr Albanese had called the meting after visiting the Only About Childcare centre in Maroubra, which was graffitied with “f... the Jews” and set on fire shortly before 1am on Tuesday, an act the PM denounced as a “horrific attack beyond belief”.

NSW Premier Chris Minns described the attack on the childcare centre as “completely disgusting” as he visited Maroubra with the Prime Minister. “These bastards will be rounded up by New South Wales Police,” he warned.

The childcare attack marked the latest in a series of hate crimes against Jewish people this summer, including the terror attack on a Melbourne synagogue, attempted arson at another Sydney synagogue, the firebombing and vandalising of the former home of a prominent Jewish community leader, and a spate of other incidents.

AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw — who briefed national cabinet — said in a statement that police were probing whether “overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia” in cryptocurrency to carry out some of the attacks.

Police are also looking into whether young people had been carrying out any of the attacks, and if they had been radicalised online. He called for public calm as police work to charge the people “demonising and intimidating” the Jewish community.

He said arrests had been made under Special Operation Avalite to target high-harm anti-Semitism and Operation Ardvarna to target the display of prohibited symbols and that “more are expected soon.”

The targeting of a childcare facility has appalled the nation and an already besieged Jewish community and spurred calls for a tougher response.

Last month, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry wrote to Mr Albanese asking for an urgent meeting of the national cabinet following the terror attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.

After his former home was firebombed and vandalised on Friday, ECAJ co-chief Alex Ryvchin warned the scourge of anti-Semitism would result in death if the PM didn’t take strong leadership.

The group welcomed news the meeting would finally take place, but lamented it had come in the wake of the child care centre attack.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who also made the request in a letter to the Prime Minister in November, stressed Tuesday’s meeting must produce “tangible outcomes” to deter illegal and racist behaviour against people of Jewish faith who were “living in fear.”

“We are having rolling terrorist attacks in our community, and the Prime Minister is being dragged kicking and screaming to hold a meeting of our nation’s leaders,” he told a rally of the Liberal Party faithful in the suburbs of northern Sydney.

Mr Albanese stopped short of labelling the Maroubra attack “domestic terrorism”, deferring to the police to make that call.

“There is no question that what this is aimed at is creating fear in the community,” he said.

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said Mr Albanese had been forced to convene a national cabinet only after 15 months when it “got completely out of control.”

“Now that the Prime Minister has finally stopped dragging his feet and called a national cabinet he must use the opportunity to drive coordinated national action to fix this domestic terrorism crisis targeting Jewish Australians,” he told The Nightly.

“Right now, the perpetrators of these acts of terror do not fear the consequences of their behaviour because federal and state governments have been too slow and too weak.

“The best time for strong leadership was 15 months ago but the second best time is now. I hope the Prime Minister doesn’t fail this test of leadership again.”

Mr Albanese had earlier left the door open to making legislative changes.

“The law isn’t something that’s stagnant. It’s something that must be consistently monitored to make sure that community standards are kept up,” Mr Albanese told 7NEWS.

“We will take advice this afternoon.”

On Monday, the Coalition said it would introduce minimum jail terms for acts of anti-Semitism if elected.

It pledged to introduce mandatory minimum sentencing of six years in jail for all acts of terrorism, as well as new provisions to make hate crimes to urge or threaten violence toward a place of worship punishable by five to seven years.

The plan would also result in a minimum 12-month sentence, up to five years, for the public display of prohibited Nazi symbols, prohibited terrorist organisation symbols, and giving the Nazi salute in public.

The Federal Government outlawed the Nazi salute and hate symbols at the end of last year.

On Tuesday, shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash said the PM should “immediately commit” to these measures and “tell Jewish Australians what his government and the state governments will do to protect them from future attacks.”

She said a national cabinet should have been convened last year and taken steps to address the worsening crisis.

“It is the ultimate in weakness to let a crisis run out of control for months before acting,” she said.

State political leaders refused to be drawn ahead of the cabinet over what further measures could be enforced to curb the rise of anti-Semitism.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli pledged a tough state crackdown to fight behaviour that was ripping down Australia’s moral fabric.

“My message to national cabinet is we must deal with it in the strongest possible terms and if that body doesn’t, well, then Queensland will,” he said.

Mr Minns reiterated on Tuesday he was prepared to strengthen hate speech laws, in addition to banning protests outside places of worship.

“If I need to strengthen the law in New South Wales, that’s exactly what I’ll do,” he said.

NSW Police Force Commissioner Karen Webb on Tuesday afternoon announced a further 20 investigators would be added to Strike Force Pearl, the state taskforce to counter anti-Semitism, doubling its capacity.

“This boost in resources allocated to Strike Force Pearl reflects the seriousness of these crimes and the importance of putting those responsible before the courts as soon as possible. These acts are despicable and have no place in our society,” she said.

Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, described the move to hold a national cabinet as “survival” rather than progress.

“Australia is on the brink of a moral reckoning, and the gathering of state and territory leaders is not just overdue—it’s an act of national triage to stop the bleeding before it’s too late,” he said.

He warned the cabinet could not just be “another talkfest,” but must be the start of an “uncompromising, unified offensive” against forces of hate that included nationwide legal reforms to make antisemitic crimes punishable by the harshest penalties.

The agenda must include “zero-tolerance enforcement that removes ambiguity, and a commitment to education so unyielding that no Australian grows up ignorant of the Holocaust or blind to the dangers of prejudice,” he said.

Elsewhere, the Prime Minister said the Federal and NSW Governments would finance the repair costs for the childcare centre and cover childcare payments while it was unusable.

Education Minister Jason Clare declared a childcare subsidy “period of emergency”, meaning the centre will continue to receive Commonwealth funding while it is out of operation to ensure workers keep getting paid.

It will also wave the gap fee for many families.

“Both of those measures will be placed for as long as it takes,” he said.

“What sort of a scumbag would attack a childcare centre? You’ve really got to ask yourself that question,” Mr Clare told a press conference.