Victoria police to carry semiautomatic rifles at Boxing Day Test
Victorian police forces will be armed with long-arm semiautomatic rifles at the cricket on Boxing Day, claiming this will be “an additional safeguard for the community.”
Victoria police said in a statement this morning that the decision was proactive and “based on the current threat environment and not a specific new threat”. It would involve officers from the Critical Incident Response Team patrolling outside the MCG for the five days play is scheduled. Police say the plan has the support of Cricket Australia and the Melbourne Cricket Club.
Police say the semiautomatic rifles “are part of their regular tactical equipment”.
The statement continues:
The increased presence is in addition to Victoria Police’s planned resources involving general duties police, Mounted Branch and the Public Order Response Team who will be roaming both inside and outside the ground.
The chief commissioner, Mike Bush, said:
This overt presence is about adding another layer of protection to make sure cricket fans feel safe.
It’s important to stress this is a proactive, precautionary measure based on the current threat environment and not a specific new threat to this event.
We know it’s unusual to see police with these weapons outside the MCG but I want to assure everyone this is about greater safety and providing reassurance to the community.
These deployments are part of our usual, broader effort which sees police and MCC security working in and outside the ground.
Be it at the cricket, or anywhere else people are spending the summer, Victoria Police is here for all Victorians.
As a modern, forward-thinking police force we should always be looking for new and different ways to be there for our communities.
Key events
Sarah Basford Canales
Chris Bowen has announced Australia will have a gas reservation policy preventing gas exports from going overseas unless the government is satisfied domestic demand is sufficient.
Speaking from Canberra now, the energy minister said there will be national reservation of 15 to 25%, subject to further consultation. It will apply to new contracts from today, not existing ones.
Bowen said:
Most Australians think that Australians should have first rights to the gas that’s under Australian soil, Australian waters, and that gas should be available to Australians at reasonable prices. And Australians are right about that. Most Australians think it makes no sense that Australia can be one of the largest gas producers and exporters in the world, and yet we have report after report showing us that there are gas shortages for domestic use in coming years, and Australians are right about that as well.
Chris Bowen says the new gas policy will apply to gas contracts entered from today but will come into effect from 2027.
We have shortages forecast in coming years, not next year, but in years after that. And so it’s important that this policy start to operate. It will operate from 2027 but will apply from today in terms of any new contracts entered into by our gas companies.
NSW parliament resumes to rush through gun reform, hate speech and protest laws
Penry Buckley
NSW parliament has just resumed to vote on laws created in response to last Sunday’s attack at Bondi beach.
Parliament has been recalled for two days, today and tomorrow, to rush through gun control reforms, hate speech laws, and controversial restrictions on protests in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The changes have been put together into a single bill.
The house speaker, Greg Piper, began with acknowledging the “extraordinary circumstances” that have seen MPs return:
I’m sure that this will be somewhat difficult for members for a number of reasons, so I’m not going to say it’s good to see you all back here, but I do wish you absolutely all the best as we go through this and into the holiday period.
Leeser joins criticism of Albanese over ‘half-measures’
Liberal MP Julian Leeser has been speaking at the Coalition press conference in Sydney.
Leeser praised Sussan Ley and NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane, particularly the latter, who he says “put herself in harm’s way and helped the many victims of the shooting that night” and whose actions he described as “heroic”. He also praised Minns for “[doing] something about” the issues.
Leeser then angrily criticised prime minister Anthony Albanese, saying the Jewish community had been subsisting on “the crumbs of this government” and fighting “his half measures”.
Leeser said:
We’ve put forward proposals in the parliament to improve the security of Australians. And he’s voted consistently against them. He’s dragged his feet. He’s claimed credit for things that were not his idea or that he did having been dragged kicking and screaming. And the community is sick and tired of it …
And rather than looking at the root causes of what caused those gunmen to pick up those weapons in the first place, that only a royal commission would get to, he calls for another departmental review.
Leeser reiterated the Coalition’s call to bring federal parliament back.
NSW Nationals refuse to support state gun reform
Penry Buckley
The NSW Nationals have indicated they will not support the government’s bill to reform gun control, splitting the Coalition on the changes.
In a statement, the Nationals leader, Gurmesh Singh, said the party “will not be supporting the legislation and will continue to stand up for the diverse communities of NSW who deserve better”.
Singh continued:
Last week, the NSW Nationals, alongside our Coalition partners, agreed to work in good faith with the Minns Labor Government on a bipartisan solution.
We had hoped to strengthen hate speech laws, illegal assembly laws, as well as review the settings on firearms laws, but bi-partisanship works both ways.
Not only has there been a clear lack of meaningful engagement with the opposition and crossbench, the Minns Labor government failed to consult key regional stakeholders including NSW Farmers and the Country Mayors Association.
We cannot support a bill that relies on arbitrary limits and doesn’t give our regional businesses the tools they need to do their jobs.
The proposed reforms would not have stopped last Sunday’s attack and fail to address the root cause of the issue – antisemitism.
The changes have been put together with changes to hate speech laws, and controversial restrictions on protests into a single bill, meaning the Nationals will be voting against the changes proposed after the Bondi Beach attack in their entirety.
Sarah Basford Canales
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, will hold a press conference in Canberra shortly alongside Tim Ayres, the industry minister, where it’s expected the government will unveil plans for an east coast gas reserve after a six-month review of the gas market.
We’ll bring you the latest when it happens.
Read more here:
Coalition say state royal commission into attack would have its ‘hands tied’ dealing with state matters
Shadow attorney general Andrew Wallace is speaking now, going into further detail about the Coalition’s justification for and preferred structure of a commonwealth royal commission.
Wallace says:
The prime minister himself may be wondering why a commonwealth royal commission is required as opposed to the state royal commission that the premier is considering.
The issues that we have experienced in this country since the 7th of October 2023 are multidimensional and multi-jurisdictional.
It is totally inappropriate and insufficient to simply have a state royal commission, which would effectively have its hands tied in dealing with state matters.
We know that there are likely to be have many failings as a result of what happened at Bondi, not the least which certainly are cross jurisdictions of our states territories and our Commonwealth.
The Coalition would like any commonwealth royal commission to be led by “at least three commissioners”, one from the Jewish community, one from law enforcement, and one “should be a current or former superior court judge”.
Ley says she will move to establish royal commission: ‘it’s up to Labor to decide’ if they support it
The prime minister’s refusal to call a commonwealth royal commission or “offer an unqualified apology” is “adding insult to the injury”, the federal opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has said.
Speaking in Sydney, Ley has been reiterating calls for a commonwealth royal commission, and says the Coalition has drafted its own terms of reference for one.
Ley said:
Australians are looking to you, prime minister. And so far you are letting them down … It requires humility and moral courage to accept responsibility and honestly deal with the failings over the last few years that have led [to] this rise in antisemitism, particularly since October 7th, 2023…
As a constructive opposition, we have listened carefully and I invite the prime minister to sit down with me immediately to refine and finalise these terms of reference so we can establish a royal Commission, a commonwealth royal commission before Christmas.
Now this is a good-faith offer to work together on a bipartisan basis to establish this very much needed commonwealth royal commission. But let me be very clear. Whenever the prime minister decides to bring the Parliament back and it should have been today, I will be moving in the House of Representatives to establish this commonwealth royal commission. Now it’s up to Labor to decide whether they support it or they don’t.
‘Come home!’ Israeli minister calls on diaspora Jews to move to Israel to escape antisemitism
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on Sunday for Jews in Western countries to move to Israel to escape rising antisemitism, one week after 15 were shot dead at a Jewish event in Sydney, AFP reports.
Saar said at a public candle lighting marking the last day of the Jewish festival of Hanukah, held with leaders of Jewish communities and organisations worldwide:
Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening, and we have a certain historical experience. Today, Jews are being hunted across the world.
Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!
Since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza in 2023 and the Hamas attack that precipitated it, Israeli leaders have repeatedly accused Western governments of failing to curb antisemitism in those countries.
On Tuesday, Israeli’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said:
I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide.
In October, Saar accused British authorities of failing to take action to curb a “toxic wave of antisemitism” following an attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in which two people were killed and four wounded.
We’re expecting the federal opposition leader, Sussan Ley, to speak to media shortly. We’ll bring that to you as it happens.
NSW Greens decry ‘draconian, authoritarian anti-protest laws’
Chris Minns’ proposed anti-protest laws are “the most draconian, authoritarian anti-protest laws this country has ever seen” and likely unconstitutional, the NSW Greens’ justice spokesperson, Sue Higginson, has said.
Speaking outside parliament, Higginson said:
I have no doubt this power that the premier is asking NSW parliament to pass today and tomorrow is unconstitutional. I have no doubt it impermissibly burdens the implied freedom of political communication that is in embedded within our constitution …
Once again, the Greens in the New South Wales parliament will stand with our civil society organisations to defend our absolute, fundamental and paramount right within our democracy to gather on public land peacefully as people to express our political views and to communicate our vision for peace and harmony and uphold our democracy.
The idea that diluting our democracy right now is a reasonable measure is beyond reason. It’s incomprehensible. The conflation that peaceful protest is somehow in need of attack right now by the state is just unfathomable.
The state could not arrest its way to social cohesion, Higginson said.
That is not leadership, that is not the measure of a healthy democracy.
Palestine Action Group decry ‘campaign of lies’ they say is being waged against Gaza genocide protesters
A “ludicrous”, “deliberately dishonest” “campaign of lies” is being waged against those protesting the genocide in Gaza, Josh Lees from Palestine Action Group said this morning.
Speaking outside NSW Parliament this morning, Lees said “a concerted campaign being waged by some to try to link the horrific Bondi attack to the Palestine protest movement” without evidence, and despite the campaign having always stood vocally against antisemitism and all forms of racism, and being comprised of hundreds of thousands of people in Australia, including members of the Jewish community.
Lees said:
The people to blame for that attack are those killers who carried it out, who in turn apparently were inspired by the twisted ideology of Isis. Now anyone who knows anything about Isis knows that they are completely opposed to the cause of Palestinian liberation and always have been and of course that they violently oppose our movement that we have built against that genocide in this country and all around the world…
Chris Minns knows very well that there is absolutely nothing linking these ISIS gunmen to the Palestine protest movement. He knows very well that there is absolutely nothing linking the state of other high-profile antisemitic attacks which have targeted the Jewish community over the past two years; there is absolutely nothing linking any of those to the Palestine protest movement, either.
He knows this because his own New South Wales police and the Australian Federal Police have said so, very clearly, about what actually motivated those attacks, who orchestrated them, and so on. And it has nothing at all to do with the Palestine protest movement. And yet, he, Chris Minns, and unfortunately, many in the media are just regurgitating these complete fabrications and distortions.
Jewish Council calls on NSW Labor not to ‘politicise our grief’ with anti-protest laws
It was “outrageous” to link criticism of Israel and the anti-genocide protests to the Bondi attack, Jewish Council of Australia executive Dr Naama Blatman said this morning.
Blatman has been speaking alongside Greens MLC Sue Higginson, Palestine Action Group spokesperson Josh Lees and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties president, Timothy Roberts, outside NSW parliament this morning against the anti-protest laws.
The path forward must be “informed by our solidarity and our shared values, not punitive policies and divisive politics,” Blatman said.
She continued:
We call on the Minns government and members of the NSW parliament not to politicise our grief and not to capitalise on our tragedy, not to pass laws that stifle our freedoms and punish us for our commitment to justice.
We can only heal and recover from this tragedy and ensure that our communities are safe by standing together as an entire community against hateful atrocities.
NSW Liberals to support Labor’s gun and protest laws despite ‘serious reservations’
The NSW Liberal party will has said it will support the Minns government’s proposed laws but has “serious reservations” about the speed with which they have been pushed.
Here’s the full statement from the opposition leader, Kellie Sloane:
The NSW Liberals will support the Government’s Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, while moving sensible and proportionate amendments to improve community safety and strengthen social cohesion.
Our approach is constructive and responsible. It is incumbent on Parliament to ensure these reforms are as strong as possible, the framework is robust, targeted and fit for purpose, and consistent with the principles we have previously outlined.
However, the Opposition has serious reservations about the way the Government has sought to rush this legislation through Parliament.
There has been a clear lack of meaningful engagement with key stakeholders, including the Opposition and crossbench, stakeholders and those responsible for implementation.
That is not best practice law-making, particularly in an area as sensitive and consequential as counter-terrorism and community safety.
The NSW Liberals will therefore use the parliamentary process in the coming months to ensure these reforms are implemented in a way that genuinely meets their stated objectives.
We call on the Government to engage in good faith with the Opposition, the Parliament and relevant stakeholders on the detail and implementation of these measures.
Allegra Spender joins calls for federal royal commission into Bondi attack
Independent federal MP Allegra Spender was also on ABC RN this morning, having spent Sunday evening at the vigil in Bondi.
Spender said:
There are all big emotions at the moment in the [Jewish] community, and anger is absolutely, absolutely one of them … there’s still enormous concern that not enough has been done and that more needs to be done now. And I think that’s really where we need to move: to say, what do we need to protect and keep safe the Jewish community, but also to make sure that Australia lives up to its values: that we don’t care about your religion, we don’t care about your ethnicity, we don’t care about your sexuality. You will be safe here, you are welcome here.
She said she had been pushing for hate speech laws, but that they had been rejected by the government and opposition, and that she had been wondering whether if she had pushed harder, she might have been able to get them into parliament.
Spender said she thought the review announced by the prime minister was “inadequate”, and on the question of a potential royal commission, said:
I think the government looking at the intelligence, it’s not good enough. We need a national royal commission that looks at all levels of government.
Wong defends government’s response to Bondi attacks
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, was on ABC RN this morning talking about the Bondi attacks and the government’s response to antisemitism.
She defended the Labor government against claims that they had not done enough to combat antisemitism, saying they had “engaged very closely with [antisemitism envoy] Jillian Segal.”
Wong continued:
I’d make the point – two points actually. The first is the action that was taken by the government over the last couple of years. You’ve seen us crack down on hate speech, you’ve seen us criminalise doxing, you’ve seen us be very clear about counter-terrorism laws, banning Nazi salutes and so forth. We expelled the Iranian ambassador following the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s role in the firebombing of the Adass synagogue.
But I said last week that we needed to do more, and we are, which is why we have announced a stronger package of legislative reforms to crack down on those who spread hate, division, and radicalisation.
On the calls for a royal commission into the Bondi attacks, Wong said:
I think the prime minister said we would cooperate with the state royal commission, but again, if I can come back to why we want to ensure our agencies have the powers they need. We have to make sure that our national security arrangements are fit for purpose and are able to keep people safe. And we need to learn from any mistakes, if there were any, made in the context of these attacks.
Man arrested after allegedly brandishing knife at Launceston carols event
Tasmanian police have charged a man for being unlawfully armed in public after an incident at the Carols in the Park event in City Park in Launceston on Sunday evening.
Police said a 48‑year‑old Kings Meadows man was arrested after he sat among a large crowd near the stage and “produced a black‑handled knife approximately 30 centimetres in length,” causing members of the public to scatter.
A statement this morning said:
Police responded immediately, and the man was taken into custody without further incident, and he was detained to appear before the court on Monday morning.
Nobody was physically injured in the incident and there was no further threat to anyone at the event.
Victoria police to carry semiautomatic rifles at Boxing Day Test
Victorian police forces will be armed with long-arm semiautomatic rifles at the cricket on Boxing Day, claiming this will be “an additional safeguard for the community.”
Victoria police said in a statement this morning that the decision was proactive and “based on the current threat environment and not a specific new threat”. It would involve officers from the Critical Incident Response Team patrolling outside the MCG for the five days play is scheduled. Police say the plan has the support of Cricket Australia and the Melbourne Cricket Club.
Police say the semiautomatic rifles “are part of their regular tactical equipment”.
The statement continues:
The increased presence is in addition to Victoria Police’s planned resources involving general duties police, Mounted Branch and the Public Order Response Team who will be roaming both inside and outside the ground.
The chief commissioner, Mike Bush, said:
This overt presence is about adding another layer of protection to make sure cricket fans feel safe.
It’s important to stress this is a proactive, precautionary measure based on the current threat environment and not a specific new threat to this event.
We know it’s unusual to see police with these weapons outside the MCG but I want to assure everyone this is about greater safety and providing reassurance to the community.
These deployments are part of our usual, broader effort which sees police and MCC security working in and outside the ground.
Be it at the cricket, or anywhere else people are spending the summer, Victoria Police is here for all Victorians.
As a modern, forward-thinking police force we should always be looking for new and different ways to be there for our communities.
Good morning
Stephanie Convery
Good morning folks, thanks for joining us today. I’m Stephanie Convery and I’ll be taking you through the news as it happens this morning. I hope you’re all well caffeinated (or on the way to being so).
Thirteen people injured in the Bondi terror attack remain in hospital
Thirteen people injured in last Sunday’s mass shooting remain in hospital, NSW Health said this morning.
Nine people are in a stable condition across five major Sydney hospitals, while four people are in a critical but stable condition.
