Right across the country on Nova for summer breakfast, it's Mel and Matty with you, and joining us on the line this morning is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Good morning, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.
HOST: Wow. Big 36 hours, Prime Minister. Firstly, how are you doing?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's been a terrible time and I think Australians are shocked at the terrorist act that we saw on Sunday night, driven by antisemitism and hatred, which has seen the murder of 15 innocent people and more than 40 people injured and still dealing with their trauma. Many of them still in hospital. This is not the Australian way, and we are a country that cherish our freedom and who we are. There are nights that tear at our nation's soul, and this was tragically one of them.
HOST: Prime Minister, everyone's sad, they're angry, they're wanting answers. You vowed last night to eradicate the hate that fueled the deadly shooting. How do you and the Government plan on doing that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we tend to do it not just as the Government, but as a nation, by uniting the nation. Australians saying very clearly that that's not who we are. We are implementing the recommendations of the antisemitism envoy, doing things such as programmes in schools and universities as well. Making sure that we have legislated to outlaw hate speech, Nazi symbols, to outlaw doxxing as well that we've seen being targeted, giving support for our cultural programmes including the National Holocaust Education Centre in Canberra, but also funding for cultural institutions such as the Sydney Jewish Museum, other programmes in Melbourne and Perth. Making sure as well that we are addressing migration programmes, consideration and examination of antisemitism. All of these things are things that we are wanting to implement and proceed with. It's important to stress that Australia's stronger, though, than the cowards, frankly, who attacked innocent people on Sunday night. And that we're not going to submit to division violence or hatred. We're going to unite as a nation and not allow the terrorists to succeed. What they seek is to divide us between who we are, between people, and this needs to be a moment of national unity.
HOST: Absolutely. Now, Prime Minister, we've been told that the terror threat stands at probable. What does that mean? Should the Jewish community around the country, the broader Australian public, people in Bondi, still be concerned?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what that is is a mid assessment by ASIO. 'Probable' in their definition means that there is a possibility, obviously, of events occurring. It means that there's not an imminent threat that they are aware of as authorities. We need to make sure that we continue to be able to function as a society, otherwise the terrorists have succeeded in cowering who we are. This was a gathering on the first night of Chanukah. It should have been a celebration and a joyous occasion, and we need to make sure that we don't lose our character and who we are, that people are able to continue to gather together as groups or in broader occasions as well. Chanukah is an important time that celebrates, indeed, the victory of light over darkness. This was a dark moment in Australia's history, but we need to make sure that we reach towards the light and that we do that together.
HOST: The last time that we had a massacre, there was a lot of gun reform and in light of the Bondi terror attack, there's now more questions around further gun reform and changing laws. Where are we sitting with this? Do you think it's a likely change?
PRIME MINISTER: I think we do need to tighten up the reforms that were done. They were good reforms that were done by the Howard Government with bipartisan support back in 1996, but obviously the world has changed a lot since then. That was 29 years ago, and we need to accelerate work on having the National Firearms Register in place that my Government is funding state and territory governments to implement. They're the ones who issue licences, but I think we need to look at a range of other changes, including whether Australian citizenship is a condition of holding a firearm licence. To me that seems to be common sense. Limiting some of the open-ended firearms licencing and the type of guns that are legal. We need to look at whether we limit the number of firearms that can be held by any one individual in the circumstances. There's a different need if you are a farmer and a person in a rural community on the land, where having a gun is often a part of the agricultural practise in your landholding, but why a guy in Bonnyrigg needs six weapons is, to me, just beyond common sense. He can be a member of a gun club, which he was, and no doubt guns available at that gun club as well. Why there were six weapons in a home in Bonnyrigg to me needs to be addressed, because to me that just does not make common sense.
HOST: No. Prime Minister, the Opposition, and there are a lot of people saying that the Government and you could have done more in this scenario. How do you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER: This needs to be a moment not of trying to engage in political point scoring. This needs to be a moment of national unity and coming together. We have addressed the full range of changes. We've legislated against hate speech, against Nazi symbols, legislated against doxxing. We've introduced for the first time a National Student Ombudsman. We've got a $4 million programme, Together for Humanity, in schools, aimed at eradicating racism in schools. We have introduced substantial funding for security, cultural funding as well. There's going to be a national Holocaust Education Centre, for example, in Canberra so that when school students come to Canberra, just as they go to the Australian War Memorial, the Australian Parliament House, the National Museum, Questacon, the National Science Centre, they're able to go there as well to educate people about the consequences of antisemitism, which tragically has been around for a long, long period of time. At this time, the important thing as well is that we embrace the Jewish community, that we declare as a nation that we stand with them at this difficult time.
HOST: Mr Prime Minister, we know that you're busy, so we thank you for your time. We just wanted to say, based on what you're saying around unity and unifying as a country, we've seen some amazing heroes that have come out of this terror attack. One of which is of course Ahmed Al Ahmed, who is in hospital at the moment, and we know that Chris Minns went to visit him yesterday. Are you planning to visit him and can we expect him to be recognised or rewarded by the country for his bravery?
PRIME MINISTER: I am. I spoke to the Premier after he visited Ahmed yesterday. He told me he's a great character, and that he had asked about whether I'd be visiting him. He is a hero. And it's important at times like this that when you can look at the events and just be despairing that at this most difficult time, someone ran towards danger. I mean, it was extraordinary, that footage of essentially creeping up behind a gunman who's involved in a mass shooting, and he was unarmed, and as a consequence he was shot twice as well, which is why he is in hospital. He is a hero and that needs to be recognised and I'm absolutely certain that we will do that.
HOST: Well, that's good to hear. Prime Minister, we appreciate your time jumping on the phone this morning and speaking to the Australian people and hopefully we never, ever have to speak to you about anything like this ever again.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much.
