Julia Bradley, Reporter: Also joining me now is Matt Thistlethwaite. He's the Assistant Immigration and Foreign Affairs Minister. Matt, thank you for joining us on Sky News. You're well aware of this, there is white hot anger in the community about the Albanese Government's moves so far on the issue of antisemitism. People say not enough has been done and Jewish Australians have been failed here. What is your response to that?
Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minster for Foreign Affairs and Trade: Well, I respect the Jewish community. I've got a very strong Jewish community in my area that I'm working very closely with. We're wrapping our arms around them at the moment and trying to support them as much as we can. Our government's strengthened laws to combat antisemitism, but we know that we've got more work to do. And in the coming days and weeks we'll bring some new measures to Parliament to combat antisemitism, to reform gun laws, to look at migration, to make sure that we're doing all we can to ensure that this never happens in Australia again.
Bradley: The Prime Minister chose the antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segel. She put out recommendations to fix this issue. They haven't all been adopted. Why?
Assistant Minister: We've adopted many of them --
Bradley: Why not all of them?
Assistant Minister: The strengthening legal aspects of that recommendations have been adopted. The educational changes are being adopted and we're working through the remaining recommendations. But in the coming days and weeks we will provide an update and we'll get onto working through the Parliament to adopt as many of those key points in that document as possible.
Bradley: Why the lag on this? I mean, she's been appointed as the expert in this area. We've seen the worst terror attack in Australia's history. Now, why the delay?
Assistant Minister: Well, we haven't delayed. We've been. We've been adopting those recommendations and there's --
Bradley: Been a delay in implementing them in full.
Assistant Minister: We've been implementing them. Many of them require the cooperation of the states and territories and we're working through that, particularly the changes to the education system, the national curriculum, to ensure that we're educating children about the Holocaust, about antisemitism and what it looks like and how to combat it. They take time because you're changing the education curriculum and you need to do that with the state. So, we're working through that and we're delivering those outcomes on another front.
Bradley: One of the recommendations was antisemitism needs to be rooted out if you're going to make someone a citizen here in Australia, need to be implemented as a priority.
Assistant Minister: Yeah. We'll certainly look at the migration settings to make sure that no one who has antisemitic views comes to Australia and migrates to Australia. The challenge is how you identify that. And we'll make sure that we're working to strengthen those laws to ensure that people who hold antisemitic views or even racist views generally don't come to Australia.
Bradley: We know that one of those alleged gunmen, Naveed, was being looked at by ASIO a long time before all of this happened, and a long time before his dad was also granted a gun licence. Has ASIO failed here? Should they take some of the blame? Has there been a weakness here?
Assistant Minister: Well, I have every confidence in our security and intelligence services. They got the largest budget that they've ever had. They did identify one of the gunmen in 2019. They cast some scrutiny over him in association with others that he was consorting with --
Bradley: Why did that fall through the cracks? Why wasn't an eye kept on him?
Assistant Minister: Well, ASIO make these decisions and they make decisions based on the intelligence that they have. But we remain confident in the work of ASIO. I think it's important to point out through Operation Avalite that when ASIO indicated to our government that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was involved in antisemitic attacks here in Australia, our government acted within hours to expel the Iranian ambassador and to proscribe that group a terrorist organisation.
Bradley: Does there need to be a bolstering of ASIO's resources?
Assistant Minister: Well, ASIO has the largest budget that it has ever had. So, we've bolstered ASIO's resources to make sure that they have the tools and the staff and the personnel to make sure that they identify these things in the future.
Bradley: On the Prime Minister, I've seen some chatter on social media about people being angry. He hasn't gone to visit the victims of this Bondi tragedy. We saw him in hospital with Ahmed Al Ahmed, that hero who stepped in to disarm one of the gunmen. Why hasn't he visited the people who've been injured in this massacre?
Assistant Minister: Well, I understand that the Prime Minister has visited victims in hospital and I've spent the last two nights with the Prime Minister at events with the Jewish community. We met with leaders of the Jewish community at a Chanukah vigil at the Governor-General's residence on Tuesday evening. Last night we were at ecumenical service at St. Mary's Cathedral where the Prime Minister spoke of his support for the Jewish community and said that all Australians stand with the Jewish community. So, we're working as hard as we can with the Jewish community to make sure that they get the support that they need to get through this difficult time.
Bradley: Police in the UK are moving to ban "globalise the intifada". Is that something Australia would do?
Assistant Minister: Yeah. We've certainly strengthened the hate speech laws, particularly where they incite violence. And I think people need to realise that comments such as that the river to the sea, they're antisemitic and they have to stop. And particularly over the coming months. I think the Premier's right. We need a summer of calm and people shouldn't seek to use this conflict in the Middle east to drive division and hatred here in Australia.
Bradley: So, we can expect more arrests in Australia regarding those chants of that nature?
Assistant Minister: We've certainly strengthened the laws. We've made it a crime now to chant things that incite violence here --
Bradley: Will those laws be enacted? Are you confident there will be arrests?
Assistant Minister: Yeah. Well, there's been arrests that have been made and we'll make sure that the police have the necessary resources to ensure that they're combating anti Semitism and any race in our community when it comes to hate speech.
Bradley: Last question. I know you've got to go. Hate preachers. There are allegations that one of those, you know, alleged gunmen was influenced by hate preachers. What is the Albanese Government going to do about this?
Assistant Minister: Well, we've already strengthened those laws to make it a crime to preach hate that incites violence. And we'll provide the resources to the security and intelligence agencies, to the police to make sure that people are arrested and prosecuted if they do spew and preach hate that incites violence here in Australia.
Bradley: Matt Thistlethwaite, thank you for your time.
Assistant Minister: Thank you.