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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christianamio.

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Speaker 1: It's Monday, January nineteenth, twenty twenty six. Get on board

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Speaker 1: or face the consequences. That's the warning from Beijing, who

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Speaker 1: says Australia must accept China's so called reunification with Taiwan

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Speaker 1: or else there'll be no forgiveness. China's ambassador in Australia,

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Speaker 1: zhaou Chen, also likened Taiwan to Tasmania and said Australia's

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Speaker 1: bilateral relationship with China could be compromised if our government

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Speaker 1: seeks to block Beijing's efforts to bring the island under

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Speaker 1: its control. That story's live right now at the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot com dot Au. Members and senators will descend on

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Speaker 1: Canberra on Monday for an emergency parliamentary sitting. They'll debate

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Speaker 1: reworked gun control and hate speech legislation. After so port

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Speaker 1: for the government's proposed omnibus bill waned Today National Editor

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Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan on why the government still has a shot

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Speaker 1: at redemption.

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Speaker 2: My job as the Australian Prime Minister is to act

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Speaker 2: in the national interest.

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Speaker 3: A list of people wanting a Commonwealth's Royal commission into

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Speaker 3: the Bondai attack is growing by the day, but.

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Speaker 2: Anthony Albanezi is still resisting cascading pressure to green light

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Speaker 2: a royal commission. The government is committed to making sure

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Speaker 2: that we can't wait years for answers. We need to

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Speaker 2: get on with any changes that are required.

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Speaker 1: It took Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi twenty five days to

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Speaker 1: call a federal Royal commission into the December fourteenth terror

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Speaker 1: attack at Bondai Beach, where two gunmen allegedly motivated by

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Speaker 1: extremist Islamic ideology, opened fire on Ahuneker festival, killing fifteen

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Speaker 1: people and injuring dozens more. After twenty five days, the

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Speaker 1: chorus was too loud to ignore.

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Speaker 2: Today, I have asked that former High Court Justice, the

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Speaker 2: Honorable Virginia bell Ac to serve as the commissioner.

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Speaker 3: The government now has one chance at redemption.

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Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor.

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Speaker 3: After two years of failure, what is now needed is

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Speaker 3: a clear declaration of intent of what the government actually

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Speaker 3: wants and what the Australian public actually needs. What we've

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Speaker 3: seen is a government reluctant to actually declare clearly what

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Speaker 3: it wants, what the principles are, it's obfiscated, its delayed, deferred.

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Speaker 3: And what we've seen since Bondi is a government that

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Speaker 3: has resisted a royal commission, then caved in and called

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Speaker 3: a royal commission. We saw a government that said it

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Speaker 3: didn't want to recall parliament, and then recalled parliament, and

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Speaker 3: then it introduced legislation which was so flawed and fraught

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Speaker 3: that the Prime Minister was forced into a second major

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Speaker 3: backflip and said, oh no, sorry, we're going to change

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Speaker 3: all of this, because the only unity he had achieved

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Speaker 3: was that people were unified against him. Dreams, Coalition, liberals, nationals,

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Speaker 3: religious leaders, Muslim leaders, Jewish leaders, they were all against

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Speaker 3: this legislation. But the real issue here is that what

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Speaker 3: the Australian public wants, even more than some attempt to

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Speaker 3: create a age of front against anti Semitism, is a

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Speaker 3: real investigation into how the Bondai massacre happened, what could

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Speaker 3: have been done to prevent it, and what can be

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Speaker 3: done to prevent another one. What we need over the

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Speaker 3: next two days of parliamentary sitting is a clear intention,

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Speaker 3: a declaration of intention from the government. We want all

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Speaker 3: the interagency cooperation to be investigated. We want ASIO, the AFP,

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Speaker 3: the State police all to be looked into to see

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Speaker 3: what they knew and when the reality is we'll never

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Speaker 3: be able to stop terror attacks, but we should be

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Speaker 3: able to reduce them, and that's what we've got to

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Speaker 3: do now.

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Speaker 1: The security inquiry, led by former ASIO boss and respected

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Speaker 1: foreign affairs expert Dennis Richardson, will go ahead as part

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Speaker 1: of the Royal Commission, but without the teeth.

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Speaker 3: Important to recognize here, Dennis Richardson does not have the

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Speaker 3: powers of a Royal Commissioner. He cannot coerce witnesses into

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Speaker 3: giving evidence. If the head of ASIO, for instance, and

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Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting he is, but if the head of

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Speaker 3: ASIO were to stall Dennis Richardson on questions about the

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Speaker 3: involvement the priorities of ASIO, Dennis Richardson in himself cannot

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Speaker 3: say okay, listen, Mike, you get down to it here

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Speaker 3: and you do as I say. Dennis Richardson then has

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Speaker 3: to go to Virginia Bell write a letter. Dear Virginia,

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Speaker 3: what I want is for you to tell ASIO to

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Speaker 3: cooperate with me. Now, the Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell doesn't

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Speaker 3: have to actually do that. But the look, imagine this,

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Speaker 3: the look for a departmental head, a minister, somebody who

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Speaker 3: says to Dennis Richardson, now I'm not going to give

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Speaker 3: you what you want, and he then has to go

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Speaker 3: to get the raw commission to give that power. So

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Speaker 3: that's a bad news for them in a political sense. Secondly,

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Speaker 3: Virginia Bell is not compelled to actually give Dennis Richardson

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Speaker 3: that coercive power on a particular innestrying and say no, look,

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Speaker 3: I don't think that's not pertinent. It's then open to

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Speaker 3: Dennis Richardson to then turn around and say, well I

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Speaker 3: think it is, and I'm out of here a disaster.

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Speaker 3: So what we're actually looking at here is, instead of

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Speaker 3: clear powers ceded to Dennis Richardson, it's a series of

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Speaker 3: practical measures that have to take place with coercive threats. Now,

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Speaker 3: I'm not casting any aspersions whatsoever on Dennis Richardson or

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Speaker 3: Mike Burgess or the head of the AFP or the

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Speaker 3: head of the New South Wales Police. All I'm saying

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Speaker 3: is these are things the public needs to be reassured

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Speaker 3: will be addressed. And yet in the current circumstances, they

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Speaker 3: are not necessarily This is why we need the government

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Speaker 3: to come out and say we want full cooperation with

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Speaker 3: Dennis Richardson. We want him to look at this and this,

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Speaker 3: and we're not afraid where he does look, so that

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Speaker 3: everyone can say, yes, this is a fair income inquiry

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Speaker 3: anti Semitism aside, we want to ensure that Australia's domestic

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Speaker 3: security is in the right hands and being handled correctly.

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Speaker 1: Coming up why the PM's return to Parliament isn't going

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Speaker 1: to plan. When MPs and senators return to canber today,

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Speaker 1: they'll convene to debate legislation very different to what the

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Speaker 1: government had intended. Labour had proposed a two part omnibus

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Speaker 1: bill geared towards curbing anti semitism and preventing another tragedy

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Speaker 1: like Bondai, the first part focusing on gun reform and

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Speaker 1: the second on Australia's hate speech laws, but the Coalition

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Speaker 1: and the Greens weren't on board. Opposition leader Susan Lee

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Speaker 1: said her party will progress an alternative approach.

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Speaker 4: These changes to legislation will tackle antisemitism head on in education,

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Speaker 4: the arts and society more broadly and critically enshrine the

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Speaker 4: definition of anti senitism in law.

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Speaker 1: Deputy Green's leader Marine Ferruki said her party will come

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Speaker 1: to the table on gun laws but won't back the

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Speaker 1: government's proposed immigration and hate speech reforms.

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Speaker 2: This is the divisive and dangerous legislation which cannot be fixed.

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Speaker 1: And that put the government in a tight spot.

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Speaker 2: So we'll separate out the bills. The gun laws will

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Speaker 2: be separate, and then the laws on hate crimes and

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Speaker 2: migration will proceed, but we will not be proceeding with

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Speaker 2: the racial vilification provisions because it's clear that that will

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Speaker 2: not have support.

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Speaker 1: Here's Dennis Shanahan.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's self evidently a shambalic mess. I don't think

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Speaker 3: anyone can say it's not. The Prime Minister, of course,

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Speaker 3: was trying to use politics. He was trying to use

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Speaker 3: this omnibus bill which was like an albatross around his neck,

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Speaker 3: which was threatening to go down and drag him down

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Speaker 3: with it. And yet he and his senior ministers Penny

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Speaker 3: Wong and Tony Burke were defending the legislation up until

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Speaker 3: Friday evening. They were saying, oh no, it's all the

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Speaker 3: oppositions for but in fact what they would do doing,

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Speaker 3: and what they have been doing since obviously the October

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Speaker 3: seven attack is they have been playing politics. They have

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Speaker 3: not addressed the whole issue of anti Semitism, of security failures,

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Speaker 3: of security corporation, of growing fears in the community. We've

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Speaker 3: seen graffiti attacks and fire bombings, control from overseas. How

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Speaker 3: is this happening? And partly because the government has always

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Speaker 3: played politics and the Omnibus Bill was about driving a

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Speaker 3: wedge between the coalition partners and forcing Susan Lean too

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Speaker 3: positioned where she would be seen to opposing the legislation

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Speaker 3: she'd been calling for. And this is what they have

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Speaker 3: done all along, is they have not grasped the gravitas

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Speaker 3: of the security issue involved here, let alone the principle

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Speaker 3: of anti Semitism. They have not grasped the breadth and

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Speaker 3: the depth of the security threat before Bondai and now

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Speaker 3: since Bondai, all they have done is played politics. And

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Speaker 3: that's why it turned into a shambalic mess on Saturday,

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Speaker 3: Legislation being split, legislation being withdrawn, and a terrible political

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Speaker 3: outcome for the Prime Minister.

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Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's national editor for all the

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Speaker 1: latest from Canberra and around the nation. Visit the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au