Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the Daily OS. This
Speaker 1: is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: the thirty first of January.
Speaker 1: I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday evening, New South Wales Premier Chris Mins and
Speaker 2: police announced that a caravan full of explosives had been
Speaker 2: found in northwest Sydney. At the press conference, Mins indicated
Speaker 2: the explosives were intended to be used in an anti
Speaker 2: Semitic attack, with multiple sources now reporting a note found
Speaker 2: inside the caravan contained a list of addresses of Jewish
Speaker 2: people and synagogues.
Speaker 1: So, Zara, usually when we talk about an incident like this,
Speaker 1: it's because it's happened in the last twenty four forty
Speaker 1: eight hours. That's not the case with this story though, right.
Speaker 2: Now, that's not what's happened. So let me just explain
Speaker 2: what we know about this incident. So on Wednesday, as
Speaker 2: I said, New South Wales Police announced that a caravan
Speaker 2: filled with explosives had been found in Dural. Now that's
Speaker 2: a suburb in Sydney's out of northwest. What happened was
Speaker 2: a local resident saw this caravan parked in what they
Speaker 2: described as a hazardous position, and so they moved that van.
Speaker 2: They towed it to their property, and that was on
Speaker 2: the nineteenth of January, so that's over ten days ago. Now.
Speaker 2: When the resident looked inside the van once it was
Speaker 2: on their property, they were very alarmed to see that
Speaker 2: there were explosives inside and it was at that point,
Speaker 2: on the nineteenth of January that they called police. The
Speaker 2: explosives are believed to have been obtained from a mining site,
Speaker 2: and when police were first running through this incident, they
Speaker 2: were trying to explain how serious this was and the
Speaker 2: harm that could have been caused had this explosion actually occurred.
Speaker 2: So what police said was that these explosives were capable
Speaker 2: of blasts up to forty meters in diameter, and the
Speaker 2: premiere added that this could have caused a mass casualty event.
Speaker 2: So we're not talking about something small here. We're talking
Speaker 2: about a van full of explosives. Had they been detonated,
Speaker 2: we could have seen a significant loss of life. Now,
Speaker 2: as I said at the top, police are investigating whether
Speaker 2: the caravan was going to be used in a targeted
Speaker 2: anti Semitic attack.
Speaker 1: And that's all because of the Noche that is being
Speaker 1: reported as being found in the caravan.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, so police themselves in the press conferences. There
Speaker 2: have been now two press conferences where they've spoken about
Speaker 2: this incident. They haven't explicitly spoken about this note, but
Speaker 2: it has been described by a number of media outlets,
Speaker 2: including the Daily Telegraph, who had all of the details
Speaker 2: about this incident leaked to them. Now, all of these
Speaker 2: reports cite a police source who said a note was
Speaker 2: found inside the caravan that had the addresses of Jewish
Speaker 2: community members and of a synagogue, and a synagogue is
Speaker 2: a place of worship within Judaism. Now, as I said,
Speaker 2: police haven't publicly verified this report, and we also don't
Speaker 2: know the name of the synagogue that was written on
Speaker 2: the note. What we have heard from Chris Mins is
Speaker 2: that he says those behind the alleged planned attack were
Speaker 2: bad people with bad ideologies, bad morals and bad ethics.
Speaker 1: So this all happens ten days ago, but we're only
Speaker 1: finding out about it now, which is quite unusual for
Speaker 1: something like this. What do we know about what has
Speaker 1: actually happens during this ten day period.
Speaker 2: So we know that there's been an investigation ongoing during
Speaker 2: that time. We know that the owner of the van
Speaker 2: is already in custody, but interestingly they're in custody over
Speaker 2: unrelated charges, so they haven't been arrested in connection to
Speaker 2: this specific incident. However, they were already in custody and
Speaker 2: are now being linked to this plot, so that person's
Speaker 2: been arrested. Deputy Police Commissioner David Hudson said arrests have
Speaker 2: been made on the periphery of the investigation. When pressed,
Speaker 2: he didn't really elaborate, but from that we can just
Speaker 2: understand that perhaps not the master or the central suspects,
Speaker 2: but people peripherally connected to the case. Hudson said that
Speaker 2: more than one hundred police officers are now part of
Speaker 2: the investigation, that includes counter terrorism offices, national security agents
Speaker 2: from Asia, and police from Victoria and Queensland, as well
Speaker 2: as of course from New South Wales. Again, this just
Speaker 2: goes to the heart of how severe and how significant
Speaker 2: this plot was.
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in this idea that the public wasn't
Speaker 1: told about the discovery of the explosives until ten days
Speaker 1: after the fact. Has that been coming up as a
Speaker 1: talking point after this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been a really dominant talking point. I do
Speaker 2: just want to clarify, the only reason that we the
Speaker 2: public know that something happened is because, as I said,
Speaker 2: the information was leaked to the media, to the Daily Telegraph.
Speaker 2: This was not meant to be made public at the
Speaker 2: time that it was. That press conference that I referred
Speaker 2: to earlier of Chrismins and the Assistant Police Commissioner getting
Speaker 2: up and talking about this that was a lit minute thing.
Speaker 2: That was only after the Daily Telegraph had published that
Speaker 2: exclusive story about this incident, and then when there was
Speaker 2: all of this media attention, they had no choice but
Speaker 2: to get up and to explain what had happened, or
Speaker 2: at least what they knew about what had happened. Now,
Speaker 2: there are kind of two perspectives on this story, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to highlight first what the response from some
Speaker 2: Jewish community groups has been to this as the group
Speaker 2: that was allegedly going to be targeted in this attack
Speaker 2: had it taken place. We heard yesterday from the Executive
Speaker 2: Council of Australia Jury co CEO Peter Wertheim, and he's
Speaker 2: of the belief that the Jewish community should have known
Speaker 2: about this threat much earlier than they did. He said,
Speaker 2: I think they should have told us earlier because the
Speaker 2: impact on the community then could have been managed, we
Speaker 2: could have understood better what we are facing. There are
Speaker 2: sometimes very good operational reasons for keeping an investigation secret,
Speaker 2: but that has to be balanced against other considerations. So there,
Speaker 2: he's really talking about the fact that the Jewish community
Speaker 2: finding out, or at Leastwish community leaders finding out about
Speaker 2: this at the same time as everyone else did, meant
Speaker 2: that they didn't have the answers when concerned community members
Speaker 2: were asking them, or you know, no one really knew anything.
Speaker 2: The other argument that's been made here is that a
Speaker 2: lot of Jewish community members who regularly attend synagogue feel
Speaker 2: like they should have known if there was going to
Speaker 2: be an active threat made against them, and that knowledge
Speaker 2: of this incident might have changed their behaviors and whether
Speaker 2: or not they attended synagogue for example, last weekend.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a bit of a snapshot of how
Speaker 1: Jewish community groups and members feel about the delay and
Speaker 1: the release of information. Then, on the other side of things,
Speaker 1: you have the new South Wales police rationale though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly so. Essentially the rationale provided by police is
Speaker 2: that this investigation was kept secret for a reason and
Speaker 2: that this information was withheld in order to successfully execute
Speaker 2: this investigation. So we heard yesterday from Police Commissioner Karen
Speaker 2: Webb who said that now that that information has been
Speaker 2: made public and now that we are talking about this,
Speaker 2: she believes that part of the investigation has been compromised,
Speaker 2: so that has materially affected the investigation and specifically, she
Speaker 2: said it's been detrimental to some of the strategies police
Speaker 2: may have used otherwise. Now, in terms of the investigation itself,
Speaker 2: whether or not it's compromised is a matter for police,
Speaker 2: but they haven't officially declared the event as a terrorist
Speaker 2: incident yet. Now this is a legal term in New
Speaker 2: South Wales. Once an incident is classified as terrorism, police
Speaker 2: have the power to search people and properties without a
Speaker 2: warrant within a certain number of days and within certain areas.
Speaker 2: That said, while there hasn't been this formal classification at
Speaker 2: the time of recording, Chris Mins has described the incident
Speaker 2: as terrorism very clearly, and the Prime Minister, Anthony Alberizi
Speaker 2: has also told ABC Radio that he agrees that this
Speaker 2: is terrorism.
Speaker 1: So this investigation is ongoing. We have people of interest
Speaker 1: early on police radar, some in custody, some not have
Speaker 1: police said anything about the ongoing threats to not just
Speaker 1: the Jewish community but the wider community.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So police were very clear, very explicit. At the
Speaker 2: beginning of the press conference, they said there is no
Speaker 2: ongoing threat to the community, the broader Australian community that
Speaker 2: is in relation to this specific incident. However, it would
Speaker 2: be remiss of us not to mention this latest incident
Speaker 2: in the context of a broader spike in anti Semitic
Speaker 2: incidents and violence that we've seen across not just New
Speaker 2: South Wales but also Victoria in recent months. Within just
Speaker 2: twelve hours of the announcement of this caravan, anti Semitic
Speaker 2: graffiti was discovered in three parts of Sydney's East. In Maruba,
Speaker 2: there was anti Semitic graffiti sprayed on Mount Sinai, which
Speaker 2: is a Jewish primary school, and that school begins classes
Speaker 2: for the year this week. And a lot of what
Speaker 2: Chris Minds was saying yesterday morning about this was that
Speaker 2: there are going to be students walk looking in to school,
Speaker 2: primary school students who are seeing you know, profanities and
Speaker 2: deeply offensive hate speech written on their school walls. It's
Speaker 2: also important tonight that Mount Sinai is near a childcare
Speaker 2: center that was firebombed earlier this month, so there is
Speaker 2: also a geographical element to the fact that a number
Speaker 2: of these incidents have now happened in the same area.
Speaker 1: This is obviously a series of very shocking events, and
Speaker 1: I think I want to end this podcast by talking
Speaker 1: about the Jewish community's response to this. You took me
Speaker 1: through the comments made by one of the Jewish community
Speaker 1: leaders about whether he felt that the Jewish community should
Speaker 1: have known or not in this ten day period, but
Speaker 1: I want to go back to some of the comments
Speaker 1: he said about the impact of this event on the community.
Speaker 1: I mean, Chrismin said that this could have been a
Speaker 1: mass casualty event. It marks a severe escalation in the
Speaker 1: state of anti Semitism, particularly in Sydney. How has the
Speaker 1: Jewish community responded.
Speaker 2: I think that it's fair to say there's a lot
Speaker 2: of different emotions. Obviously, no one group is homogeneous, and
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to ever speak for an entire community here,
Speaker 2: but I think what Peter Wertheim was describing in this
Speaker 2: press conference was that there's a lot of concern, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of fear, and there's also a lot of
Speaker 2: anger that this is happening at the rate and the
Speaker 2: frequency that it is. So here's a bit from that
Speaker 2: press conference.
Speaker 3: We're angry because we are seeing that the Australia that
Speaker 3: we have been fortunate enough to live in ourselves, a
Speaker 3: land of freedom, fair mindedness, civilized norms of behavior and
Speaker 3: the rule of law, is starting to slip away from us.
Speaker 1: Let's end quickly on just a quick reaction from the
Speaker 1: Australian political spectrum. Take me through the sense that you
Speaker 1: get from both sides of policies here.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean pretty universal condemnation. The same type of
Speaker 2: language is being used, you know, horror, shock, things of
Speaker 2: that nature. The coalition is really questioning the delay in
Speaker 2: making that information public. There are Jewish MPs from both
Speaker 2: major parties. So Julian Lisa, who is a Liberal MP
Speaker 2: whose electorate covers Dural where the caravan was found, he
Speaker 2: said that he was deeply disturbed by the reports. And
Speaker 2: on the other side of politics, Josh Burns, Labor MP
Speaker 2: in the seat of McNamara, he called the threat extremely,
Speaker 2: extremely frightening. So I think, yeah, a lot of that
Speaker 2: same language being used there by the political leaders as
Speaker 2: well as community leaders.
Speaker 1: I think it has to be said that there's a
Speaker 1: lot that we don't know about this investigation, as repeated
Speaker 1: numerous times by New South Wales' Premier Chrismins and the
Speaker 1: police officials that we've heard from in the last forty
Speaker 1: eight hours. Zarah, thank you for that update on what
Speaker 1: we know so far, and thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: on a zlios this morning. It's been a huge week
Speaker 1: of news. Thank you for coming along for it. We'll
Speaker 1: be back this afternoon with some headlines and then a
Speaker 1: good news episode tomorrow morning. My name is Lily Madden
Speaker 1: and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Argodin woman from Gadighl Country.
Speaker 3: The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
Speaker 3: the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
Speaker 3: all Aboriginal and Torrestrate island and nations. We pay our
Speaker 3: respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past
Speaker 3: and present.