Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has lashed Peter Dutton for “playing politics” over his pressuring of Anthony Albanese to reveal when he was briefed about a foiled Sydney terror plot.
The Opposition Leader called for an independent assessment of the communications process after police apprehended a caravan filled with explosives in the northwest Sydney suburb of Dural, in what could have been a targeted attack against the Jewish community.
While the investigation had been kept secret until media reports by The Daily Telegraph, NSW Premier Chris Minns confirmed he had been briefed on January 20, the day after the discovery.
However, Mr Albanese has refused to publicly disclose when he was told of the secret police investigations, citing refusal to comment on “operational matters”.
The incident was also not disclosed at a national cabinet meeting convened in the wake of the Melbourne Adass Israel Synagogue fire bombing on January 21.
On Sunday, Ms Rishworth said Mr Dutton “should be condemned” for politicising the issue and said the priority of politicians should be in boosting community safety.
“I think this is a ridiculous criticism from Peter Dutton, and just shows that all he wants to do is play politics with what is a really serious issue,” she told Sky.
“It is unacceptable that there are people of Jewish faith feeling unsafe in this country, but for the government, it is about being responsible and making sure people are actually safe, not playing politics.
“Ensuring police and agencies, security agencies can do their job and keep the community safe should be, in my view, the number one outcome we all want to see.”
However, the Coalition’s spokeswoman for finance Jane Hume said Mr Albanese continued silence was risking the Jewish community’s confidence in the government.
“I think that Peter Dutton’s call for an independent investigation into how this information was shared and with whom it was shared is a sensible idea,” she told Sky on Sunday.
“We have to be able to give Australians, and it’s particularly Jewish Australians, confidence that our prime minister is, in fact, on top of his national security responsibilities.”
However Mr Dutton said Mr Albanese needed to be transparent and said it was an issue of national security.
“I don’t think there’s been a true and honest account of what’s happened here, but if the Prime Minister of our country is not across what was potentially the biggest terrorist attack in our country’s history, essentially until the public found out about it, I think that is an absolute aggregation of his responsibility,” he told ABC’s Insiders.
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