Source: Prime Minister of Australia
BEN ENGLISH, EDITOR OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Well, congratulations. Well, it has to be acknowledged you did play an instrumental part in getting this over the line. So that was great and also thanks for the money. $72.5 million, it’s nothing to sneeze at, is it? I must say, well, I’m taking it, but that will be for the redundancy payments for all those meddling bureaucrats that are holding up developments?
< ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER:
< ENGLISH:
< PRIME MINISTER:
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER:
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH:
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER:
< ENGLISH:
< PRIME MINISTER:
This was an enormous tragedy and the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil. My priority in the immediate aftermath was about keeping people safe. We did not know whether there would be a series of events which, historically, you look overseas, that is what has occurred. Look at the UK, you have one event and then you have a series, going back to 9/11, for example. We did not know if there were international connections. Our immediate priority – our National Security Committee met on the Sunday night at 9:30. I met with the Premier of New South Wales Police in the early hours. Flew into Sydney overnight and met early in the morning. Premier and I stood up about 7 o’clock Monday morning. I was meeting at Bondi police station at 8 o’clock, met the first responders. Before 9 o’clock. I was there at the site of the Pavilion, and we continued to meet the National Security Committee on more than – on at least every day. We responded while that was occurring. People made a decision to politicise the event as something that hasn’t happened in the past that occurred. My focus was on keeping people safe and continuing to act. And that is what we did. We did that consistently. People said Parliament should resume before Christmas and demanded, indeed, that it resume, demanded there be legislation. When we brought Parliament back and introduced the legislation that people had asked for, we couldn’t get it through the Senate. So, we got through what we could. We wanted to go harder and have a stronger response, but we wanted to do it as well in an orderly way. And immediately we had, of course, Dennis Richardson look at the security agencies. Immediately responded. There was no one better than him to look at that. And we worked through those issues. The other thing that was happening that week as well, with due respect to the media, I was meeting with people, not with TV cameras. I was meeting people in homes who’d lost loved ones and it was an awful time for the Jewish community. They were scared. They were scared. But I wasn’t worried about politics or about what people say. I was worried about making a difference. My responsibility as Prime Minister was to do that.
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER
< ENGLISH
< PRIME MINISTER