Sharri | 7 July

Live on Sky News.

This is Sharry Good Evening, A big show coming up. Anti Semitism explodes on the streets of Melbourne as Albanese's lack of leadership is on display yet again, which begs the question is Australia safe for Jews. Senator James Patterson will join me live shortly. Also tonight, we'll show you the footage of Aaron Patterson that was examined by the jury and will discuss the guilty verdict with top lawyer

The Abraham Accords.

That's all coming up, but first tonight to the weekend of horror in Melbourne. Synagogue satellite cars torched and inn Israeli restaurants stormed and families terrorized. This is the violent, racist country that we're now living in that's increasingly unsafe for Jewish Australians and we want this would happen over and over again. We begged for the federal government to show leadership. We even developed an anti Semitism blueprint to help solve this crisis at our Sky News Antisemitism Summit.

Jews were the target's Jews.

A man rang the synagogue's doorbell around eight pm twice. Inside, about twenty Jews were at Shabbat, that's the Friday evening meal. The Age newspaper reports a thirteen year old was in the synagogue office and heard the bell through the security monitors. He reportedly saw a man he didn't recognize and thankfully, thankfully,

The man charged with setting fire to the front of a Melbourne synagogue is behind bars. Tonight, counter terror police arrested thirty four year old Angelo Loris, who did not apply for bail, over the alleged attack.

And then on the same night, a Jewish owned restaurant, miz Non, in Melbourne's popular Hardware Lane was stormed by around twenty masked protesters who were chanting death to the IDF. They terrorized families eating dinner and toppled furniture.

These were those disgraceful scenes.

The genesis of this began a day earlier when social media accounts demanded a boycott of this restaurant and they shared the address now as you heard there the protesters were chanting death to the IDF, a murderous phrase. And here's where that chance started at the Glastonbury Music Festival.

Stiff to the IDF, the id to the IDF.

I mean, you just can't get your head around it. A music festival repeating a death chant. It was a festival just like the one where two hundred and fifty young people were gunned down, chased and hunted before being murdered, a massacre at the Nova Music Festival. Apparently forgot it at Glastonbury and now forgotten in Australia and also in Melbourne on Friday night, three cars were torched and yet another anti Semitic incident.

Police are on the hunt for five mask defenders after a targeted arson attack at a business in Melbourne's northeast. CCTV capture the group setting fire to three cars and spray painting slogans on the Greensborough property just before four am on Saturday, before fleeing on e bikes. It is believed the business is a weapons company with links to Israel.

We don't know the answer to this, but we need to know whether those three incidents on the same night are connected.

Now. You'd think we'd be used to all of this by now, but we're not.

None of this is new, although the sadness never gets easier. It's been around six months since arsonists tried to set allite the newtown S Cinema in Sydney, a preschool completely destroyed in another fire bombing, while cars and buildings also torched in Sydney's East. And it's been six months too since the Adas Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed. So you'll mean the first thing that hits you, it's the smell,

The same lines, and.

Yet all these months on, still no one has been caught or arrested for fire bombing the Adas Synagogue. And these platitudes have become meaningless, their words unmatched by action, and the protests full of hatred continue you in Melbourne and Sydney, most weekends, encouraged by angry political rhetoric, as The Door Foundation's Talie Blickbau writes in The Australian Today, every week protesters march through the streets of Melbourne calling

Try to claim.

It's cultivating and nurturing hatred against Jews. It's excusing and justifying cruelty and violence. The perpetrators who firearm Jewish institutions presumably intend to kill, harass, or harm Jews. They are motivated by their hatred of Israel, a hatred the Albanezi government perpetuates with its actions and its.

Anti Israel rhetoric.

One Israeli minister made this point formally in an official letter to Albanizi. He wrote, this alarming climate is unfolding under your government's watch, and is further legitimized by recent actions to deny entry to former Israeli minister IoLET Shaked and pro Israel advocate Hillel Ford. These choices are seen as discriminatory and embolden those who spread hate. This is no longer a matter of rising tensions. It is a test of leadership, and he warns that silence sends a

It is a great moral failing of the leadership of at least some of our university set. Some students, to my personal knowledge, are now afraid aid of being identified by their fellow students.

Has been Jewish at Frosity of the seventh of October twenty twenty three saw the largest number of Jewish people's slaughters in the Holocaust. That's the fact that needed more than general denunci agents.

And through this summit, along with the Executive Council of Australian Jury, redeveloped fifteen recommendations across national security, education, the university sector, migration, citizenships, social.

Media and more. And they included.

Declaration of a national emergency on anti Semitism and the establishment of a Joint counter Terror Task Force. The repeal of charity status and funding from religious and charitable institutions if they promote racism or displayed terror symbols. Another one, the Migration Act should be enforced or amended to ensure antisemitic conduct is grounds to reject a visa or cal an existing one. New social media legislation, such as algorithms

We are calling for this plan of action to be endorsed by both major parties and independent candidates, and for public institutions in the private sector to work with community for its implementation.

We did the thoughtful and meaningful work for the Prime Minister. He didn't have to develop a single policy, yet he then refused to implement any of our recommendations, not one, so he's categorically not doing all he can. This is what the Jewish community has asked for and he's refused to action it. In fact, Albanezi has failed to comprehensively address this. He didn't hold a press conference over the weekend about these attacks in Melbourne and this is not

Arson attacks, the chanting calls for death, other attacks and graffiti, none of it belonged to Australia, and they were attacks on Australia.

And this is new.

He now seems to he can see with his own eyes what we're actually dealing with. But if he truly wants to end this crisis, then he needs to adopt our action points from our Antisemitism summit. As you'll recall, when we held that summit, Mark Dreyfus accused us of doing it for ratings.

Anti Semitism cannot and must not be weaponized in the pursuit of votes. It must not be weaponized in the pursuit of newspaper sales or TV ratings either.

I hope that suggestion wasn't that our newspapers or television stations are weaponizing this, because we certainly are not.

We are defending our values.

No one who is hurting deeply from this antisemitism crisis in Australia could possibly make such a crude suggestion. And that's the problem with the Albanezy government. They believe this was all confected. They didn't genuinely believe drastic action was needed despite the multiple firebombings, the arson attacks, the torched cars and the vandalized officers.

It's enough.

It was enough long ago, and now the Australian Jewish community can't help. But ask is it still safe to live here in Australia. When and where will the next attack be? Should we be moving somewhere else to protect our children and our families? These are the questions we're helplessly asking in our darkest hour.

I'm going to come back to that topic.

I've got James Patterson on the show a bit later. Also Claire Lehman and Joe hilde Brand will talk about it with them. Two Ray Hadley a bit late. I'm sure he'll have something to say. But now let's turn to the big news this afternoon, the mushroom trial in Victoria that has sent shockwaves worldwide. After seven days of deliberations, a jury has found Aaron Patterson guilty of murdering three relatives of her estranged husband.

New pictures have tonight been.

Released of the leftovers of the deadly beef Wellington meal that's the meal, also a photograph of Aaron Patterson's dining table where her lunch guests.

Ate that fatal meal.

The jury was also shown this footage of Aaron Patterson checking herself out of hospital after she claimed to have eaten the deadly mushroom meal. And she was checking out of hospital against medical advice. Yet a day earlier she seemed fine walking into a service station where she'd bought some food. So this was part of the footage and the evidence that the jury considered.

Let's bring in.

Now media lawyer and partner at Thompson Gear Justin Queil Justin, thank you very much for your time tonight. Did you expect this verdict this afternoon based on the evidence that was presented over the course of the trial, Look.

I probably did, but I always thought it was going to be close, And to be frank, the longer the deliberations went on, the more the chances that the jury were going to find reasonable doubt in So look, if they'd come back this afternoon and found not guilty, I wouldn't have fallen off my chair. But I did think it was probably more lucky than not they were going to find her guilty.

I mean, there were a lot of lies that were exposed on Aaron Patterson's part throughout the case, but one thing that the Crown case never achieved was a clear.

Cut motive for the murders.

And this was something that I found interesting watching it, because clearly she was guilty in the sense that she did cook this deadly meal that led to the three deaths, But what was her motive? Was this something that you found unusual justin that the crown case wasn't able to put forward a clear cut motive.

Yeah, I mean there was hints around, you know, a bit of a dispute with the husband over childcare payments and the like, and there was some pretty basic criticism of the victims Buyer and Patterson in some WhatsApp groups some months earlier. That criticism was pretty mild, really when you think about families in the middle of breakups and

And that is true.

But I did wonder whether just telling the jury we don't need to prove it, so we're not going to bother and don't you worry about it, whether that was actually going to cut the mustard, and whether the jury were going to be able to sufficiently put it out of their minds. So it was a fascinating aspect of it, and reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury it was probably going to come from the lack of motive.

Yeah, exactly, because she or her defense case, you know, could have argued and as they did that, she got the bags of mushrooms mixed up and she didn't intend to kill them. So fascinating, and of course we're still to see what her sentence will be.

Justin Quill really appreciate your analysis. Thank you.

All right, let's return to the weekend's anti Semitic attacks, also the rest of the day's big stories with Collette founding editor Claire Lehmann and Sky News host Joe Hildebrand. Great you, Joe, you know, we just I just want to ask you about that point I made that every time something happens, we have the same lines regurgitated by the politicians, but no new action, no new reform.

Yeah.

I think lumping anti semitism in with other forms of racism or discrimination, I think is in itself a complete failure to understand and the extremely precise nature of anti Semitism and it's extremely specific history, a history that is both religiously based and Christians have been the worst persecutors of Jews throughout history until a certain Nazi dictator came along. Not in recent times, no, but the point being that there.

Is some of our greatest allies.

That's absolutely right, and as a card currying Catholic, I'm very glad that we are. But the point being there has been always, throughout history been a very specific targeting of Jewish people for very specific reasons, and that morphed into.

The horrors of the Holocaust.

So to say, you know, you know, we're going to you know, there's been another attack on a synagogue, or someone's running in you know, through Israeli restaurants chanting death to the IDF because someone decided that would be a really fun chance to start at a music festival in front of tens.

Of thousands of people.

We're just going to clamp down on all discrimination or all racism. It's a bit like saying, hey, you know, we've found that the airbags don't work in Holden commodorees, so we're going to ban all cars from the road.

And I think part of the issue is that you have two lifelong pro Palestinian activists in Tony Burke and Albanize.

But the activists do not see Tony Burke.

Or well, he has been he has been involved in the cause for a long time, got lots of documentation to that effect.

Claire, you know, the part of the problem.

As I was talking about in the start of the show, quoting Tarlie Blickbau and Mark Leebert, are these protests where these hateful chants emerge. The argument has been free speech, political expression, but free speech shouldn't extend.

To hate speech.

You know, we can't excuse this breeding of violence any law, can we.

Well, I think it's telling that they're now using the chant death to the idea if it shows that they're not a peace movement, they're a pro war movement, a pro death movement. And like Joe says, anti semitism is different to racism because it's not motivated by contempt. It's often motivated by feelings of envy. It's conspiratorial in nature. And so the failure of our leaders isn't just the

And in more recent times. Of course, some of that has been funded by the iigc Iran of course, and the kataris well, there's still foreign at play here.

Interesting point, Bob Villain, the group that's chanted death Death to the IDF. In other footage that hasn't been as widely circulated, they actually brag about supporting violence. They say, quote unquote, we are not passive. He says, there's a lot of passive and that's me an.

Update on this.

Happily, there's a clip of them saying, we want every idea of soldier to die.

It's not like a metaphor.

That's right.

So they actually brag about supporting violence. Interestingly though, in proof of just what a performative wank fest this is and how gutless they are. Of course, they don't follow through of that. They're not the ones putting their own lives on the line or actually having to endure or even see the violence.

They're just supporting other people and aligning themselves with that's right. So it's just it's just street.

It's extremely dangerous and reckless virtue signaling basically, all.

Right, let's have a look at alban Easy, because he seems to be putting Australia's alliance with America into question over the weekend with a speech that took a subtle swipe at Trump. This is what Albinizi had to say when he was speaking at the John Curtain Research Center.

Curtain's famous state that Australia looked to America was much more than the idea of trading one strategic guaranteur for another, well, swapping an alliance with the old world for one with the new. There was a recognition that Australia's fate would be decided in our region.

I mean, Joe, it seems like Albanize is further jeopardizing Australia's alliance with the United States.

I think this might be one of those sort of magic eye things where you see what you want to see is that.

The rawsch actess.

I was in the room on Saturday night when he made that speech.

That speech was.

Made as a friend, as a.

Guest of the John Curtin Research Center, and as a guest of Nick Dironfirth, who was the director of the John Curtin Research Center.

He is a very proud Jew.

On the show, and he's obviously in the senior figure in the Labor Party. I was sitting next to him, literally right next to him as his guest, as albot was giving the speech, and there was certain not a sense that there was no sort of sense in the ruin that this is Albanese distancing himself from the US or flipping the bird of the US or anything like that. This was simply saying that he would put Australia's geostrategic interests front center.

Foreign editor Greg Sheridan in The Australia has taken a different view and it's reinforced by the fact that Albanese is preparing for his fourth meeting with President. She hasn't managed to secure meeting with Trump despite the fact he was elected in November.

Clay, Yeah, I think these things are a bit tricky, and when it comes to foreign policy, we have to see look at what leaders do, not what they say. And Urbanese is not substantially increasing our spending on defense, and if we were actually disentangling ourselves or distancing ourselves from the US, we would we seeing a massive ramp

I think if there was.

Any serious movement towards a different foreign policy, we'd be seeing a far different budget than we are at the moment.

But there's no doubt that he has zero relationship with the President.

Of the United States. I mean it's almost unheard of.

Yeah, but I mean there's going to be a great deal of diplomats and other professionals in the so called deep state. He was still going to be on the phone and you know, keeping up the relationship between the two nations.

Right whether they can get any positive outcomes, because I somehow.

Doubt can be doing.

Eventually they will meet and I think there will be an increase in Australia's defense spending and Trump will come out and say yes, we support UCARST. So I think all that movement that people are looking for, that is what the meeting will be there to generate, and so they can both come out and to clear that the deal's been done and everyone's a winner, winner.

A great deal.

I've heard it here first.

Thanks Joe, see you later on the late debate and thanks so much, Claire.

Thanks you.

Now returning now to the anti Semitic attacks on the weekend, let's bring in Liberal Senator James Patterson. James, thank you very much for your time tonight, and you've been one of the strongest figures in the coalition on this issue, which is why I am so keen to speak to you this evening. The Jacinta Alan government has now announced an anti.

Hate task force.

Do you think this is good enough at this point? More reviews when really we know what needs to be done.

Of course it's not good enough, Shari, And honestly, wasn't the fire bombing of the Dass Israel Synagogue last year enough for Cintererellen to realize that this was a serious crisis in Victoria? And indeed a serious crisis in our country. Why did it require the fire bombing of a second synagogue for her to establish a task force that will probably make the same recommendations that the Executive Council of Australia in Jury and others have made for the action

Now, James, you're very close to the Jewish community, so you would know what I said at the end of my editorial earlier is true that there are many Australian Jews questioning how safe life now is in our country, how safe people feel going to a synagogue, going to a restaurant that is owned by Jews or serves Israeli food. You know there are people leaving or thinking about leaving. How have we come to this as a nation?

You're right, Chari, this is a sentiment which unfortunately I do here from the Jewish community in Australia and here in Melbourne, and I urge Australian Jews to stay committed to our country because we are a better country with you as part of it, and will be a far worse country if you ever feel you have to leave it. And frankly, if this country ever becomes unsafe for Jews, well then it's unsafe for me and my family and

No.

Indeed, a couple of other things I want to ask you about. One is the Israeli government's strong rebuke really measurement Natiyaho weighed in on this. He released a statement demanding the Australian government take action to deal with the rioters to the fullest extend of the law. But which leads me to the second point. This death to the IDF chant. It's more transparent than from the river to the sea. Does it need to immediately be deemed hate speech?

Well, the ugly face of the anti Israel movement is revealing itself every day more and more clearly in the community. If there was any doubt left about that, I think that doubt has now been removed. They want to terrorize Jews, they want them to feel unsafe. They're willing to go and protest aggressively, almost violently at restaurants as well as synagogues in order to achieve that aim. And they're being

That, particularly when the actions speak louder than the words and the places.

They are targeting.

Are you know, a synagogue, a Jewish place of worship, nothing to do with Israel?

James Patterson, thank you so much, appreciate your clarity as always, Thank you.

All Right, coming up, the devastating floods in Texas, Elon Musk's new political party.

And Trump's tariff deadline.

We'll talk about all of that with Koshagada, plus Ray Hadley's on the desk. We'll see what he thinks of the Aaron Patterson guilty verdict.

That's after this quick break.

Welcome back, and let's bring in now our Monday regular Radio Laga and Ray Hardley.

Ray.

So much to talk about, and I want to start with the Aaron Pattison guilty verdict. Guilty, guilty, guilty. She was found to have murdered these three people by the jury.

What did you did you think she was guilty the whole time?

Well, obviously it's difficult when you're not in the court room. You know, you read the evidence, but you don't hear how it's presented. I listened to Justin Quill, who's wonderful lawyer in fact has represented me on many occasions in defamation.

Preceding mister Quill, and I heard him in the past.

Yes, hopefully no more anyway, sorry, Justin anyway, I heard him say that he wouldn't have been surprised either way it went.

It's unanimous.

But she's guilty of killing three people and attempting to kill another person. And if you go through the key evidence as I have this evening after the guilty finding, it's hard to.

Not agree with the jury that it was ananimous verdict.

The next phase, of course, the sentencing, which will obviously given us a triple murder, be a very long since, one would imagine.

I just always wondered why, you know, obviously she made the deadly meal, but what was her motivations pill the in laws who were helping her with the children they were babysitting. I just find that really odd, unless you know, there was just something unusual.

Going on in her mind.

I think given the weight of evidence of a whole range of things that happened after the murders. There was certainly something going on in her mind, and we caun't sort of venture it was the madness perhaps, yes.

Yes, indeed now I when I ask your view on you know, I was having this conversation with Johide brand Claire.

I heard it outside.

Yeah, I mean, Alban Easy is surely completely damaging our relationship with the United States.

And and he's closer to China.

Now, he was about to have his fourth visit with the Chinese leader. He hasn't cracked it for a chat with Donald Trump yet. But it all started with sending Penny Wong.

He might as well have sent me.

All the good she did over there, as useful as a sun roof and a submarine. Penny trying to deal with the Americans, and after her views on Gaza and the rest of it, and putting herself at id with the Americans over a whole range of things, and now this oration over the course of the weekend with Greg Sheridan, and I have a huge respect for Gregor is a regular guest on my program when I was still doing it,

Orcus and a whole range of things.

I mean, I don't think the Prime Minister really understands how Donald Trump feels about the Ambassador Kevin Rudd, let alone how he might feel about him. They're from the opper side of politics, so you'll be doing your best.

Exactly if for whatever reason Alberiz he not needs to call in a favor from Trump, well he's got no relationship to speak of. And you know, you can't overstate the fact that it has been eight months since Donald Trump was elected and Albertiz he's got no meeting, no relationship. And you look how the labor Prime Minister in the UK, Kirstarma.

Has handled it.

And he's a lefty as well, and he handed it so well.

It's probably even more lefty.

But yeah, great, Sheridan makes the point that he talks about defending ourselves.

I mean, have you looked at a defense budget lately?

We might as well get robots like they did in seven and eighty eight and go outside the heads and go up a Hawksbury or something.

Yeah.

Yeah, in all sorts of trouble. But now that's not going to change.

The Australian Round the story this Afternoon by Steve Jackson that Eite Butchros is penning a memoir which includes her time at the ABC. It's going to be out in October. I think it's called and Apologetically iter. I think the title is from memory.

So do you think it's going to be a.

Bit of a tell all about what happened behind the scenes at the public broadcaster?

Well, given that Ida has spent almost sixty years in the media, I'd think there's things that she would reveal that haven't been revealed previously pre the ABC. Let alone post the ABC, I had a short journey with her in about eighty two or eighty three, showing my age when she was presenting a program on two UI where

I've had a great deal of.

Respect and time for her, and I guess that I'll be one of those people. October twenty eight to thing is released, along with a lot of ABC types, will be most concerned about what I have got to say, because.

One thing I know about her she speaks to mine fourth.

That's right exactly. By the way, She's been very good to me over the years.

When I was clear magazine editor, she came over to my house, gave me advice, helped me out with my magazine covers, very generous.

I think that she's made a focus of her life of helping young women with ability, and obviously you're one of those young women that benefited by her advice. And I think she's a fantastic lady. And I'm looking forward to the book and I hope she gives it the ABC in space.

No, indeed, I hope she does as well. Now I have to ask you your view.

On what is being mishandled when it comes to the anti savitism crisis in this country. How are we still speaking about this, you know, twenty one months after it first kicked off with vigor.

Well, we could all be embarrassed at what's happened since with all these protests. But I was reading some stuff this morning about what happened in Melbourne on two separate occasions over the last week, and Krystal Mark got a mention.

Now, no one at the.

Protests would have a clue what Crystal Mark would mean, and I'd strongly suggest to them go to Google, get the good doctor Google out and have a look.

Crystal Nark was a.

Period in the nineteen thirties when Nazi Germany declared war on Jewish businesses and rampage through cities, destroying those businesses and destroying those people's livelihoods to try and in some way destroy them as a race. They almost succeeded, to the tune of six million people being exterminated during World

Yeah, Well said, couldn't agree more. And it has for the Holocaust survivors who are alive, it does bring back similarities and the trauma, the intergenerational trauma.

You know, look, little wonderful country, but it's been a blight on our society since October seven.

And one thing I will say.

If I see Tony Burke talking out the side of his mouth one more time about how dreadfulness is. You should have been saying this on October eight, nine and ten, a couple of years ago, not down the track and trying to make out you're on the side of the Jewish faith.

Mister Burke, because you're not.

You've been missing in action, and you discuss me with your attempts to try and make up for your past wrongs. It's dreadful, and Tony Burke hang your head in shame.

Well said.

He's the Multicultural in Fairs Minister, he's the one in charge of all of this, and the Home Affairs minister.

Now it's appalling, and you're right.

The fact that he's now speaking up is just a re action of how bad the situation is. That he's now realizing that the gravity of it.

He's been dragged kicking and screaming, I'm sure to the cameras because deep in the review of his mind, he doesn't mean what he says about the thing that Jewish faith. He never has, never has, insincerities dripping from every pore.

Sorry if I've got a bit cranky, but it does make me cranky.

I'm so grateful for your for your anger and your fire. Wish you was still on the air in the morning to fire up at them all, but at least you're doing it here.

Thank you very much.

Ray, I get the vent by Anger one night.

Awak, yeah, please hold on to it all right.

Still to come, we'll get the latest from the floods in Texas. People children still missing, plus Elon Musk's new political party.

That's after the break.

Welcome back, and let's turn now to the devastating floods in Texas and Sky News contributed Kosher Garda joins me. Now, Kosher, we know the death tolls now stands at eighty two. At least forty one people are still missing. But the question is, how did this escalate so quickly before any evacuation orders could be issued?

How did it get to this point.

That Shah is definitely one of the main questions everybody's asking. It seems like really a force of nature, just the

And what's so devastating about this is in the US, summer camps are a very big thing, and many of those who are missing or even were killed, we're children on a summer camp.

Yeah, so it's a camp called Mystic Camp in this area in Central Texas is really beautiful. It's sort of a valley, it's very mountainous around it, and it's a popular place for camps, including summer camp. Twenty eight children out of that depth toll are our children from ages as young as six to sixteen, and there is search and rescue missions going on right now, and something like eleven of the people that we still have missing are

It's just so devastating.

And there's an expected twenty five to seventy five millimeters more rain expected in the coming day, so that is hopefully the situation doesn't get worse. At least people are prepared now, but you know, for those missing, just terrible. And now, Koach, I want to ask you about Elon Musk's new political party. He's calling it America, the America Party. Trump has responded to it. Have a look at this.

I think it's.

Ridiculous to start a third party. We have a tremendous success with the Republican party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it's always been a two party system, and I think starting a third party just hands to confusion.

I mean, koshar I thought their feud wouldn't last long and they'd sought it out because this is just embarrassing taking place in the world stage, and it's affecting Tesla's stock as well.

Yes, this is you know, people have liken it to Godzilla versus King Kong, where they just studies two big juggernaut figures. And I also thought, like, you're sorry that it was just words and rhetorical back and forth. But he does seem to be doubling down with this. Where Trump is coming from with that statement is in the US, which is a winner take all system. Third parties never win. They've historically never ever won. It's never going to work

All right, Kasha Gott, I really appreciate your time.

Thank you, And after the break, just Into Alan is poised to win the next election despite.

Chaos in Melbourne. That's next. Welcome back and let's bring it now.

Anti Defamation Commission Chairman devere Abrahma Viktavia, thank you for joining us.

The polls are.

Showing Victorian premierges Into Alan is the favorite to win the vic state election. This is despite chaos in her state, not the least of which was the events of Friday night. She didn't bother to turn up to the synagogue right away. Still no arrests for the dast fire bombing back in December. Do you think the state government's response has been good enough here.

Before I get to that, and thanks for having me.

You know.

Driving on the way here, I was reminded of Charles the Golden form of French president. He wrote a book, a memoir, and the first line was, I've always had a certain idea about France, and I've lived here for thirty nine years, Shari, and I had a certain idea about Australia as an open, tolerant, welcoming, safe country for Jews. But that if no longer holds. It's been absolutely shattered and it's clear to me and it's clear to everyone.

So with this crisis of social cohesion across Australia, but particularly acute in Victoria, everything else that's going wrong with the state, the budget, transport. You know, is it difficult to understand why the polls are saying that Jacinta Allen is set to be returned.

Look, I'm not sure about you know, the political punditary. All I know is that for too long we've had elected leaders, not just in Victoria but across the country is accusing the violent rhetoric. There are people out there shari who revise Zionism that they've lost sight of the fact that we are human. They legitimize us, they defame, they dehumanize us, and they turn us into objects of hatred.

And guess what.

When you turn people into objects of hatred, you declare open season on the Jewish community. And it's not a surprise that people feel that we are fair game for violence and for harassment and for intimidation.

No, indeed, it is.

And I should mention that crime broadly is a serious issue in Victoria as well.

You know, of course we.

Have seen this extreme anti Semitic violence on the weekend, but crime has been plaguing the state from mastevere Abramovich, appreciate your time. Thank you so much, all right, and thank you for your company tonight.

I'll see you tomorrow at eight o'clock. And right now, here's Paul Murray no man Cave