US embassy in Australia reminds citizens to stay vigilant
The US embassy in Australia has issued a warning reminding US citizens to “remain vigilant” following the Bondi Junction mass stabbing.
The embassy hasn’t changed our travel alert category – we are still on level 1.
The message reads:
In the aftermath of the horrific incident at Bondi Junction this weekend, the U.S. Mission to Australia would like to remind U.S. citizens to remain vigilant; be aware of your surroundings; and practice sound personal security and situational awareness. As this incident showed, dangerous events can occur in the most unexpected of areas. Visitors to congested and popular tourist areas should pay particular attention to their surroundings and always follow the instructions of police and emergency response officials.
Witnesses respond to video of police pepper spraying man holding a cross
One video from last night’s riot that has stood out to the many community members milling about outside the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church today was of police pepper spraying a man holding a cross.
According to witnesses, who have all asked to remain anonymous, it was this move by police that sparked much of the violence among the crowd.
In the video, a man can be seen holding an illuminated cross above his head, before a scuffle leads to it falling, enraging those standing around him.
According to witnesses, this incident led to some members of the crowd throwing bricks and stones at the assembled police and their cars, shattering windows and injuring some officers.
One bystander, Maria, said the police should have known better how to handle such a crowd:
As soon as the cross hit the ground, people got even angrier, feeling as though their religion had been insulted. So now, our bishop has been attacked and our religion insulted. People are going to react the way they’re going to react.
You just can’t do that, particularly in that situation. You need to be calming people down. They wanted to get in and get to the attacker, and this is how you handle them? Very disappointing.
Assyrian community critical of police response to stabbing attack
Members of the Assyrian community have criticised how the police handled the situation last night, specifically saying how unprepared they seemed to be for how incendiary the situation was.
Nahro, who was witness to the riot last night, said police had initially attended the scene seemingly under the impression it was a straightforward situation.
There were just a couple of them, alongside the ambulance. They arrived around the same time as the crowd started gathering, and the police looked unprepared, but we all knew what was going to happen … the police should have been more prepared.
Monica Gayed was in attendance last night, saying she had wanted to go to church and was unaware of what was going on until she arrived. She accused the police of behaving “disgustingly” and said they were too aggressive in how they dealt with the crowd.
I was appalled, they pushed and shoved me so much, I had just come to attend the church and they didn’t care what anyone had to say.
A damaged car parked outside Christ the Good Shepherd Church. Photograph: James Gourley
She said she saw police barricade themselves in the church to get away from the surging crowd, only enraging them further.
People were outraged, maybe understandably, but there are ways of dealing with people that are angry that doesn’t involve pepper spray and using force.
She said that as the police sought to clear a way out of the church, they were aggressively moving people on and using pepper spray on the crowd. Many had to escape into neighbouring homes to get away from it.
Some of us had just come to see what was going on, some had come to check in on the bishop, it was just unfair.
NSW police were contacted for a response, and referred us to comments made by the commissioner at this morning’s press conference.
‘World is watching’ Australia’s response to Great Barrier Reef bleaching, Greens says
As Graham Readfearn reported overnight, global heating has pushed the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching event that is on track to be the most extensive on record.
Greens spokesperson for healthy oceans, Peter Whish-Wilson, said the “world is watching” and Australia can’t afford to “continue to monitor the Great Barrier Reef to its death”.
He noted 75% of the reef is now bleached and said the government “must take a leadership role in protecting [it] by increasing Australia’s climate ambition and improving our broken environment laws.”
Frustratingly, Labor appears satisfied with a weak climate target that is consistent with degrading 99% of the world’s coral reefs, and is failing to show meaningful accountability for breaking its election promise to deliver comprehensive environmental law reform.
You can’t acknowledge climate change is the biggest threat to our marine ecosystems on one hand, and on the other rip open new coal and gas projects that are cooking our oceans. It’s completely disingenuous.
So long as Labor is beholden to vested interests and big corporations, Australia will never get the climate action or environmental protection it needs to save the Great Barrier Reef from being annihilated by political stupidity.
A woman at a beach on Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
Last night’s stabbing attack ‘triggering’ for Assyrian community
The events from last night are still reverberating around the local Assyrian community, with many saying they felt the crowd gathering and reacting was justified, if a little too passionate.
Maria, who asked to remain anonymous, said many in the community still felt the trauma of being persecuted by Muslim communities in Iraq.
She explained that the community felt “on edge” by the proximity to the Australian Muslim community, and that last night’s attack was “triggering”.
There are a lot of old wounds between these communities. There is a long-standing history between our community and the Muslim community, and this attack has just sparked lots of deep wounds.
We have always felt something would happen. We don’t feel safe. Our trauma still lingers, we are all very connected to Iraq.
Maria said she was close with Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, having attended many of his lessons, and that many in the crowd had great respect for him. She added that the crowd was incited by posts being spread on social media, videos or voice recordings that were “inflammatory”.
They were reacting to what they were seeing on social media. There were many inflammatory posts making the rounds, people advocating for violence and the such. It was making lots of people very angry.
We are a very heartbroken community today. We just want to live in peace. We are fearful and angry at the same time.
Forensic officers search for evidence outside Christ the Good Shepherd Church. Photograph: James Gourley
Coles CEO concedes suppliers need price transparency
The Coles chief executive, Leah Weckert, has acknowledged the supermarket needs to improve how it interacts with produce suppliers, amid claims the major chains unfairly use their market power when negotiating prices.
“Claims have been made about how we interact with our suppliers,” Weckert told the Senate inquiry into supermarket practices today.
We acknowledge that we don’t always get it right but all our procedures seek to ensure fair and sustainable relationships.
Fresh produce producers and the dairy sector have told the committee that their sectors are at threat due in part to what they describe as unsustainable pricing demands.
Weckert said some suppliers had been working with Coles for generations:
Coles would be very willing to be part of a solution that would involve greater [price] transparency for fresh produce growers.
A shopper enters a Coles supermarket in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
The Senate inquiry is designed to investigate how big supermarkets set prices and use their market power when dealing with suppliers.
Food consumption data shows that households have been purchasing less food, especially fruit and vegetables, as prices rise. The slump in demand, however, has not dented supermarket profit making, as it typically would in a more competitive market.
More from Wakeley locals following yesterday’s stabbing attack
Locals have explained that the gathering at the Christ the Good Shepherd church was a memorial for someone who had passed away a year ago. The service was mostly prayers, unlike the usual weekday services at the Church, which are usually lessons or Bible studies.
Christian, a local member of the Assyrian community, said the service was for a relative of his and that was why there was a relatively large crowd in the Church at the time.
He said the reason a crowd formed so quickly was a combination of the video of the attack spreading like wildfire, and the popularity of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel:
People love him, he has helped so many people in our community and in every community. You have to understand, he has brought young people to the church, he has addressed social issues, he is on top of everything.
Sure he is passionate [but] nothing can justify such an attack.
Forensic officers searching for evidence outside Christ The Good Shepherd Church. Photograph: James Gourley/The Guardian
Another local, Michael, said the surge in the crowd reflected the Bishop’s popularity, as well as the level of anger at what is being perceived in the Assyrian community as a religious attack.
Obviously the boys overreacted, but they were outraged, imagine your faith leader is attacked?
People moved to come to the church within 5 minutes. The boys were nervous, they were on edge, they heard so many rumours and were here to see what happened. They surged when they heard the attacker was Muslim.
Assyrians are never afraid, they wanted to get their hands on the attacker, they wanted to enact street justice. They were angry police were holding them back.
Neither men were involved in any violence outside the church.
More on the changes to environmental laws being announced
Stepping away from the Dutton presser, here are some more on the changes to environment laws being announced today by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek.
In a statement, she said the promised Environment Protection Agency would have “strong new powers and penalties to better enforce federal laws”. Its chief would be an independent statutory appointment similar to the Australian federal police commissioner “to make sure no government can interfere with the new agency’s important enforcement work”.
Plibersek said the EPA would be able to issue environment protection orders – effectively “stop-work” orders – and that serious breaches could lead to fines of up to $780m and prison terms of up to seven years.
Plibersek said a second new body, Environment Information Australia, would release a national state of the environment report every two years. They are currently compiled every five years.
She said the government would dedicate $100m to speed up environmental approvals.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Greens said the changes did not go far enough, and accused the government of giving in to a two-year campaign by “the mining industry and big developers” .
The party’s environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said the government was engaged in “piecemeal tinkering” when it had promised a full environment law reform package.
Labor promised to fix Australia’s broken environment laws but without stopping native forest logging and fossil fuel expansions the government will be failing to protect our planet and failing to keep its promise to the Australian people.
Dutton says bipartisanship 'important' after Sydney church stabbing
Asked if there are any specific federal laws he believes need to be changed in relation to knife crime, Peter Dutton said there would be discussions around this but his view is “there are none that are obvious”.
We are willing and we stand ready to support the government. I think the offer of bipartisanship support at the moment is important.
I have expressed that in my letter to the prime minister today that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the government to provide reassurance to the Australian public at the moment who, off the back of Bondi, what we saw in western Sydney and what the Jewish community is experiencing at the moment, I think people would expect us to take that stance and we do.
Peter Dutton is now taking questions from reporters and is asked if he would like to see the states introduce tougher stop and search laws.
That’s an issue for the premiers and if there are laws that need to be tightened on a federal level than we would certainly offer bipartisan support and sensible reforms that the government has put on the table as well.
