AFP probes whether ‘criminals-for-hire’ stoking anti-Semitism crisis as Labor pressed for answers

The Australian Federal Police are investigating whether “criminals-for-hire” may have been paid to carry out acts of anti-Semitism in Australia.

“We believe criminals-for-hire may be behind some incidents. So, part of our inquiries include who is paying those criminals, where those people are, whether they are in Australia or offshore, and what their motivation is,” AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw, said on Wednesday.

“There is still a lot of investigative work to be done, and we are not ready to rule anything in or out,” he said.

“Crime is globalised. Criminals are using anonymising technology, and we know 70% of criminals who target Australia are offshore,” he added.

Mr Kershaw’s statement in Parliament House comes amid a growing political row over the response to an escalating anti-Semitism crisis in Australia.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Coalition has demanded answers over the “gravely serious claim” from the AFP that foreign actors may be orchestrating a rise of anti-Semitic attacks in Australia.

The calls were immediately rebuffed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who accused Opposition leader Peter Dutton of seeking “political advantage from traumatic circumstance” in an escalating political row over how to respond to the anti-Semitism crisis.

The AFP Commissioner told the National Cabinet on Tuesday the police were probing whether “overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia” in cryptocurrency to carry out some of a spate of attacks against the Jewish community over the past year.

The snap Cabinet was summoned after a childcare centre in Maroubra was torched and vandalised with an offensive slogan – one of a series of anti-Semitic incidents that has shocked Jewish Australians and the nation.

Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said if the reports of foreign interference were true, the country was facing “the most serious domestic security crisis in peacetime in Australia’s history,” and called on the Prime Minister to release more information to the public. .

If “a transnational terrorist organisation is sponsoring attacks in Australia, or potentially a foreign government is engaging in state-sponsored terror targeting the Jewish community,” it would “cause incredible alarm,” he told ABC Radio National Breakfast.

“A lot more information is required about this claim, and a lot more comfort that needs to be given about what is being done in response to it. You cannot put information out this partially, as has been done so far,” he said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton queried why Mr Albanese “has never mentioned this before now”.

“When did the Prime Minister find out that there were foreign players? Are these state actors or organised crime groups? Or are they antisemitic groups? What did the prime minister know?” Mr Dutton said.

“I think that the Prime Minister should provide what information he can publicly.”

Mr Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had earlier hit back, warning the Coalition that they would not risk compromising the investigation.

“But it is important that people understand where some of these attacks are coming from, and it would appear, as the AFP commissioner said yesterday, that some of these are being perpetrated by people who don’t have a particular issue and aren’t motivated by an ideology, but are paid actors,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Sydney.

“It’s unclear where the payments are coming from, but they are being investigated and they have been,” he said.

“I’m not going to compromise the investigations. We want to hunt down these perpetrators. We want to see them face the full force of the law.”

He pushed back at suggestions from the opposition and Jewish leaders that his Government had been slow to act, saying they had acted “from day one” and accused Mr Dutton of seeking “political advantage from traumatic circumstance”.

“He should know better,” Mr Albanese said, before listing the raft of measures Labor has put in place to combat anti-Semitism.

“The concern here is that an attempt to politicise this has another result — it denies agency of the actual perpetrators. It is an attempt to turn away from those people engaged in these hate crimes, towards it being a political issue.

“Australia should come together, not look for difference, but look for unity of purpose.”

At his own press conference, Mr Dutton accused the PM of letting anti-Semitism “fester” for “his own political advantage”.

“I think he’s hung a big part of the community out to dry, because you’ve got votes that they’re chasing from inner city seats, from Greens, and in Western Sydney. That’s the Prime Minister’s motivation here,” Mr Dutton said.

Mr Burke described the call for more public information as “surprising and potentially naïve” and declined to provide any further details about the investigation.

“The Australian Federal Police will have very deliberate reasons for what they put out in the public and when they do it, and they operate independently as they should,” he told ABC Radio National.

“My only interest in what they put out is that they make decisions that are designed to advance investigations. I’m not able to add to anything that’s been put out there.”

The Government has also rejected criticism from Israel that its position on the conflict in the Middle East has exacerbated anti-Semitism in Australia.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told the ABC in Jerusalem that the Labor Government’s own policies were fuelling violence against Australia’s Jewish community, accusing the Australian authorities of being too slow and cautious in its response.

“Obviously the attitude of the current Australian government towards Israel is inflaming a lot of these emotions and giving, I guess, some acceptance when you do not fight it,” she said

“The Jewish community needs actions, and only through that, through deterrence, through investigation, prosecution — you have to fight it.

“I mean, what are they waiting for? For someone to die? For someone to be murdered?”

Mr Burke said the Government had consistently and absolutely rejected anti-Semitism and taken a series of actions against it. “The concept that we’re waiting is frankly wrong,” he said.