Program: New envoys to target anti-Semitism and Islamophobia

Samantha Donovan: Hello, welcome to PM. I'm Samantha Donovan, coming to you from the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne. Tonight, as the war in Gaza threatens social cohesion in Australia, the federal government appoints an anti-Semitism envoy. Also, Donald Trump claims Joe Biden won't bow out of the presidential race because his ego is too big. And could stricter speed limits slow the hectic pace of our big cities?

Opinion: I think that is a good idea. 40 kilometres an hour is not too slow at all. I think that's spot on. Most of the dangers on the road, to be honest, are from taxi drivers. So a lower speed limit probably would be good.

Samantha Donovan: First this evening, the Prime Minister has named Jewish lawyer and business leader Jillian Segal as Australia's first anti-Semitism envoy. Mr Albanese says the appointment is part of the government's efforts to protect the nation's social cohesion as the war in Gaza continues. And an envoy on Islamophobia will soon be appointed. Some groups are concerned by today's announcement though, saying it increases the risk critics of Israel's conduct of the war will be accused of anti-Semitism. Gavin Coote reports.

Gavin Coote: Here in Australia and abroad, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have been on the rise. Both are a concern for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, but today his focus was on how widespread anti-Semitism has become since October 7 last year.

Anthony Albanese: I have spoken with members of the Jewish community here in Melbourne, right around Australia, who have not felt safe. Members of the Jewish community whose children are worried about wearing their school uniform in our capital cities. That's not acceptable. Not acceptable. Ever. And certainly not in Australia in 2024.

Gavin Coote: As Israel continues its war in Gaza, the government has been under pressure to do more to tackle anti-Semitism at home. Today it's appointed lawyer and business leader Jillian Segal as the nation's first anti-Semitism envoy.

Jillian Segal: All over the world, anti-Semitism has become normalised and this is very dangerous for us all. Unfortunately, there is no single answer to the perennial problem of anti-Semitism. But the creation of this role shows a determination by the government to confront this evil and to ensure that it does not erode the goodness that exists in our society.

Gavin Coote: Ms Segal is widely respected in the Jewish community and was most recently the President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. She says after the Hamas terror attack in Israel on October 7, incidents of anti-Semitism increased by 700%. In her new job, she will advise the Prime Minister and Multicultural Affairs Minister Andrew Giles on issues of anti-Semitism. Sarah Schwartz is a human rights lawyer and co-executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia.

Sarah Schwartz: Anti-Semitism is a really serious concern. We ourselves have been targeted by far-right neo-Nazi and fascist groups, which we know are rising really concerningly, particularly where I live in Victoria.

Gavin Coote: Sarah Schwartz helped form the Jewish Council of Australia early this year and has been critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. She argues while anti-Semitism is a major concern, today's appointment is the wrong approach.

Sarah Schwartz: We know that this particular appointee has a track record of lobbying for Israel and of painting all Jews as supportive of Israel's actions. And myself and other members of the Jewish Council and in fact hundreds of Jewish people around the country are supportive of Palestinian human rights and don't unequivocally support Israel. And so we are really concerned that this anti-Semitism envoy doesn't actually represent the diversity of the Jewish community.

Gavin Coote: Daniel Aghion is the President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. He points out no community is monolithic.

Daniel Aghion: The complaint or the comment about Jillian Segal and about the position more generally fails I think to grapple with the uniqueness of a position that we're facing post-7 October that we've had this absolute explosion of hatred and this normalisation of it. That's what we've got to deal with and that's the need for the role and for an exceptional appointee like Jillian Segal.

Gavin Coote: The war in Gaza has been a volatile issue for the Albanese government. Last week's defection of Senator Fatima Payman has reflected ongoing anger in Muslim communities over perceived government indifference to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The Prime Minister will soon appoint a special envoy on Islamophobia. Gamel Kheir from the Lebanese Muslim Association questions why it hasn't been announced in tandem with the anti-Semitism envoy.

Gamel Kheir: And concerning this community is that we haven't even been consulted at all. We didn't even know there was going to be such a position, which is alarming.

Gavin Coote: The Federal Opposition has backed today's appointment of Jillian Segal and says the first priority should be a judicial inquiry into anti-Semitism at university campuses.

Samantha Donovan: Gavin Coote reporting. Australia and key regional partners Japan and Korea are accusing a Chinese spy agency of cyber espionage that's been targeting government and business networks. An advisory note issued by Australia's cyber intelligence agency alleges a large-scale operation has been underway, stealing hundreds of usernames and passwords. The ABC's defence correspondent Andrew Greene is in Parliament House. Andrew, what more can you tell us about these allegations Australia's making against China?

Andrew Greene: Sam, this is a detailed advisory that has been issued today by the Australian Signals Directorate, that's this country's cyber intelligence agency, and in that advisory it has expanded on the activities of a notorious Chinese state-backed group known as APT40, which stands for Advanced Persistent Threat, and it's linked to Beijing's Ministry of State Security. Essentially, what it's again accused of doing is targeting government and business networks in this country, but also across the region, in what's believed to be a large-scale operation that has involved stealing hundreds of usernames and passwords, particularly on vulnerable ageing devices that are used in this country. What the hackers are able to do is they get into vulnerable systems that haven't had software updates and security patches for some time, and once they're inside the system they can impersonate genuine users and get access to more classified information. If I read from the advisory, it says that APT40 has repeatedly targeted Australian networks, as well as government and private sector networks in the region, and the threat they pose to our networks is ongoing.

Samantha Donovan: How significant or unusual is it that Australia has actually named China in this advisory?

Andrew Greene: Look, it's significant on a number of levels. It's only been a few weeks since the Chinese Premier was welcomed to Australia by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, but what's perhaps more significant is that Australia, for the first time, is leading this attribution. So it's not just Australia that's put its name to the statement. All of the Five Eyes partners in the intelligence-sharing network, the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, have joined Australia, but so has, significantly, our regional partners in Japan and Korea and Germany. So that really is a diplomatic coup that Australia has managed to get so many disparate countries together for this attribution and really represents a significant pushback against Beijing.

Samantha Donovan: Has there been any response from China?

Andrew Greene: Unusually, there has been a very prompt statement from the Chinese embassy here in Canberra. Generally, these reactions come from Beijing when the ministry does a daily briefing. But if I can read briefly from a statement, the embassy here says that China has had a consistent and clear position on the issue. We oppose any groundless smears and accusations against China. And the spokesperson goes on to say that keeping cyberspace safe is a global challenge and China is a major victim itself of cyber attacks.

Samantha Donovan: So given this reported threat, what are Australia's federal government agencies being told to do to protect themselves?

Andrew Greene: Well, before this attribution was made public, the ABC revealed that the Home Affairs Secretary in recent days has issued a very urgent directive, a series of directives, in fact, to the entire Commonwealth Public Service. That means to every entity within the Commonwealth to do an urgent stocktake of its technology, the devices and systems that are connected to the internet. And in that directive, Stephanie Foster, the Home Affairs Secretary, has urged all of the Commonwealth entities to do this by June next year and to mitigate potential threats. It does seem on one level a bit strange that this isn't done already, but we're told by cyber experts that this is a significant step and a recognition of just how persistent the threat of foreign interference and influence is on this country and the fact that that can be done through technological devices.

Samantha Donovan: The ABC's Defence Correspondent, Andrew Greene, in Canberra. The Northern Territory and federal governments are defending their efforts to reduce crime in Alice Springs. The outback town was quiet last night after the police commissioner imposed a snap three-night curfew for both adults and children. But some Territorians are accusing the governments of using the curfew laws for political gain while offering few long-term solutions. Jane Bardon has more.

Jane Bardon: The NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy blamed weekend brawling and attacks for his curfew decision. Some of it was caused, he said, by an influx of people into Alice Springs for the annual show. Many of them sleep rough around the town. But some rough sleepers, including Pintinjarra man Hartley Clothler, who stays at the railway line, say public housing shortages leave people with nowhere else to go.

Hartley Clothler: Everybody's sleeping everywhere. Up here, they've got a lot of blankets here. People need house, you know, homeless people.

Jane Bardon: He sees kids roaming the streets regularly because parents are busy drinking.

Hartley Clothler: All the little kids, they're running around, stealing cars, breaking into shops. Because their mother and father, they're drinking, fighting, and the kids run away from the mother and father and they fight in the town.

Jane Bardon: The NT Labour government is determined to show it's getting tougher on crime in the lead-up to next month's Territory election and that it can control Alice Springs. NT Domestic Violence Prevention Minister Kate Wardon.

Kate Worden: We've seen an increased police presence in Alice Springs and we have passed the legislation to enable curfew to be called by the police commissioner. It's not just a curfew by itself. There's a lot of work that's going on behind the scenes to make sure that we can maintain law and order.

Jane Bardon: She rejects accusations the NT government has politicised the curfew move.

Kate Worden: Absolutely not. We made a very strong decision to support curfew to enable the police to have the powers when they see fit.

Robyn Lambley: They have squeezed every little political juice they can out of it. People in town are still highly anxious about crime. They're highly suspicious of the government and what they really will deliver over a longer period and if they are even capable of turning this around.

Jane Bardon: That's Alice Springs Independent NT MP Robyn Lambley, who's also questioning the rule-out of the federal government's $250 million rescue package committed to Alice Springs 18 months ago.

Robyn Lambley: It was sprinkled around. A lot went to education, a lot went to programs to assist children and families. We're not feeling it yet.

Jane Bardon: But the federal Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney says the money is flowing.

Linda Burney: Looking at night patrols, safe houses, boarding facilities and really important, investing in the health service in Alice Springs to address issues like fetal alcohol syndrome.

Jane Bardon: Dr Chay Brown, who designed some of Alice Springs' few anti-domestic violence programs, hasn't seen any impact from the federal money, insisting big service gaps remain.

Chay Brown: My understanding is that a lot of it has not been allocated and a lot of it has not hit the ground. I think we really needed a community-led, co-designed approach to where that money should go and that never came, that never happened.

Jane Bardon: She thinks the curfew was an overreaction and questions why it was called for the town's quietest days of the week when the bottle shops are closed.

Chay Brown: Alice Springs becomes a political football. When it's politically expedient, that's when we will see the application of these curfews. These really kind of punitive, short-term measures that do not address the underlying drivers and causes and we know these problems are being driven by things like domestic family sexual violence and they're being driven by poverty.

Samantha Donovan: That's domestic violence program designer Chay Brown. She was talking to Jane Bardon. This is PM. I'm Samantha Donovan. You can hear all our programs live or later on the ABC Listen app. Ahead, electric cars in Canberra respond to a blackout by sending power from their batteries to the national grid. Samantha Donovan: Donald Trump has given his first interview since the presidential debate nearly two weeks ago, and he's used it to slam Joe Biden's performance. Trump told Fox News it was unlikely Mr Biden would drop out as a candidate in November's election. The interview came as the White House dismissed reports Mr Biden has Parkinson's disease. Sarah Maunder filed this report.

Archives: It was a very basic direct question.

Sarah Maunder: It was a White House press conference that at times got heated as journalists pressed Biden administration spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre on the president's health and suitability for the job.

Archives: There's no reason to go back and forth and be in this aggressive way. We've all missed around here about how information's been shared with the press corps around here. What are you missed about?

Sarah Maunder: But the message the White House wanted to tell was clear.

Karine Jean-Pierre: Has the president been treated for Parkinson's? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson's? No. He's not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson's? No. So those are the things that I can give you full blown answers on, but I'm not going to confirm a specialist, any specialist that comes to the White House out of privacy.

Sarah Maunder: It followed a New York Times report claiming an expert on Parkinson's disease visited the White House eight times between July 2023 and March 2024. Soon after, White House doctor Kevin O'Connor issued a letter stating President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his normal annual physical. But it comes as a growing number of Democrats are urging him to step down as their presidential candidate after his poor debate performance against Republican Donald Trump. Donald Betts Jr. is a former Democratic Kansas Senator now based in Melbourne.

Donald Betts Jr: This is a crisis. I mean, you talk about a poor performance. It was more of a catastrophic performance where there was no room for error. The president should have nailed that debate with the former president, Donald Trump, and he failed dismally. And he knows as well as others, but the world was watching to see if this, you know, this president could deliver and nail the debate, even if there were some small mistakes. But the mistakes were not small by any imagination.

Sarah Maunder: He believes it's not too late for the Democrats to pick a new candidate.

Donald Betts Jr: Most definitely. You get the right person in. You get the right person in ready for battle. Americans love to watch a good fight. Now if you get the right person in that's ready to put on those gloves and battle Donald Trump toe to toe and show the true leadership and bringing the party together. Absolutely.

Sarah Maunder: As the Democrats' headaches grew, former President Donald Trump gave his first interview since his debate appearance to Fox News, delivering a scathing assessment of Joe Biden's performance.

Donald Trump: You could take the 10 worst presidents in the history of our country and put them together. They will not have done the destruction and damage as this man has done. He's been a horrible president, the worst president, frankly, the worst president in history by far.

Sarah Maunder: Donald Trump telling Fox News he believes it's unlikely Joe Biden will step down, but if he does, the most likely replacement will be Vice President Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump: Well, I think that it will be her. I think they are very concerned about the vote if it's not her. I mean, they're gun shy. They don't want to do it any other way. I've actually come to believe that's what they're going to do. I think she's an ineffective person. You know, it looks to me like he may very well stay in. He's got an ego and he doesn't want to quit.

Sarah Maunder: Donald Trump is currently ahead of Joe Biden in the polls, but Americans are dissatisfied with their choices for president, Whit Ayres is a Republican pollster and president of North Star Opinion Research.

Whit Ayres: Eighty five percent of Americans would change out one or both of the candidates for president if they could. So that tells you that there's a great deal of dissatisfaction about the choices that Americans are currently facing for president.

Sarah Maunder: Joe Biden will host world leaders in Washington this week for the NATO summit, where he's expected to reinforce support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and reassure allies he remains fit for the job.

Samantha Donovan: Sarah Maunder reporting. Back home now and a fleet of electric cars in Canberra has achieved what researchers say is a world first. In a blackout caused by extreme weather, the vehicles sent power from their batteries into the national grid. Advocates say this so-called vehicle-to-grid technology could help stabilise the electricity supply. Declan Gooch has more.

Declan Gooch: It was the promise of cutting-edge technology that convinced York Stanham to buy an electric car.

York Stanham: I work in IT, so electric vehicle was kind of like a big gadget which was quite attractive. And then there was the whole environmental benefits side.

Declan Gooch: The Canberra man is intrigued by the idea that one day his car could be used to send power stored in its battery back into the electricity network. It's a technology known as vehicle-to-grid and it could help improve the stability of an electricity network powered increasingly by renewables.

York Stanham: I think it's pretty cool. Obviously you'd have to have people plugged in if there was, I know everyone's out driving at night or something, you couldn't really rely on it too much. But if you could use that rather than something like fossil fuels it'd be pretty good. Although I don't know how you get around the uncertain nature of availability.

Declan Gooch: Extreme weather in Victoria has given researchers a much better idea of how it might work. Back in February a storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and shut down a key coal-fired plant. About 500 kilometres away from the blackout, 16 electric cars in Canberra switched from charging their own batteries to sending power back to the grid. Bjorn Sturmberg from the Australian National University says it was the first time in the world vehicle-to-grid technology had been used in a blackout.

Bjorn Sturmberg: Those 16 vehicles provided about 100 kilowatts of power to the grid and it would take about 100,000 electric vehicles to provide that amount of power to the grid to provide all the power reserves that the grid operator holds in store for such emergencies. To give that some context, Australians bought 100,000 electric vehicles last year.

Declan Gooch: And the researcher says it demonstrates how the technology can work in reverse, helping to ease the load electric vehicles place on the grid at peak times as their numbers increase.

Bjorn Sturmberg: So in this event in February, power ended up being cut to 90,000 customers in Victoria. If we had stopped 6,000 electric vehicles from charging, that would have had a comparable effect. I think to me it's vastly preferable that we stop a few electric vehicles charging than cutting power to customers.

Declan Gooch: But Bjorn Sturmberg says most electric cars don't yet have the ability and the technology needs support from governments. Ross De Rango, the head of energy and infrastructure at the Electric Vehicle Council, believes there should be financial incentives for EV owners if the technology is widely rolled out.

Ross De Rango: If you're looking to encourage people to install solar panels, we provide people with the opportunity to feed into the grid and they are paid for contribution to the energy system. With vehicle to grid, the prospect is that they would be feeding into the grid at peak time when energy is worth significantly more than it is on average. And they would be compensated in line with that.

Declan Gooch: He believes the battery in an electric car is more than just a means of moving people.

Ross De Rango: The opportunity that is presented by all of these batteries in people's vehicles all over the country goes well beyond the transport options. Vehicle to grid done well has the potential to bring forward the dates at which we close coal and gas fired power stations.

Declan Gooch: Meanwhile, EV driver York Stanham says owners would need to have some input into when their batteries could be accessed and how much power could be drained.

York Stanham: You'd have to have some sort of limit, like maybe use any additional power over 60 per cent because you know I have to drive to work tomorrow and that could just be a pre-set.

Samantha Donovan: Electric vehicle owner York Stanham ending that report from Declan Gooch. Life in our big cities moves at a furious pace, but could lower speed limits fight congestion while making our streets safer for motorists and pedestrians? The City of Sydney has just announced plans to cut the speed limit on its local roads to 40km an hour, and it may be a move other capital cities will consider too. Luke Radford has more.

Luke Radford: On the streets of Sydney, talk of reducing the speed limit divides opinions.

Opinion: 40, you're hardly moving. I think if drivers knew how to drive correctly, there wouldn't be an issue.

Opinion: Well, I reckon with the amount of people we get walking across the roads, jaywalking and not using the traffic lights as they're meant to, it would be good to drop the speed limit down, at least make it a bit safer for the people.

Opinion: I'm actually from Hobart where that happened a while ago, and actually it's turned out to be quite a good thing.

Luke Radford: In cities like London, Paris and Madrid, up to 80% of the suburban streets are already limited to 30km per hour. And now Sydney is following suit, with the City Council set to reduce the default limit to 40 on local roads. It's something that Rachel, who witnessed a close call in the Sydney CBD moments earlier, supports.

Rachel: I mean you see them now as we're standing here coming, crawling past, I honestly don't think that 30km would be too bad either. Like honestly, what do you need to rush for in the city when everything is so condensed and there's so many people crossing the roads, we have tourists around who don't know the signage and the things properly, so they're doing the best that they can and they rely on the drivers to know what they're doing.

Luke Radford: Sydney's City Council actually hopes to eventually reduce the speed to 30 in the most congested areas of the city centre. But for some, that's too low.

Opinion: Ah, too slow. Too slow? Too slow. You wouldn't get anywhere very quickly. Traffic would come to a standstill.

Luke Radford: But CEO of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, Harold Scruby, says the safety benefits for pedestrians alone justify the change.

Harold Scruby: Now you look at the stats, if you're hit at 30, you've got a 90% chance of survival. If you're hit at 40, 60% and at 50, a 10% chance.

Luke Radford: Mr Scruby also argues that locals' concerns about traffic slowing to a crawl are also not necessarily true.

Harold Scruby: It doesn't at all. And there are many studies that show if you drove from one end of the CBD in Sydney to the other at 50, 40 or 30, the time you reached your destination would be about the same. Simply because of the traffic lights and the traffic and everything else. And you know what? It dramatically improves commerce. If you can harmonise cities and you can reduce the speed limits, you get much more commerce. And isn't that what everyone wants at the moment?

Luke Radford: New South Wales' peak motoring body, the NRMA, wasn't available to speak. But in a statement it said it does not support arbitrary cutting of speed limits across council areas. It says speed limits should be evidence-based regardless of whether it's increased or decreased. It should be based on the performance of individual roads and factors such as traffic volumes, crash history and engineering.

Samantha Donovan: Luke Radford reporting. To Western Australia now, where in Perth, special school workshops are encouraging Indigenous students to aim for higher education. The Deadly Dreaming program is designed and delivered by First Nations staff. It helps students celebrate their Aboriginality by dispelling stereotypes and inspiring them to follow their dreams. Past participants are now graduating from uni and organisers want more schools to offer the program. Jon Daly prepared this report.

Jon Daly: Visions for the future.

Archives: I have three. Get into Aeternan, Suncorp, Suvarnabhumi, travel every country in the world and buy my dream car.

Jon Daly: Chaired by Indigenous students from Perth's Presbyterian Ladies College.

Archives: I want to be a doctor. I want to get into the AFW but if that doesn't work out I want to be, like, start a mentor program for, like, little Indigenous communities.

Jon Daly: They're taking part in one of the Deadly Dreaming workshops run by First Nations staff from Murdoch University's Kulbarti Aboriginal Centre. And the premise of the program is simple. Go into schools, talk to Indigenous students about racism, stereotypes and the breadth of Australia's Indigenous history and try to encourage them to envisage as big and brighter future as they can, unencumbered by discrimination. Jacob Wehr-Murphy is a workshop facilitator.

Jacob Wehr-Murphy: A lot of the time when we get them to look at the stereotypes that we face as black fellows, for example, like we're non-educated, we're alcoholics or we're violent, it's overcoming those stereotypes and seeing the light shine in their eyes that we aren't what society thinks that we are and that we can achieve these incredible and amazing things.

Jon Daly: Deadly Dreaming is the brainchild of Sharna Walley, who has faced first-hand the barriers between Aboriginal youth and higher education.

Sharna Walley: When I started going through school it was really, really rough. I struggled a lot socially, I struggled to stay in school, home life was a little bit unstable. I had a massive incident of racism when I was in year 11 and I ended up leaving school.

Jon Daly: But she eventually enrolled in a bridging course at Murdoch University's Kulbarti Aboriginal Centre and now Sharna Walley is the university's Senior Training Manager for First Nations. That led her to design Deadly Dreaming to first and foremost help Indigenous students feel worthy of higher education.

Sharna Walley: You know, they're socially isolated at school, it's because they don't see the university as a place that they belong in. Also, a lot of our young people don't even understand their own history. They can see what's going on in their community but they don't know why. And so giving them an understanding of that might help them to place themselves in their journey a little better.

Jon Daly: Deadly Dreaming includes two in-school workshops and is offered to high schools for free. Sharna Walley wants to see more schools take up the program.

Sharna Walley: And it's an opportunity for them to give their students something that maybe they don't necessarily have the resources for at their own school. So we need more schools on board, we need more principals leaning in, we need more people paying for their kids to get on the bus and come to our program. We need more enthusiasm from schools because that will help us. And it doesn't matter how many Aboriginal kids you have at your school, it doesn't matter how many Aboriginal liaison officers you have at your school, everything we do is complimentary.

Jon Daly: Back at Perth's Presbyterian Ladies College, Year 10 student Ava Farrer wants to be an actor, a deadly dream she feels more confident to pursue.

Ava Farrer: I feel like yes, I could, especially with the education I've received, I think I can do anything with my future.

Samantha Donovan: Perth High School student Ava Farrer, that report from Jon Daly and Briana Shepherd. Thanks for joining me for PM. I'm Samantha Donovan. We'll be back at the same time tomorrow. Good night.