Interview - TODAY Show

SARAH ABO: Let's bring in Education Minister, Jason Clare now on that issue. Jason, good morning to you. We've just heard from the Rabbi.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Morning, Sarah.

ABO: They are an incredibly resilient community, the Jewish community here in Australia, but they're still fearful of what might come next.

CLARE: And I think that's a feeling shared by many Australians. What happened the night before last is just despicable. What sort of scumbag would attack a childcare centre? What happened there was antisemitism pure and simple. There's no place for that sort of poison in Australia, you know, these people are criminals, violent criminals, and the way to stop this is to hunt them down and lock them up. That's how this stops.

ABO: National Cabinet met yesterday, right, agreeing to a national antisemitism database. But why has it taken so long? Your government has copped so much criticism about being too slow to act here.

CLARE: I think that's unfair criticism. Within two weeks of October 7, we allocated $25 million to the Jewish community to help provide extra security for things like schools and pre schools and synagogues, we've doubled that funding. We've also introduced legislation to criminalise hate speech, and we've set up police taskforces at a national level as well as at a state level.

Some people have already been arrested, Premier Minns talked yesterday about that, about eight people that have been locked up, but there's obviously more morons out there and that's why we need more police. I'm glad that more police have been put on to the task force overnight, but there's more work to do here.

I was heartened to hear from the Federal Police Commissioner yesterday that they've got 15 active investigations, and they're hoping to make more arrests soon.

ABO: I still think the argument that you're a bit slow is valid. I mean the extra police were committed to yesterday after we're seeing these attacks almost on a weekly basis, and these fresh claims from the AFP that overseas criminals may be involved in encouraging these kinds of attacks on home soil, it's incredibly troubling, and because it's been going on for so many months. How are we only just now figuring that out?

CLARE: That's terrifying, the idea that people overseas might be paying criminals in Australia to perpetrate these violent anti-Semitic acts is truly terrifying, that's something that the AFP Commissioner told National Cabinet last night.

I think it's a good example of how collaboration between Federal Police and state police is important, but so is collaboration between Federal Police and international police organisations.

He flagged yesterday the work that he's doing with Five Eyes countries in particular; that's the United States, the UK, Canada and New Zealand here.

Ultimately, if this is going to stop, we've got to hunt down the criminals that are doing this and lock them up. Some have been locked up already, but there's more out there that need to be arrested.

ABO: 15 months on you're still unable to prevent it. How does that feel?

CLARE: I think every Australian would want this to stop, and with any act of criminal violence, wherever we've had a spate of violent crime, the way this stops is when police arrest the perpetrators and lock them up, and the announcement yesterday about sharing of information's a key part of that. Ask any police officer, and they'll tell you that intel catches crooks, that's a key part of it.

ABO: Okay. All right. Just very quickly, Jason, while I've got you, Donald Trump has pledged a war on woke. Will you consider some of his policies going into an election?

CLARE: We'll take the policies that we think are important to the next election, and that's in particular focusing on the cost-of-living. We know that there's a lot of Aussies that are doing it tough, and that's why that is the focus of this Government. It's about making sure that more Aussies get a job, that we cut inflation and that we get wages growing again.

That's what's happening at the moment, Sarah. We've created more than a million jobs, we've cut inflation in half, and we've got wages going again. So, we've made real progress, but there's a lot more work to do.

ABO: All right. Thank you so much for your time, Minister. I appreciate it.