Australia politics live: man charged after Sydney protest over police tactics; speculation mounts over Taylor resignation

Australia’s Islamophobia envoy, Aftab Malik, has called for a public apology and investigation into New South Wales police grabbing men kneeling in prayer during a Sydney protest against Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit.

Video shot at a protest in Sydney on Monday night showed about a dozen men, led by sheikh Wesam Charkawi, kneeling in prayer, before police descended on the group at the Sydney town hall during the protest.

Appearing at Senate estimates hearing last night, Malik said there needed to be “consequences”:

The police need to come out with a public apology. There needs to be an investigation.

There are some red lines and that was crossed last night. That is simply unacceptable, and the police force should know better…. there is no excuse.

Malik said he had spoken to a number of people who were grabbed by police and said they were “scared.” He said people were in a “vulnerable state” while they were praying.

McKenzie criticises Grace Tame over chant

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has joined her former colleague, Barnaby Joyce, in criticising Grace Tame, after she addressed a march against Isaac Herzog in Sydney on Monday and said “globalise the intifada”. Joyce said yesterday that Tame’s Australian of the Year honour should be stripped.

McKenzie told Sunrise this morning that Tame should be face consequences.

President Herzog’s visit should be a time of healing in the wake of the Bondi attack.

Joining McKenzie on a Sunrise panel, housing minister Clare O’Neil took a different tone and said that while the chant shouldn’t be said, there shouldn’t be a “pile-on” against Tame, and urged everyone to “turn the temperature down”.

Before we start a national pile-on onto Grace Tame, can we just remember that every single child in our country is safer today because of her willingness to talk about traumatic incidents of sexual abuse.

Greens leader Larissa Waters defended Tame yesterday against Joyce and said his criticism “says a lot more about Barnaby Joyce than it does about Grace Tame”.

Speculation mounts over Taylor resignation

Speculation is growing that Angus Taylor could resign from shadow cabinet today, as he positions himself for a leadership spill against Sussan Ley.

Shadow cabinet rules mean Taylor would have to resign to begin publicly campaigning against Ley, and would see Taylor’s close allies also forced to resign from their frontbench positions.

Yesterday Jonathon Duniam, a senior and influential member of the Liberal right faction, told Taylor to make his intentions known.

Meanwhile, Ley’s allies want her to demand Taylor and his allies put their names to a petition calling for a spill, a move that was discussed in private talks on Tuesday.

In his opening statement, Burgess cautioned those judging the agency’s actions in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight.

Naveed first came under Asio’s purview in August 2019 after suspected links to possible Islamic extremism while a teenager. In the weeks leading up to the Bondi attack, he and his father, Sajid, travelled to Davao City in the Philippines for a month.

Critics questioned why the trip to the southern province of Mindanao – a former hotbed for pro-Islamic State and Islamist militant groups – hadn’t raised national security flags.

Burgess said:

In the days and weeks after the Bondi attack, assumptions, assertions, hypotheticals and opinions quickly became accepted as facts by some. They were recycled and exaggerated in the following weeks. This resulted in calls for action that were not supported by any fact.

In a rare public intervention, Asio issued a lengthy critical statement on Sunday ahead of a program aired on ABC’s Four Corners.

The episode broadcast claims by a former undercover agent, known as “Marcus”, that father and son terrorists Sajid and Naveed Akram were showing signs of being radicalised years before they killed 15 people at Bondi beach.

Asio’s statement said the episode contained “significant errors of fact” and would reserve the right to take further action.

Burgess said on Tuesday night he was still considering what action to take.

Is there either a legal response or additional statements from me publicly to demonstrate the false claims? Of course, I’m minded and aware of there’s a royal commission, and I think that’s the best place through which I will do that.

He reiterated on Tuesday night the alleged former agent’s claims were untrue but said he was welcome to put that to a royal commission.

The head of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency has dismissed criticisms his officers didn’t do enough to prevent the Bondi shooting attack as “baseless” while declaring claims by a former undercover agent aired on the ABC were untrue.

The director-general, Mike Burgess, told a Senate estimates hearing last night he ordered a review immediately following the attack into how his agency, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (Asio), assessed shooters 24-year-old Naveed Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, in 2019 when they first appeared on the radar.

Burgess said the independent review remained highly classified but cleared Asio of wrongdoing.

The Akrams did not adhere to, or intend to, engage in violent extremism at that time. In other words, many of the claims and criticisms being made about Asio’s handling of the case are baseless.

The Asio head said he welcomed the royal commission’s final report, due before 14 December 2026. He said:

The royal commissioner, of course, will reach her own conclusions.

If Asio is found to have made mistakes, we will own them, and we will learn from them.

A demonstration against the NSW police’s response to Monday’s protest in Sydney against the visit by Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, ended mostly without incident last night, despite an hour-long standoff between protesters and police.

As we reported yesterday, the protest was organised by the Palestine Action Group outside the Surry Hills police station to “rally against police brutality” following violent clashes on Monday, and to call for all charges against protesters to be dropped. Yesterday’s protest was static and peaceful, with Josh Lees, an organiser for the Palestine Action Group, calling on the crowd to “not stick around for too long in these parts” when speakers concluded about 7pm.

While the larger section of the crowd of at least a thousand dispersed, a smaller group of several hundred people headed immediately towards a line of about a hundred officers separating the protesters in Harmony park and the police station. At this time, Guardian Australia witnessed one protester being restrained by police behind the line of officers.

An at-times tense standoff of more than an hour followed, with some protesters verbally confronting police at close quarters, and the crowd chanting “quit your job” and “too many coppers, not enough justice”. Officers took out canisters of pepper spray, and some protesters put on protective masks and goggles, but incidents like those seen on Monday night did not materialise.

Organisers including Lees stood with their backs to the line of police, facing the crowd, in an attempt to prevent the situation escalating, and were eventually able to convince protesters to move on.

In a statement last night, NSW police said an 18-year-old man was arrested at the protest after allegedly continuously shining a torch in the face of police officers. He was taken inside Surry Hills police station and police said in another later statement that he had been charged – with three counts of assault police officer in execution of duty without actual bodily harm, and custody of knife in public place.

NSW police assistant commissioner Peter McKenna said police had “showed enormous restraint in a high-pressured situation”.

Good morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you for what will be another busy sitting day.

There’s more reaction to Monday night’s protests with calls from Australia’s Islamophobia envoy for a public apology from NSW police after they were seen grabbing men who were praying on the street.

Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, will continue his travel in Australia and visit Canberra today.

Asio has overnight defended itself against criticisms over the Bondi terror attack during a Senate estimates hearing.

The government has reported an uptick in bulk-billing rates – the health minister, Mark Butler, is doing the media rounds this morning spruiking the trend.

And Angus Taylor is inching ever-closer to a leadership spill against Sussan Ley – all eyes and ears are on the Liberals to see if they make any moves today.

I’ve got a coffee, I hope you’ve got one too, let’s get cracking!