Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on NSW police voicing displeasure with leaking of potential caravan terror plot

There's discourse erupting in Sydney after a delay in publicising the discovery of a caravan full of explosives.

A Dural resident made the discovery 10 days ago, along with a note listing Jewish targets. 

Opposition leader Peter Dutton believes Australia's Government should've released details immediately.

But NSW Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson says investigations have now been compromised, and police need to re-position the investigation.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says inquiries are still ongoing amid a string in anti-Semitic incidents.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Muriolds as are men in Australia. Murray, good afternoon, Yeah,
good afternoon. Hey, what's happening in Sydney. The police are
now saying that the leak to the media is compromising
their investigation.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's why they didn't tell anyone. That's right exactly. The
caravan in question, the guy who owns the caravan was
already in custody and he was arrested as part of
Operation Strikeforce Pearl. Now, Strikeforce Pearl was set up when
last November, when the first of what is now a

(00:34):
string of anti Semitic attacks happened in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs,
a police task force was thrown together because it was
clearly an anti Semitic attack. Had Nazi symbolism was sprayed
on the walls of an Eastern Suburbs apartment block, on
cars in the neighborhood as well, and of course a

(00:57):
couple of cars were set on fire. So that began
Operation Perl. People taking into custody ten so far, and
the owner of the caravan is among them. Now police
learned of this caravan. When's the exact data? Looking at
my notes here, Okay, if I told you it was
like about nearly the best part of three weeks ago,

(01:20):
but nothing was told of the public, and you know,
for obvious reasons. I mean police are now being criticized
and you know the government as well state government for
not you know, letting people in on the fact that
these people were a in custody and B this investigation
was ongoing, and the police, in my view correctly point out, well,

(01:44):
are we really going to tell the bad guys who
were involved here every step of our investigation. What they've got,
of course, is this caravan packed with explosives thought to
be used in mining, no detonator with a note that
indicates you know, a range of Jewish if I use
the words targets and potential you know, potential targets. But

(02:08):
at this stage, look, authorities are are saying that the
inquiries are ongoing. You had overnight, you had another anti
Semitic attack, this time a Jewish school in the eastern
suburbs of Sydney at Marubra Mount Sinai College and a
nearby property. The kids went back to school today and
these dreadful words spread on the front of the school.

(02:28):
This is an ongoing issue. Terrible, There's no doubt about it.
It's dreadful, absolutely dreadful. You've got one hundred counter terrorism
investigators now involved in this. The Prime Minister called a
national Cabinet meeting. Interestingly forty eight hours after this caravan
was discovered. So so many moving parts here, mate, so
many moving parties.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yes, certainly, I certainly is. And you've got to feel
I mean kids going to school and seeing that that's
just not as possible. You've got one hundred people told
to evacuate because of bushfires mushy.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, this is ongoing down of Actoria and just you know,
they're up in Queensland, they're getting flooded out again in
Country Victory. These fires are continuing the rage in a
number of areas. I just was struck today I was
reading some of these stories. Some of these volunteers have
been going NonStop for more than forty days. They miss Christmas,

(03:19):
they missed their summer holidays because they've been out there
in the field. These are volunteers, by the way, fighting
these fires. You've got two big blazers burning at the
southern and northern ends of the Grampians National Park and
listeners may know this beautiful part of the world. You know,
rugged gorgeous forests, all sorts of rocky promontories and so on.

(03:42):
But the big worry this afternoon is that these two
fires could join up. If that happens and the weather
gets hot and windy, that's the forecast for the weekend,
certainly Sunday and Monday, that could create one big fire
and that would have a massive firefront. The other big
concern down there, the little desert fire is burning. It's
got more than seventy thousand hectares already blackened. Now you've

(04:03):
got property lost, you know, luckily no casualties at this
point because the people have been worn very very early
on to get out if they can. But again they're
changing weather could change that situation quite dramatically.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, as you say, heroes, they are. Murray, thank you
for that. Murray. Old's our Australia correspondent out of Sydney.
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