Australia news LIVE: Albanese grilled in thorny Q+A; $24 billion from public service jobs will pay for Coalition’s bulk-billing boost

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has faced a public grilling, fronting an at-times hostile TV audience on ABC’s Q+A, including a thorny interaction over his actions to protect the Jewish community amid a spike in antisemitic attacks.

A Jewish woman asked when she could safely identify her religion in public.

“It is frankly completely unacceptable that a young Jewish person feels like they can’t identify openly or wear their school uniform on public transport around,” Albanese said.

“The government is doing what we can, but again, this is an issue which the whole of society has to address.”

But the audience member wasn’t satisfied with this answer, telling the prime minister he should consider policies like making new citizens “sign a declaration saying if they commit racism or antisemitism, their Australian citizenship should be revoked”.

The PM replied that the vast majority of people found to be involved in antisemitism, including noted neo-Nazis, were Australian citizens. He said the government had done all it could in terms of changing the law, including outlawing Nazi symbols, outlawing hate speech and funding substantial security measures around schools and synagogues and places of worship.

“You have to understand we’re a broken community now, we are hurting – you’re our prime minister, you’re our leader, there was hate speech and nothing was done,” the audience member replied.

“The hate speech happened after October 7, at the Sydney Opera House,” suggesting the government’s response was too slow.

Albanese replied that he had condemned the Opera House protests the day after they happened and consistently since then.

With AAP