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Chalmers says fear of mass casualty event ‘extraordinarily serious development’

Asked whether he fears “we could see a deadly attack in the coming weeks and months” on ABC News Breakfast, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said:

We know from the counter-terrorism teams that they consider this to have been a potential mass casualty event. That is obviously an extraordinarily serious development and this is why we’re working so closely with them and with the states and territories.

We know that fear is not entirely unfounded when we see developments like this. We’re making sure that whatever can be done will be done and we’ll be briefed on this later this morning.

Some of the fear that Jewish Australians have is not unfounded. There is absolutely no place for violence or for antisemitism in a country like ours and that’s why we’re working closer than ever with police and other authorities to make sure that we stamp out and root out this antisemitism which is unfortunately becoming a feature all too frequently in our communities.