Source : Perth Now news
Anthony Albanese has again called on Australians to “turn the temperature down” after a major defence event in Canberra was derailed by police-probed incidents.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy was on Wednesday addressing the ADM Congress at the Hyatt Hotel when police evacuated hundreds of attendees due to a suspicious package.
A bomb response team was deployed to the scene.
It came hours after a rock was thrown through a hotel window as Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mark Hammond was about to address the conference.
Some delegates reportedly mistook the noise for gunshots, sparking a chaotic scramble for the exits.
Vice Admiral Hammond went ahead with his speech as planned after calm was restored.
The Prime Minister was asked about the event when fronting media in northern Tasmania.
“I think I continue to just say, people need to turn the temperature down, politicians and people – that does nothing to advance a cause, that just alienates people from whatever the supposed cause that this person has done,” Mr Albanese told reporters.
“People who break the law also should face the full force of the law.”
At reporting, it remained unclear if the incidents were linked to an anti-Israel protest planned at the Hyatt on Wednesday afternoon.
The protest was organised by students and staff from the Australian National University and the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network.
“The ADM congress is sponsored by Electro Optic Systems, an arms company exporting R400 systems used by Israel, and includes speakers from EOS, BAE Systems, Palantir and other complicit arms and surveillance companies,” they said.
“The congress will also feature speakers from the Department of Defence and other government agencies, as well as the ANU, discussing AUKUS Pillar II in particular.
“We will be demanding that the (government) sanction Israel and cut all ties with organisations complicit in genocide, remove restrictions on Palestine protests and on the right to criticise Israel and that the ANU end all collaboration with EOS, Northrop Grumman and other organisations complicit in genocide.”
Israel has vehemently rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.
Independent monitors have said most of those killed were women and children.
The conflict, which has been frozen by a tentative US-brokered ceasefire, was triggered by Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel.
Militants slaughtered and tortured their way across southern Israel, killing 1200 in what was the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
