Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has condemned pro-Palestine graffiti on the Australian War Memorial and other war memorials as “criminal acts” and he hopes the perpetrators face the full force of the law and get “the book thrown at them”.
Taking a question from Barnaby Joyce, the Coalition’s spokesman for veterans’ affairs, in Parliament during question time, Albanese said with a shaking voice that those who defaced the war memorials – who are yet to be found by police – are undeserving of “any respect and any leniency” as a result of their actions.
“I certainly condemn the criminal acts that have occurred at the Australian War Memorial and also on the Vietnam War Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and other war memorials as well,” he said.
“I don’t know what goes through someone’s head in thinking that a cause, any cause, is advanced by the desecration of our sacred sites here in Australia.”
Albanese said there had been a range of “idiotic criminal actions” while the Middle East conflict has been ongoing.
“It is one thing and there should be full prosecution about the denigration of offices and the denigration of other public buildings, but nothing, nothing is as bad as the desecration of those memorials,” Albanese said.