The police commissioner has denied she should have denied she should have advised the premier to reconsider hate speech laws after authorities began to suspect the Dural caravan plot was a hoax. Karen Webb has a faced parliamentary inquiry which is looking into whether the government’s handling of the plot influenced the passage of the controversial legislation.
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00:00When an explosives-laden caravan carrying a note about the Great Jewish Synagogue was
00:07discovered in Jural in January, the state's head of counter-terrorism immediately suspected
00:12something was fishy.
00:14It didn't sit right.
00:17Seemed to be too obvious in relation to explosives, notes of potential targets, and just very
00:27unusual.
00:28But ten days later, the Premier wasted no time giving it a label.
00:32There's only one way of calling it out, and that is terrorism.
00:36David Hudson's suspicions turned out to be correct, but he said he couldn't ignore information
00:41the AFP had pointing to a terrorist plot.
00:44Up until we were informed on the 21st of February that the source of that information had been
00:52discredited, we needed to continue investigating it at the highest level of threat.
00:58That date is significant because it's a day after the government passed controversial
01:03hate speech laws.
01:04After police finally revealed on the 10th of March the caravan plot had actually been
01:08a hoax designed by organised criminals, crossbench MPs said they'd been misled into supporting
01:14the legislation.
01:16While the government didn't publicly reference the caravan plot when arguing for the laws,
01:20it did refer to anti-Semitic attacks carried out in Sydney, which turned out to allegedly
01:25be part of the hoax.
01:27The police commissioner today denied she should have suggested to the Premier he put
01:31a break on the laws, given what detectives knew.
01:34I leave the politics to the politicians and we provide comment when we're asked to, but
01:40we don't provide comment without being asked.
01:45Well I would say it was a dereliction of duty, I mean you were the adults in the room.
01:49Well I reject that.
01:50She also deflected repeated questions about exactly when the Premier was told it was a
01:55hoax.