Prime Minister Tony Abbott has fronted television cameras at least five times since the Martin Place siege revealed itself to a shocked Australia.
On the 15 December 2014, the day the siege commenced:
Then in a flurry on the second and final day:
Press Statement 16 December 2014 | Transcript
Flags at half-mast today 16 December 2014 | Media release
Joint Press Conference, Sydney 16 December 2014 | Transcript.
Followed by this the day after:
Martin Place siege - Joint Commonwealth -New South Wales review17 December 2014 | Media release.
Despite the fact that the motivation for the siege appeared to be unrelated to any specific jihadist group, Tony Abbott insisted on associating it with Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
In fact in one of these televised press conferences he managed to use his favourite term, death cult, four times in one short paragraph:
However, if one is a fear-mongering politician one cannot rest on one’s laurels, so on 17 December Abbott started to assert that the now deceased gunman had been given a gun licence:
Unfortunately for the prime minister this has since been refuted by at least one Fairfax journalist:
NSW Police have also refused to back his statement.
The
Sydney Morning Herald 17 December 2014:
NSW police
say there is no record that Martin Place siege gunman Man Haron Monis had a gun
licence.
This is
despite the Prime Minister Tony Abbott asserting in a press conference earlier
that Monis, killed by police in a gun battle after a 16-hour siege, had been
allowed to legally own weapons.
"The NSW
Police Force has conducted checks with the NSW Firearms Registry and can
confirm there is no record of the 50-year-old man having held a firearms
licence," a statement issued this evening said.
UPDATE
On 18 December 2014 Sky News reported that:
UPDATE
On 18 December 2014 Sky News reported that:
Attorney-General
George Brandis says the government has not found any link between the gunman in
the Sydney siege and Islamic State….
early
indications are that he wasn't actually a member or an affiliate of a terrorist
organisation…
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