Australia news LIVE: Labor sanctions neo-Nazi network; Canada, Mexico slap return sanctions on US

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has suggested the NSW Police trust Premier Chris Minns more than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the PM refused to confirm when he was made aware of the discovery of a caravan full of explosives in Sydney.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek was asked if the prime minister should have been told about the discovery, a question she didn’t directly answer.

“What we don’t do is give running commentaries during police investigations. The job of the police is to catch the criminals involved. That is their focus and that’s our focus,” she said on Seven’s Sunrise.

Plibersek repeatedly tried to redirect the conversation to what the government had done to combat antisemitism, citing $100 million spent on counter-terrorism efforts, $60 million for protecting Jewish schools and institutions, criminalising the Nazi salute, and hate speech laws currently before the parliament.

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Asked directly again if Albanese should have been told, Plibersek only responded that the Australia Federal Police work “hand-in-hand” with the prime minister and the government “at all times”.

“NSW Police made clear that the fact that this information was leaked compromised their investigations,” she said.

Also speaking to Sunrise was Barnaby Joyce, who said the saga made it “quite obvious” that the “police trust Premier Minns more than they trust the prime minister of Australia”.

“Maybe, possibly, we wouldn’t be going down this path if the Labor Party had been more efficacious in their pursuit of antisemitism right from the start rather than the ambivalence we had,” Joyce said.

Read more about who knew what and when here.