Australian news and politics live: Albanese told Australia is ‘broken’ in tense anti-Semitism public grilling

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has admitted the bureaucracy got it wrong and promised to immediately reverse a decision to cut funding from Red Nose Australia.

After media reports circulated early on Tuesday that the national charity which provide assistance to families grieving the loss of a child would have its funding cut, a wave of protest flooded talkback radio.

The PM was forced to jump on a call from Melbourne Airport with 2GB’s Ben Fordham and admit he knew nothing about the decision stating “it will not happen on my watch”.

“Red Nose is a unique charity and the funding will absolutely continue,” Mr Albanese said.

“I knew nothing about this and occasionally, frankly, the bureaucracy get it wrong and on this occasion they got it completely wrong.”

Red Nose CEO Amy Cooper thanked the PM for the assurance live on air saying “it was a big relief”.

Anthony Albanese has faced a public grilling, fronting an at times hostile TV audience as he battles dismal polling.

Fronting the ABC’s Q+A program, the prime minister had a thorny interaction over his actions to protect the Jewish community amid a spike in anti-Semitic attacks.

A Jewish mother of four asked when she could safely identify her religion in public.

“It is frankly completely unacceptable that a young Jewish person feels like they can’t identify openly or wear their school uniform on public transport around,” Mr Albanese said.

“It’s something that I think is a source of enormous regret.”

But the audience member wasn’t satisfied with his answer, chastising him for not going harder.

“You have to understand we’re a broken community now, we are hurting - you’re our prime minister, you’re our leader, there was hate speech and nothing was done,” she said.

“We’ve suffered because nothing was done.”

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