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Albanese’s response to the Bondi massacre will shape Australia’s future
The massacre at Bondi Beach is already Albanese’s Port Arthur moment, the worst catastrophe he’s had to confront as prime minister.
It’s not a time for politicking, it’s a time for leadership.
Fifteen victims are dead and dozens more injured after a father and son unleashed terror on a faith community, a city and a country. It will never be forgotten and many people will never recover.
In 1996, John Howard delivered the gold standard response by introducing world-leading gun control laws after Martin Bryant killed 35 people in Tasmania.
More importantly, Howard helped knit the country back together again after the massacre, famously staring down opposition to the gun laws while wearing a bulletproof vest.
That same job now confronts Albanese but, 30 years on from Port Arthur, this task is much more difficult.
Albanese on Monday announced immediate action to strengthen Australia’s gun laws, including limits on the number of guns a person can own and reviews of gun licences.
He will face little to no resistance on these changes, which obviously need to be made.
But the world has changed since 1996. Albanese has been under fire for more than two years for his handling of a rising tide of antisemitism in Australia since Hamas launched its October 7 attacks on Israeli citizens.
Australia’s social cohesion has frayed to an extraordinary extent since then, and the apparent motivations of Sajid – also killed on Sunday – and Naveed Akram are very different to those of Bryant: the father and son targeted the Jewish community on the first night of Hanukkah, a religious festival that Jews have marked for more than 2000 years.
This attack is truly shocking but after two years of attacks on synagogues and businesses, ugly antisemitic threats and graffiti and escalating warnings from security agencies, can anyone honestly say they are surprised it took place?
Already, a copious amount of misinformation circulates online, accompanied by confronting, unedited footage of the massacre.
Instead of a united response, the opposition is talking about the failures of governments to tackle antisemitism, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Australia of rewarding hatred.
Netanyahu has even said Albanese’s decision to recognise Palestine was partly to blame for the Bondi massacre. This is an extraordinary intervention from a foreign leader less than 24 hours after people died at Bondi.
Whatever the merits of those arguments, it is true that Australia’s Jewish community has not felt safe in their own country for more than two years and some members of the community blame the federal government, at least in part.
During his press conference on Monday afternoon, Albanese faced questions about his government’s failure to adequately respond to envoy to combat antisemitism Jillian Segal’s report, which was released back in July.
Segal said it was time for “strong action, not just words” from the federal government, and she is 100 per cent correct. Australia’s Jewish community is angry and grieving right now and so too are the vast majority of Australians, horrified by the deaths of people celebrating their holidays with their families.
Albanese needs to make this a line-in-the-sand moment, to say “this stops now” in an environment much more febrile than Howard ever faced.
We live in an age when many Australians do not agree on a set of facts any more, and trust in government, institutions and media has plummeted since the pandemic.
The prime minister must take every step necessary to bring Australians together, and he knows it.
Albanese’s response to this appalling massacre will define his prime ministership and, more importantly, help define what sort of country Australia will be for the next 30 years.
More coverage on the Bondi terror attack:
- Updates: Sydney on high alert for further terrorist acts as multiple people killed
- Watch: Incredible footage shows the moment a hero bystander tackles one of the gunmen
- What we know so far: All the details of the mass shooting
- How the world reacted: Global leaders condemn ‘deeply distressing’ attack
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James Massola is chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and South-East Asia correspondent. He has won Quill and Kennedy awards and been a Walkley finalist. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X or email.