EDITORIAL: Bondi response has been bungle after bungle

It’s been just four weeks since bullets allegedly fired by a father-son terrorist duo shattered Australia’s sense of itself and ended the lives of 15 innocent people.

But it feels a lot longer.

In times of great national sorrow past, Australia has come together united. Not this time.

Instead, events in the four weeks since that atrocity at Bondi Beach have further wrenched us apart, leaving the country more divided than ever along religious, political and ideological lines.

Just about every aspect of the response to this tragedy has been bungled.

First, there was the long and entirely unnecessary debate about the need for a royal commission to properly examine the events leading up to the alleged attack and the spread of anti-Semitism through Australian society since October 7. That debate left Australian Jews feeling abandoned and gaslit by their Government, their needs pushed to the side in the pursuit of political expedience.

There was the farcical Adelaide Writers Festival saga in which Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah — who was disinivited from the event for past comments and online conduct which included posting “May 2025 be the end of Israel” and changing her profile picture to a Palestinian paratrooper in the immediate aftermath of October 7 attacks in which 1200 people were murdered — has now somehow been cast as a hero of artistic freedom. The festival’s grovelling apology to Ms Abdel-Fattah was accompanied by an invitation to participate at next year’s event.

And now, politicians in Canberra are quibbling about one of the most fundamental parts of the Government response to the Bondi massacre.

In the days immediately after the attack, the need to tighten Australia’s firearms and hate speech laws to combat anti-Semitism was a given.

So how has it come to pass that the legislation is at risk of failure?

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has signalled the Coalition parties won’t support the Bill when Parliament is recalled for an emergency session next week. Instead, she says the Coalition intends to “advance our comprehensive and practical package of measures” to “tackle anti-Semitism head on in education, the arts, and society more broadly and critically enshrine a definition of anti-Semitism in law”.

That’s an announcement that caught even members of her own party room offside.

It’s left the Government to look to the Greens to make a deal to get the legislation through — an outcome which should concern anyone who is serious about making sensible reforms to stop the spread of hatred.

It is absurd and immensely disappointing that the Government and the Opposition have been unable to put aside their own political self-interest long enough to come up with a response that serves the nation and helps to protect Jewish Australians in their own country. This is a failure of leadership that could come with catastrophic consequences.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.