Bondi shooting: Massacre takes nation to one of its darkest moments in living memory

Australia is facing one of its darkest moments in living memory and Anthony Albanese has entered the most testing chapter of his Prime Ministership.

Sunday’s Bondi Beach terrorist attack was the deadliest targeting of Jewish people since Hamas murdered 1200 people at a music festival in southern Israel on October 7 two years ago.

Yet this latest horrific atrocity, that’s so far claimed 15 innocent lives, occurred in Australia, on the country’s most famous shoreline, and after months of public debate about the threat posed by anti-Semitism here.

Following the initial emotions of shock, despair and fear, the public reaction has quickly turned to white-hot anger, particularly in the local Jewish population.

Ever since pro-Palestinian activists overran an event at the Sydney Opera House in the days after the 2023 Hamas massacre, Jewish leaders have repeatedly warned of the possibility of violent acts against their community.

More recently there have been numerous rallies across Australia where anti-Israel activists have displayed terrorist flags and chanted hateful anti-Jewish slogans.

On Monday Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said Australians had a right to be angry and revolted because anti-Semitism “has been left to fester” in the country.

“We have a Government that sees anti-Semitism as a problem to be managed, not an evil that needs to be eradicated,” she declared at a press conference in Sydney.

“Everything must change from today in how governments respond.”

In the immediate aftermath of the deadly Bondi rampage Mr Albanese has acted swiftly and appropriately but his Government’s actions, or lack thereof, leading up to Sunday’s terrorist attack is what is now being rightly scrutinised.

While the Prime Minister toured the scene of Australia’s worst mass-shooting since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, Jewish leaders lined up to accuse his Government of failing to heed multiple warnings about the growing scourge of anti-Semitism.

Jillian Segal was appointed by Mr Albanese as the Government’s special envoy on antisemitism following the October 7 attacks, and delivered her recommendations in July, but many of them are yet to be enacted.

Ms Segal warns anti-Semitism has been “seeping into society for many years, and we have not come out strongly enough against it”.

“We need to take strong action, not just words, but a whole series of actions which we can point to, to show everyday Australians that this is not the way we want Australia to become”.

“I think that the Government has to take action, because at the moment, the community is feeling terrified.”

“It’s been too slow for the situation that we now face, and that’s why I’m speaking about acceleration.”

Ms Segal says she hopes to meet the Prime Minister face-to-face within days to discuss how to accelerate her plans, with a focus on screening anti-Semitic people from getting into Australia and tackling the problem in schools.

Political focus has quickly turned to immigration policy, with One Nation founder Pauline Hanson seizing on the weekend’s tragic events to again call for restrictions on who can come to Australia.

“We must take a stronger stance on the people and cultures that we allow into the country,” Ms Hanson wrote online, as the Albanese Government confirmed the eldest shooter had entered Australia on a student visa in 1998.

Her comments come as the Coalition puts the finishing touches on its yet-to-be-released immigration policy which The Nightly understands will include cuts to international students and measures making it easier to deport new arrivals.

Inevitably there will be scrutiny too of the Government’s handling of national security after revelations the younger killer first came to the attention of Australia’s domestic spy agency in 2019.

Questions are being asked about how the 24-year-old killer, who had known “associations” with extremism, was able to live in the same suburban Sydney house as his now-dead terrorist father who held licences for six firearms.

The most ferocious and stinging criticism of the Albanese Government, however, has come from overseas - specifically from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In August Mr Netanyahu wrote to Mr Albanese warning that his Government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state “pours fuel on the anti-Semitic fire … emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets”.

Within hours of the Bondi shootings the Israeli Prime Minister claimed his Australian counterpart “did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country.”

“You took no action. You let the disease spread, and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” Mr Netanyahu said during a government meeting on Sunday.

Appearing visibly shaken on Monday afternoon following a series of national security and cabinet meetings, the Prime Minister declared his Government was “prepared to take whatever action is necessary”, including “the need for tougher gun laws”.

But before Parliament is recalled to enact stronger security measures, Anthony Albanese and his Government will face continuing questions about whether they did enough to prevent an attack in the months leading up to the Bondi massacre.

So far, the message sent loudly from Jewish leaders in Australia and overseas is that the Australian Government comprehensively failed in this duty.