Ahmed Al Ahmed recounts how he disarmed one of the gunmen in Bondi Beach terrorist attack
ABC | Isabella Ross and Shannon Corvo | 29 December 2025
- Ahmed Al Ahmed, who disarmed one of the shooters during the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, has spoken further of his ordeal.
- The 43-year-old told CBS News he was determined to “take the gun” from one of the gunmen to “stop him from killing a human being”.
- Police and politicians say his actions saved “countless lives”.
The man deemed a hero after risking his life to save “countless others” during the Bondi Beach terrorist attack has spoken of his determination to protect the innocent.
Ahmed Al Ahmed went viral after footage showed him sneaking up behind one of the two gunmen and wrestling a long-barrelled gun away from him.
In an interview with CBS News in the US on Monday, Mr Ahmed reflected on the ordeal, in which he suffered multiple gunshots.
“I jumped onto his back and hit him … ‘Drop your gun, stop doing what you’re doing,'” he recalled saying to the gunman he disarmed.
“No, I didn’t worry about anything … my target was just to take the gun from him and to stop him from killing a human being.
“I feel something, a power in my body, my brain. I don’t want to see people killed in front of me, I don’t want to see blood, I don’t want to hear his gun, I don’t want to see people screaming.”
Of his decision to intervene, he said: “My soul asked me to do that.”
Fifteen people were killed during the December 14 shooting that targeted Jewish people at a Hanukkah celebration called Chanukah by the Sea at Archer Park.
The 43-year-old father-of-two’s selfless actions are thought to have saved “countless lives”.
“I know I saved lots of people … innocent kids and women … I know I saved lots, but I feel sorry still for the lost,” Mr Ahmed said.
‘Real-life hero’ on the road to recovery
For the past fortnight, Mr Ahmed has undergone operations at St George Hospital.
South Eastern Sydney Local Health District confirmed Mr Ahmed was released from hospital on Sunday.
Mr Ahmed’s parents previously told the ABC he was shot four to five times in his shoulder.
“He saw they were dying and people were losing their lives, and when that guy [the shooter] ran out of ammo, he took it from him, but he was hit,” Mr Ahmed’s mother said.
“When he did what he did, he wasn’t thinking about the background of the people he’s saving, the people dying in the street,” Mr Ahmed’s father said.
Relatives and locals back in his small Syrian hometown of Al Nayrab, which Mr Ahmed left in the mid-2000s to start a new life in Australia, have also expressed their pride.
“Ahmed is a brave and honourable young man. He cannot tolerate injustice or corruption. He rejects wrongdoing and meanness,” his uncle Wahid Al Ahmed previously told the ABC.
More than 43,000 people around the world donated more than $2.5 million to a fundraising campaign set up to thank him for his actions.
The day after the attack, NSW Premier Chris Minns visited Mr Ahmed.
He posted a photo on social media and called him a “real-life hero”.
“His incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Mr Minns said.
The following day, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also visited Mr Ahmed.
“He decided to take action and his bravery is an inspiration for all Australians,” Mr Albanese said to journalists after he left the hospital.
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Anthony Albanese announces terms for Richardson review of Bondi terrorist attack
ABC | Brianna Morris-Grant | 29 December 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-29/bondi-breaking-announcement/106184434
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced the terms of an independent review of the Bondi Beach terror attack, resisting calls for a royal commission by victim’s families.
The review, led by Dennis Richardson AC, will examine the actions of Australia’s federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies leading up to the attack that claimed the lives of 15 people, including a 10-year-old child.
Seventeen families of those injured and killed in the attack signed a plea on Monday calling for a royal commission.
Their letter demanded “answers and solutions”, asking why “clear warning signs were ignored”.
The independent review will assess whether multiple agencies — including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australia Federal Police — operated as effectively as possible prior to the attack.
Mr Albanese said his “heart breaks” for the families of those affected.
“Just over two weeks ago, antisemitic terrorists tried to tear our country apart, but our country is stronger than these cowards,” he said.
“They went to Bondi Beach to unleash mass murder against our Jewish community. We need to respond with unity and urgency rather than division and delay.”
Review to be given ‘full access’ to materials for Bondi inquiry
The review was slated to be completed and published in April.
Mr Albanese and other federal officials had expressed concerns about the length of time a royal commission would take and the potential platforming of antisemitism during the process.
Mr Richardson, the former head of ASIO and of the departments of defence and foreign affairs, has led earlier reviews into the intelligence community and sections of home affairs.
Mr Albanese’s announcement followed another meeting of the National Security Committee in Canberra.
“Mr Richardson will assess whether Commonwealth agencies performed to maximum effectiveness,” he said.
“He will consider what these agencies knew about the alleged offenders before the attack, the information sharing between Commonwealth agencies and between Commonwealth and state agencies.”
The review will also consider what judgements agencies made and if there were additional measures that could have prevented the attack.
“Mr Richardson will [have] full access to all material he considers may be relevant to his inquiry,” Mr Albanese said.
“Departments and agencies will cooperate fully with the review and provide assistance in the form of documents, data, material and meetings.”
He added parliament would resume in 2026 to consider legislation “as soon as possible”.
Royal commission would ‘revive some of the worst examples of antisemitism’
The opposition has criticised the review, which Home Affairs spokesperson Jonathon Duniam has called “a sad turn of events”.
“Anthony Albanese never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity … we should be having a full Commonwealth royal commission,” he said.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he was meeting daily with both the AFP and ASIO, noting all agencies “look forward” to the review.
“I’ve been deeply concerned in terms of social cohesion,” he said.
“When you think through some of the terms of reference that have been circulated for other forms of inquiry … the necessary outcome would be to re-platform and provide a public platform for some of the worst statements and worst voices.
“[It would] effectively revive some of the worst examples of antisemitism over the last two years.”
He said an independent review — instead of a royal commission — would allow the government to “deal squarely with the urgency of national security issues”.
“We need to have the sort of inquiry that keeps Australians safe, and that does not provide a platform for the worst voices,” he said.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley called Mr Albanese and Mr Burke “the last two people who do not support a royal commission”.
Loved ones of those killed and injured in the Bondi Beach attack say rising antisemitism requires a “powerful national response”, piling pressure on Anthony Albanese for a royal commission.
“The Prime Minister was elected in May 2022 and each and every day he has had the power to throw the full weight of his government at the challenge of eradicating anti-Semitism,” she said.
“He still has that power today and he is refusing to use it.
“The Jewish community wants it and Australians want it and I suspect millions of ordinary Australians want it as well.
“Families of victims feel shut out, unheard and disrespected. Members of the community believe that this attack was not inevitable but preventable.”
Alex Ryvchin, executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said a royal commission was “the least that could be done” for justice.
“[The government] drags their feet. They don’t listen to the experts and to the community,” he told the ABC.
“And then what they propose is an ineffective half measure and we’re expected to be assured that the government knows best how to keep the community safe when we have just seen that they clearly don’t.
“We deserve answers. Only a royal commission has the coercive powers to get to the bottom of how this was allowed to happen and what needs to change in this country to prevent the next massacre.”
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Trump floats hopes of Gaza peace progress as Netanyahu begins visit
US president says Hamas disarming could prompt new phase of peace plan ‘very quickly’, while Netanyahu still seeks return of final hostage body
The Guardian | David Smith & Jason Burke | 30 December 2025
Donald Trump hopes to reach the next stage of the Gaza peace plan “very quickly” but Hamas must disarm, he said as he hosted the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at Mar-a-Lago on Monday.
The trip by Netanyahu to Florida comes amid a new push by officials in Washington to force concessions from Israel to allow progress towards the second phase, which envisions rebuilding Gaza as a demilitarised zone under international supervision.
Asked by reporters how soon this could be achieved, Trump replied: “Very quickly. As quickly as we can, but there has to be a disarmament, you know that … There has to be a disarming of Hamas. Otherwise: very quickly.”
The two proceeded to a lunch meeting inside Mar-a-Lago along with their delegations. Netanyahu was expected to tell Trump that Hamas must return the remains of the last Israeli hostage left in Gaza before the next stages of the stalled ceasefire can be implemented, Israeli officials and analysts said.
The family of the last person whose remains have not been returned, Ran Gvili, has joined the Israeli prime minister’s visiting entourage and will meet officials in Washington later this week.
An Israeli official in Netanyahu’s circle told Reuters that the prime minister would demand that Hamas return the remains of all hostages in Gaza, as required under the ceasefire deal, before moving to the next stages of Trump’s plan.
Speaking to reporters, Trump falsely said “just about” every hostage was released because of him and his team, whereas “none” were released during the Joe Biden administration. In fact, Hamas released a total of 138 hostages as a result of deals that Biden’s administration helped broker, according to the Snopes factchecking site.
A second phase calls for an interim authority made up of non-aligned Palestinian technocrats to govern the Palestinian territory, and an international stabilisation force (ISF) of thousands of troops to be deployed. Israel has significant concerns about both.
Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer, was badly wounded and then abducted during the October 2023 Hamas raid into Israel that triggered the conflict. It is unclear if he died of his wounds during the raid or in Gaza. Hundreds gathered on Saturday night in Tel Aviv to demand that Israel makes no concession to advance the ceasefire deal until his remains are returned.
Lianne Pollak-David, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and peace negotiator in the prime minister’s office, said the failure to return the remains of Gvili was a serious issue. “Netanyahu and the Israelis as a people are simply not going to accept this,” she said.
Hamas has freed 20 living hostages and returned the bodies of 27 dead hostages since October and some observers see the insistence on Gvili’s remains being returned as a delaying tactic to allow Israel’s military forces to remain in the 53% of Gaza they currently control.
On Friday, the US news outlet Axios reported that the Trump administration wanted to announce the Palestinian technocratic government for Gaza and the ISF as soon as possible and that senior Trump officials were growing exasperated “as Netanyahu has taken steps to undermine the fragile ceasefire and stall the peace process”.
Daniel Levy, a UK-based analyst and former Israeli peace negotiator, said Netanyahu had no intention of withdrawing further from Gaza or allowing any international force that would deter Israeli military action.
“He feels he has a number of cards to play yet and the remains of Gvili is the easiest one to play now but there are others,” Levy said.
Netanyahu was also expected to tell Trump that Israel is prepared to restart the war in Gaza to force Hamas to surrender its weapons as required under the ceasefire agreement.
“Netanyahu knows exactly what he wants for Christmas – more of the same. Israeli troops stay in 51% of Gaza, periodically striking Hamas … without the shadow of withdrawal looming over him. None of this requires a denunciation of the [Trump] plan itself and Trump can very easily justify Israel’s extended stay on Hamas’s unwillingness to disarm,” Amit Segal, a prominent journalist who is close to Netanyahu, wrote on Monday.
Hamas retains large quantities of small arms but only a fraction of the heavy weapons that enabled its surprise attack into southern Israel in 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 abducted.
More than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the ensuing Israeli offensive and vast swathes of Gaza reduced to ruins. About 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the October ceasefire.
In recent weeks, Hamas has successfully established its authority over the parts of Gaza it controls with a series of executions, raids and beatings targeting rival power brokers, collaborators with Israel and criminal gangs. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is said to now live in the Hamas-controlled zone.
The Islamist militant organisation has proposed some solutions to allow some of its weapons to be put into storage but has refused to accept full disarmament.
For Netanyahu, who faces an election within 10 months, the prospect of Iran repairing the damage inflicted on its nuclear programme in its short war with Israel and the US this summer and building up its ballistic missile capabilities is a priority.
Analysts said Netanyahu and Trump could find much common ground on Iran, though the US may balk at a further round of attacks on Iran in the near future. Talks on a security agreement between Israel and Syria, which Washington has backed, have stalled.
Trump said at Mar-a-Lago on Monday: “Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again. And if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that’s not happening.”
Pollak-David, one of the founders of the Coalition for Regional Security, said that in an election year Netanyahu would want to show some diplomatic successes across the broader Middle East.
“As long as there is no progress on the [Trump plan for Gaza], a lot of major diplomatic achievements are in a freeze … There is an incentive for progress but not at the risk of Hamas staying in power,” she said.
Netanyahu also faces pressure from political opponents. On Monday, Avigdor Lieberman, who leads the Yisrael Beiteinu party, said Israel could not allow reconstruction in Gaza until the return of Gvili’s remains.
Polls have shown that Netanyahu’s ruling coalition would lose power at an election with its current levels of support.
The Israeli prime minister, on his fifth visit to see Trump in the US this year, may be hoping for a political boost from his latest meeting with the president, who said on Monday that Netanyahu had done a “phenomenal job” and “Israel wouldn’t exist without him”.
Trump also claimed he had spoken to the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, who told him that a pardon for Netanyahu in his long-running corruption trial was “on its way”. Trump said: “He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?”
Asked about Trump’s remarks, Herzog’s office said the Israeli president had not had any conversations with Trump since a pardon request was submitted several weeks ago, Reuters reported.
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Albanese rejects calls for federal royal commission by families of Bondi beach terror attack victims
Labor defends plan for faster, narrower review despite Jewish leaders and families of 11 victims demanding full national royal commission
The Guardian | Josh Butler | 29 December 2025
The Albanese government has rejected calls by families of Bondi beach terror attack victims for a federal royal commission, claiming it would “provide a platform for the worst voices” of antisemitism.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said a royal commission would be too slow and was not the right vehicle to investigate the attack on a Hanukah festival that killed 15, standing by his preference for a shorter review of intelligence and law enforcement agencies – a move scorned as inadequate by leaders of the Jewish community and many federal MPs.
Asked about an open letter from families of 11 Bondi victims calling for a royal commission and saying the federal response had been inadequate, Albanese told a press conference in Canberra on Monday that such an inquiry would not be appropriate.
“The issue there is that royal commissions can be good at deciding facts. What the Richardson review will do is decide facts. Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views, and to enable, which is what it would do, a repetition of some of the worst developments,” he said.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, claimed a royal commission would “provide a public platform for some of the worst statements and worst voices”, saying that format would “effectively relive some of the worst examples of antisemitism over the last two years”.
But Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said a royal commission was crucial, including investigating migration and border security systems.
Speaking on the ABC after Albanese’s press conference, Ryvchin said a federal royal commission was “the least that can be done”.
“The families have spoken very clearly, the community has spoken, and the government’s approach articulated today by the prime minister has been indicative of how they’ve handled this crisis for over two years now,” he said.
“They drag their feet, they don’t listen to the experts and to the community, and then what they propose is an ineffective half measure.”
Albanese announced on Monday that former Asio chief Dennis Richardson’s review would be tasked with investigating the powers, efficiency, systems and information sharing by federal law enforcement agencies.
With a particular focus on the federal police and Asio, Richardson’s review – to report by April – will investigate how the alleged offenders were assessed by federal law enforcement agencies, what was known about them before the attack, any barriers to authorities taking better action, and what action should be taken in future, including whether warrant and data access powers are sufficient.
Burke said the Richardson inquiry would report back much faster than any royal commission could, and added the investigation’s national security elements “doesn’t lend itself to public inquiry”.
The Albanese government has also pointed to the New South Wales state royal commission, saying federal agencies would cooperate with that inquiry.
However, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said a national royal commission was needed to investigate antisemitism Australia-wide, noting recent incidents across the country, and urging Albanese to heed the pleas from the families of Bondi victims.
“Instead of listening to those most affected, the prime minister has decided to speak over them. Instead of the truth, he is hiding behind the process. By speaking over victims and their families and declaring that his pathway forward is the right one, the prime minister has actually insulted those who have endured the unimaginable,” she said.
“Australians do not need to be shielded from the truth. We honour the lives of those who have been lost by confronting uncomfortable truths. To tell grieving families and a shocked nation that they are better off not knowing the truth is not leadership. It is disrespect.”
The Coalition has proposed its own wide-ranging terms of reference for a royal commission, which have been criticised by Albanese for being far too broad and potentially requiring a years-long inquiry, with dozens of suggestions including investigating the education and migration systems, mainstream media reporting, arts and culture, protests and social media. Ley said on Monday she was keen to work with the government to discuss alternative terms for a commonwealth royal commission.
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Netanyahu to meet Trump in US amid fears of Israeli regional offensives
Israel’s PM travels to Mar-a-Lago as US administration reported to be running out of patience over Gaza ceasefire
The Guardian | Jason Burke | 29 December 2025
Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet Donald Trump at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday evening amid growing fears Israel could launch new offensives against regional enemies, potentially plunging the Middle East further into instability.
The Israeli prime minister left Israel on Sunday on his fifth visit to see Trump in the US this year.
High on the agenda will be the ceasefire in Gaza, which in October halted the devastating two-year-long war. Though the terms agreed for an initial phase have been largely completed, with Israel’s forces pulling back to new positions and Hamas releasing all living and all but one of the dead hostages, immense challenges face the implementation of the second phase of the president’s 20-point plan.
There are also fears Israel will launch new offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon, breaking a ceasefire established more than a year ago, or against Iran, which it accuses of accelerating the manufacture of ballistic missiles in recent months.
Gershon Baskin, the co-head of the peace-building commission at the Alliance for Two States, who has taken part in back-channel negotiations with Hamas, said the timing of Netanyahu’s trip was “very significant” for Gaza.
“Phase 1 is basically over, there’s one remaining Israeli deceased hostage which [Hamas] are having difficulty finding,” he said.
Both sides accuse each other of ceasefire violations. Hamas has failed explicitly to commit to disarmament and has had considerable success in imposing its authority in the parts of Gaza where almost all the population is concentrated. Israel appears reluctant to withdraw from the 53% of Gaza it now controls or to allow free passage of aid into the territory.
“Phase 2 has to begin … and I think the Americans realise that it’s late because Hamas has had too much time to re-establish its presence and this is certainly not a situation that the Americans want to leave in place,” Baskin said.
More than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died in Gaza during the war and almost all the territory’s 2.3 million population was displaced. About 400 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the October ceasefire, and huge numbers continue to live in conditions of acute hardship.
In recent weeks, heavy rain and cold temperatures have compounded the suffering in Gaza, where most housing and infrastructure have been badly damaged or razed.
The war was triggered by a surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel in 2023, in which 1,200, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 others abducted.
Under the next stages of Trump’s plan, an interim authority made up of nonaligned Palestinian technocrats is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas and an international stabilisation force (ISF) of thousands of troops is to be deployed.
US officials have suggested the composition of the new authority could be announced in January.
On Friday, the US news outlet Axios reported senior Trump officials were growing frustrated “as Netanyahu has taken steps to undermine the fragile ceasefire and stall the peace process”.
Analysts in Israel and overseas agree.
“There are more and more signs that the American administration is getting frustrated with Netanyahu,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a Middle East expert at London-based thinktank Chatham House.
“The question is what it’s going to do about it, because phase 2 is right now going nowhere,” Mekelberg added.
For Netanyahu, a priority will be convincing Trump to allow Israel to act to prevent Iran from repairing the damage inflicted on its nuclear programme in its short war with Israel and the US this summer, or building its ballistic missile capabilities.
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said on Saturday that his country was in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe. He added that the conflict was “more complicated and more difficult” than the Iran-Iraq war, which left more than 1 million casualties on both sides.
Meanwhile, efforts to secure a security agreement between Israel and Syria have failed to make significant progress and will also be on the agenda at Mar-a-Lago, local media in Israel said. Israeli officials have also called for more effective efforts to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with the 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon.
Netanyahu faces an election within 10 months, and the looming polls will influence his agenda, Mekelberg said. “Everything is connected to [his] staying in power,” he said.
Polls show Netanyahu’s current coalition would struggle to form a government if elections were held now, with many voters angry over the failures that led to the Hamas raid of 2023, moves to continue the exemption of most ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from compulsory military service in Israel and a series of scandals among other issues.
A close relationship with Trump would reinforce Netanyahu’s appeal among undecided voters and his base, and this suggests any public disagreement between the two leaders is extremely unlikely, analysts said.
Netanyahu is expected to seek to convince Trump of the need for Israel, which relies on the US for many of its defence needs, to maintain a military technological edge over potential regional enemies. Many Israeli officials were shaken when Trump said this year that he would allow the sale of F-35 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, which he described as a “great ally”. The state-of-the-art stealth aircraft was key to Israel’s successes against Iran in this summer’s war.
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Royal commission futility
The Age | Letters | 30 December 2025
Royal commission futility
The family of the Bondi attack victims have called on the prime minister to implement a royal commission into what transpired a few weeks ago. Having been a contributor to a few royal commissions into various matters I raise concerns primarily for the families to consider.
The average length of time that royal commissions take seems to be somewhere between 3 and five years.
After one is completed, the commissioners provide a report with recommendations for action which the government may decide to accept and then implement them. There is no requirement for the government to accept the recommendations.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made 339 recommendations in 1991. As of today, around 78 per cent of those recommendations have been commenced to be implemented.
There is also a disturbing trend in Australia where we are allowing governments to abrogate their responsibility to make decisions by passing it to a royal commission to make recommendations.
Suresh Rajan, Stirling, WA
Military protection
The news is at least troubling, if not quite shocking: NSW Premier Chris Minns is reported to be considering requesting the ADF be employed to protect Sydney’s Jewish community. Maybe this needs to be implemented for Jews nationwide. When in Australia’s history were the armed forces required, to protect one group of Australians from being terrorised or killed by other Australians?
Pia Brous, Armadale
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PM blasted for ‘no’ to a royal inquiry
The Age (& SMH) | Nick Newling, Angus Thomson, Brittany Busch & Rob Harris| 30 December 2025
The niece of Bondi victim Boris Tetleroyd has labelled Anthony Albanese a “coward” after the prime minister again rejected calls for a federal royal commission into Australia’s worst domestic terror attack, claiming such a public inquiry would needlessly promote hate speech.
Jenny Roytur, whose cousin Yaakov was also shot in the attack, said the Jewish community deserved to know why antisemitism had escalated so quickly and why authorities had ignored warnings.
Her family signed the open letter from 17 families demanding answers and accountability from the government, alongside a Commonwealth royal commission.
Albanese, who has faced fierce personal criticism from the Jewish community and his political opponents for his response to the attack which left 15 people dead on December 14, again ruled out holding a public inquiry into antisemitism in a press conference yesterday, after releasing the terms of reference for a review of law enforcement and intelligence agencies by former diplomat Dennis Richardson.
He said his approach would be swifter and “safer” than the alternatives being presented. Roytur told The Age that Albanese was ignoring the wishes of the victims’ families.
“He’s a coward with his own ideological viewpoints that he has carried through his whole time in parliament, and this is just proving it,” she said.
“We were hunted like animals by extremists, and we now know that the radicals and extremists are spreading like cancer, and it has to be cut, and the truth has to come out, and they must do a Commonwealth royal commission.”
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke warned that a royal commission would provide a public platform for “some of the worst statements and worst voices”, and risked Jewish Australians reliving horrific examples of antisemitism during the past two years.
Burke said the government needed “the sort of inquiry that keeps Australians safe and that does not provide a platform for the worst voices; the Richardson inquiry does exactly that”. Sabina Kleitman, the daughter of murdered Alex Kleytman, said in a statement that many Australians were united in wanting to know why the horrific attacks took place and what circumstances and decisions led to it.
“Our government could not protect the 15 innocent souls who were taken from us and those that were injured,” she said. “They must now do everything in their power to protect Australians, and for now this means initiating the royal inquiry. It’s their duty to all Australians to provide safety and security to all.”
Sheina Gutnick, one of the signatories of the letter and the daughter of Reuven Morrison who was shot and killed throwing bricks at one of the Bondi shooters, said in an interview before the prime minister’s press conference that Albanese and the federal government were “absolutely” responsible for the attack.
“Recognising … Palestine as an official state has been a massive gasoline to the fire whilst Hamas is in power. And I think the biggest proof is a thank-you letter from Hamas to the Albanese government for the recognition of the state,” Gutnick said.
“We can have whatever views we need to have as individuals on the current conflict of the Middle East. But if the current government policies are adding fuel to the fire, they need to be held responsible.”
Asked directly about the plea from families, Albanese said: “My heart breaks for the families of the victims of the Bondi terrorist atrocity, and my heart … goes out to them at what is an incredibly traumatic time.”
He has repeatedly argued that a federal royal commission would be too slow, with similar commissions taking years to hand down their findings. While NSW Labor MPs Mike Freelander and Ed Husic have supported calls for a royal commission, several other caucus members, speaking on the condition of anonymity, are worried that Albanese is being too stub born on the issue and giving in to the public service.
“We know agencies and the public service hate any kind of accountability and they are telling him not to call a royal commission,” said one MP. “I think he’s probably been hood winked by them in that sense.”
After a six-month delay, the government has adopted several of the recommendations made by antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal and has announced new hate speech laws to be introduced early next year, a review of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and reforms to gun laws including a national buyback program.
A state-based royal commission has been established by NSW Premier Chris Minns, which will be able to work with federal agencies.
But demands continue to ramp up from the Jewish community, legal experts and the federal opposition for a Commonwealth royal commission capable of compelling the federal government and its agencies to testify.
The attack occurred on the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, and families who gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event near Archer Park were the target. Of the 15 victims, 13 were Jewish.
Among those who have demanded a royal commission are former High Court chief justice Robert French, former intelligence chief Nick Warner, 135 prominent barristers, Jewish community organisations and the Coalition.
The Hindu Council of Australia yesterday joined the calls for a royal commission, saying it should investigate if individuals or groups contributed to the hate leading to the attack. The council is itself being investigated by the Australian Human Rights Council over complaints of Islamophobia.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the government’s claim that a royal commission would platform antisemitism was “not protective, it is patronising”. The Coalition has proposed its own wide-ranging terms of reference for a royal commission, which was criticised by Albanese for being far too broad and potentially requiring a years-long inquiry. Ley said she was willing to work with the government to discuss alternative terms.
“The families of victims want this Commonwealth royal commission. The Jewish community wants it. Eminent Australians want it. And I suspect millions of ordinary Australians want it too,” Ley said.
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Antisemitism inquiry is a risk but government’s excuses are wearing thin
The Age (& SMH) | Natassia Chrysanthos | 30 December 2025
Royal commissions have become a symbolic way Australia chooses to confront its ugliest problems, even if they do not solve them.
At the beginning of last century, Commonwealth royal commissions looked at topics such as the butter industry and to bacco monopolies. These days they’re reserved for more seis mic issues, including those that involve the most vulnerable members of our society: child sex abuse, Indigenous deaths in custody, and the abuse and neglect of people with disabilities.
Now the Jewish community is asking for a royal commission to look antisemitism in the eye. Just as child abuse victims, Indigenous Australians and the disabled community volunteered to have their traumas interrogated so they wouldn’t happen again, Jewish Australians are prepared to share their worst experiences in public to stop another event like this month’s Bondi massacre.
The Albanese government is doing its best to turn down that request with sympathy and reason. For just over a week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been building on his argument for why he won’t call a royal commission.
Last Monday, he said NSW would hold its own inquiry, while the feds would ask former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson to review the security ecosystem a Commonwealth commission would only duplicate and delay, he said, and urgency was required. The next day, he went to historical examples: there was no royal commission after Port Arthur or the Lindt siege.
On Monday, the government gave two new arguments. First, on national security: that Richardson was better equipped than a retired judge to review such matters, which would not suit the public forum of a royal commission.
Second, that a royal commission would become too divisive. “The necessary outcome would be to re-platform and provide a public platform for some of the worst statements and worst voices, to effectively relive some of the worst examples of antisemitism over the last two years,” said Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.
“No one can tell me that that is in the interest of unity, to re platform some of the worst voices. But a royal commission by definition does that, and does that publicly.” But the calls for a royal commission have not gone away instead, they’ve grown in number.
The case was first pushed by the federal Coalition as it mounted a political attack over the government’s response to Bondi. Then former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, judges, former governors, top silks and even two Labor backbenchers joined.
Now the families of those killed on December 14 have added their voices in an open letter. This is a much more difficult request for the prime minister to reject. Of course the government wants to strive for unity at a time like this. It is looking for points of common ground, not division.
But Monday’s argument does not land when it is Jewish Australians asking for a royal commission.
To suggest there is inherent danger in talking about the worst examples of antisemitism dismisses the wishes of people who want their experiences shared and reckoned with. It contradicts the philosophy behind truth commissions around the world: that there can be healing and justice in talking about painful issues head-on.
There are also measures to mitigate a scenario where bad faith voices are amplified: commissioners decide who they platform at public hearings, and can hold closed sessions where appropriate. Most importantly, the federal government can set the terms.
Albanese keeps pointing to the “proposed terms of reference by the Coalition” as if it’s the default starting point for an inquiry. But it’s him in the driver’s seat, not Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
Albanese thinks the Coalition’s terms – which would interrogate everyone from the Australian Human Rights Commission to the media – are unwieldy and unreasonable. He doesn’t need to follow them. He doesn’t even need to follow the wishes of family members who have suggested the commission investigate Labor’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
But his defensive posture on this issue reflects how political the last few weeks have become. Even if Albanese’s argument for rejecting a royal commission is reasonable, his rebuttals start sounding like excuses. Meanwhile, the royal commission morphs into another flash point in a polarised debate.
It shouldn’t be – it’s not a zero-sum issue. A comb over past royal commissions reveals their short comings. The 1991 inquiry into Indigenous deaths in custody gave 339 recommendations, many of which remain unimplemented. This year, Indigenous deaths in custody reached their highest level since 1980.
Still, these reports have served as symbolic admissions of systemic problems, and they provide a yardstick to measure government inaction. They are clear-eyed about Australia’s biggest social problems and can be one of the most thorough historical records of marginalised people’s experiences.
A royal commission into antisemitism could meet a similar fate. That’s not to say it is not worth doing, but there are in evitable limitations to any report’s capacity to solve deep and intractable social issues.
There are two paths of inquiry that must be interrogated after Bondi. The first follows the specific circumstances that meant a man once investigated by ASIO could become further radicalised, along with his father, who purchased six guns legally. The second traces the circumstances that have enabled antisemitism to fester more broadly in Australia, evidenced again just days ago, when a rabbi’s car was firebombed on Christmas.
The Richardson review will get to issues with the first. It does not grapple with the second.
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Pro and cons of a royal commission into Bondi
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 30 December 2025
The families of those killed and injured in the Bondi terrorist attack want a royal commission into the reasons behind this attack; I can understand that (“Families unite for national inquiry”, December 29). Their grief and anxiety for their future security in their own country are enough to explain their plea. I support them and find all the excuses being given for not holding one, from the prime minister down, extraordinary. The real reasons probably have more to do with a wish to push the whole issue under the car pet, avoid the political pain, and a fear that it might upset the Palestinian community. After failures of security, lack of adequate support for the local po lice – who had to bear the brunt of the attack with inadequate weapons – and the rising anti-Jewish, anti-Israel attitudes that have been growing un abated in sections of the community, Australians need to take stock of where these attitudes and lack of response to them have led us, to the death of so many good citizens, and the damage to a community of Jewish people who have done nothing but contribute to the wellbeing and cultural flourishing of this country.
Vivienne Parsons, Thornleigh
The point of a royal commission into the Bondi shootings is not to tell us what happened, but how it was able to happen, and to avert such an atrocity ever happening again.
Judy Maynard, Rose Bay
Albo, read the room. Call a federal royal commission. The victims of Bondi are after answers. Lifelong Labor supporters, such as my family, want it.
Greg Lilly, Kincumber
The 51 Muslims who were murdered in their mosque were in New Zealand when they were attacked by an Australian man who had been radicalised in Australia and who had travelled to New Zealand for the purpose of terror. The fact a national border exists between New Zealand and Australia, given the intense connection between them, cannot alone account for the difference in response to that attack and the one in Bondi. If there is to be a royal commission into race or religion-based acts of terrorism and murder, then it should be looking at both antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Patricia Loughlan, Glebe
A royal commission can take years to reach findings we al ready know and suggest recommendations that are obvious to all. Just get on with a bipartisan inquiry that can unite all areas of state and federal governments in the hope that a better, more organised terrorist response unit can be rapidly deployed in all states and territories.
Denis Suttling, Newport Beach
Do we need a royal commission to tell us many of the answers we already know, such as: 1) Why don’t we have a National Gun Register? 2) Why don’t government agencies (state and federal) share security information? 3) Do we need to spend $50 million to $100 million of taxpayers’ money to conduct the royal commission? 4) If we did spend the money and con duct the inquiry – will we adopt the findings and make changes, as Chris Minns suggests we would? Our past performance suggests that we are not good at adopting all the findings and making changes. For example, the aged care royal commission, completed in March 2021 at a cost of $92 million, made 148 recommendations and only 31 had been adopted by mid-2025. The Royal Commission into Natural National Disaster Arrangements (bushfires) made 80 recommendations and only 15 have been adopted. The remaining 65 recommendations are the responsibility of state and territory governments herein lies the problem.
Ian Muir, Chatswood
Is not a royal commission merely “lip service” to what has happened? Blame is a branch of evil that divides the community.
Tony DeGiovanni, Bawley Point
A national royal commission into rising antisemitism will only duplicate the already planned NSW inquiry. It would make more sense to have a national royal commission into the increase of all racial/religious discrimination, including that experienced by Muslims, Indians, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Australians. It might be that the growth of in tolerance is caused by global political tensions, or it could be triggered by growing financial inequity. It may even be a part of the long tail of the COVID outbreak, when large swaths of our cities were in lockdown. These are questions only a national inquiry can answer.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Dulwich Hill
Do lawyers want a royal commission? Did Pooh Bear want more honey?
Michael Britt, MacMasters Beach
Minns wrong about guns
What on earth is Premier Chris Minns thinking (“Police to carry guns ‘you haven’t seen before’ at New Year events”, December 29) when he says the government is “considering allowing members of the volunteer-led CSG [Community Security Group] to carry arms”? The establishment of an armed militia flies directly in the face of everything that has been done, and is proposed to be done, to control gun violence in our society. The idea is straight from the National Rifle Association’s playbook, i.e. that a good guy with a gun is always better than a bad guy with a gun. This type of thinking has led the US down the path of trained and armed school teachers and librarians, as well as open carry weapons in some states. Americans are, it seems, inured to the everyday slaughter of their own citizens by their own; is this where we want to be as a society, or should we stand up against gun violence in its totality and rely on the police and other legitimate ser vices to protect us in times of need? Privately controlled armed groups are not part of a solution, but they will become part of the problem.
Peter Cooper-Southam, Frenchs Forest
A most disturbing sequelae of the Bondi shootings is Chris Minns’ unwillingness to rule out requesting the army be deployed to patrol the streets of Sydney to ensure public safety. Viv Mackenzie, Port Hacking Chris Minns is wrong. If NSW Police are carrying long arms, the public will be much safer staying at home.
John Christie, Oatley
We are told that police will be carrying special high-powered weapons at major New Year celebrations. If the NSW government and police think the risk of a violent incident warrants such action, surely the celebrations should be called off? Ian Adair, Hunters Hill In putting police with serious weaponry on our streets, I won der how the NSW government plans to keep the public safe from stray “friendly” fire?
Greg Baker, Fitzroy Falls
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ALP goes deeper into denial
Albanese, Burke reject pleas of families and experts
The Australian | Greg Brown & Sarah Ison | 30 December 2025
The Albanese government has infuriated Jewish leaders and the families of Bondi massacre victims by claiming a federal royal commission could “platform” anti-Semitic voices, as senior law enforcement and legal critics argue the government is ignoring the pleas of the Jewish community and trying to hide its mistakes.
The Prime Minister on Monday rejected an open letter penned by the victims’ families calling for a royal commission into anti-Semitism and the terror attack that claimed 15 innocent lives, instead insisting a closed-door probe into the actions of security agencies in the lead-up to the massacre was the right way forward.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he “understood” why families wanted a royal commission, however he argued it would provide a platform for anti-Semites, be bad for social cohesion and was not the right forum to investigate issues of national security.
But former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Jewish activist Mark Leibler, top rabbis Benjamin Elton and Levi Wolff and Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim rubbished Mr Burke’s claims, saying it was important to showcase the extent of anti-Semitism in Australia.
Family members of the Bondi terror victims accused Mr Albanese of “gaslighting an entire community of people”, while former Federal Court judge Ronald Sackville rejected the suggestion a public inquiry would hurt social cohesion. And former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo and former Defence deputy secretary Peter Jennings lashed the federal government for claiming a royal commission was the wrong forum to probe national security issues.
As the Hindu Council of Australia became the latest group to call for a royal commission into the Bondi terror attack, NSW Premier Chris Minns said a public inquiry was “absolutely important” for the state and he expected federal agencies to be available for public hearings. He would not say whether the Albanese government should hold a federal royal commission, to run concurrently with the securityy inquiry.
“There are questions that we don’t have answers to and we need to do everything possible to provide that to the community,” Mr Minns said. “I am responsible for a lot in NSW; we are taking responsibility for a lot that is happening here at the moment. You will have to direct your questions to the federal government (about a national royal commission).
“I can’t speak for the families and I can’t speak for another level of government.”
While leaving most of the argument against a royal commission to Mr Burke in a press conference in Canberra, Mr Albanese said a public inquiry would allow for a “repetition of some of the worst elements” of the anti-Semitism debate. “Royal commissions can be good at deciding facts,” Mr Albanese said. “Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views.”
Mr Albanese used the Coalition’s proposed terms of reference – which the government does not have to adopt – to claim a royal commission would take “years”, with the review led by former mandarin Dennis Richardson to report to the government by April.
“The full suite of issues that have been asked to be examined would delay by a number of years … any outcome. What we need to do is to look at issues immediately,” he said.
Mr Burke warned that a royal commission would “re-platform and provide a public platform for some of the worst statements and worst voices”. “To effectively relive some of the worst examples of anti-Semitism over the last two years,” he said. “If a royal commission is to deal with issues like that, they have to provide public evidence for those voices as well.”
The NSW Right heavyweight, who holds a seat in western Sydney with a large Muslim community, said national security “doesn’t lend itself to public inquiry”.
“And in terms of who you get to chair, to get a retired judge as you normally would for a royal commission is not the sort of person you need to lead this inquiry,” Mr Burke said.
Sussan Ley said Mr Albanese “thumbed his nose at these (Bondi terror victim) families and told them, in effect, that he knows better”. “By speaking over victims and their families and declaring that his pathway forward is the right one, the Prime Minister has actually insulted those who have endured the unimaginable,” the Opposition Leader said. “It is not protective. It is patronising. It’s also an insult to the Australian people. Australians do not need to be shielded from the truth.”
Mr Frydenberg, the former treasurer and deputy Liberal leader, said Mr Albanese’s opposition to a royal commission made it look like Labor had something to “hide”, and accused the government of being partially responsible for radicalisation in Australia.
“What does the Prime Minister have to fear? What does he want to hide?” Mr Frydenberg told 2GB radio. “Tony Burke allowed Australia to be radicalised on his watch, together with the Prime Minister and (Foreign Minister) Penny Wong.
“We’ve just got more excuses. (Anthony Albanese) said he didn’t want a royal commission because he didn’t want to platform the worst voices and the statements of the last 2½ years. I mean, he should get real. We want a royal commission because we want to shut down those voices of hate.
“He said we don’t want more delays. Well, hang on, Prime Minister, you’ve been delaying for 2½ years (acting on anti-Semitism).”
Mr Leibler said a royal commission would not “platform” extremist views, but rather “expose them”. “You can’t run away from dealing with these issues by ignoring them. Overall, we need an understanding of what’s happened here in Australia, and that’s why I think a royal commission is important,” he said.
Mr Wertheim said issues cannot be addressed by “papering over the cracks”.
“They’ve got to be addressed and confronted,” he said.
Rabbi Elton and Rabbi Wolff said the government was blatantly ignoring the wishes of the families of the terror attack’s fatal victims.
“It goes without saying that a royal commission will undoubtedly bring up some very disturbing elements in our country,” Rabbi Wolff said. “But how can we prevent another attack if we do not unmask the deadly cancer that has metastasised in our society: anti-Semitism?”
Rabbi Elton said Mr Albanese had to learn it was “more important to listen to the families than to speak for the families”, dismissing concerns over retraumatisation and re-platforming anti-Semitism.
Rabbinical Association of Australasia president Nochum Schapiro said “in order to deal with a problem you need to fully understand what contributing factors led to the attack”.
Mr Keelty said the Prime Minister’s reasoning for not establishing a royal commission on national security grounds was “nonsense”. “There’s precedent for this: the Hope Commission into ASIO as an example,” he said. “We’ve also had a royal commission… into the deaths and suicides of ADF members which dealt with the deployments of the special forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, and there are ways that a royal commission can quarantine some of its hearings, as with any court, to have it in in in a closed environment. So it’s a very feeble excuse.”
Mr Jennings said Mr Albanese’s assertion that the royal commission risked exposing details of national security “bordered on fraudulent” while also hitting back against the view that it could platform extremists.
Mr Pezzullo said the “arrangements for a royal commission can be tailored to accommodate the handling of national security information”.
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‘Don’t tell us how to feel, PM’
The Australian | James Dowling, Elizabeth Pike & Bimini Plesser | 30 December 2025
The families of Bondi attack victims have rubbished the claim a royal commission would amplify the “worst voices” on anti-Semitism, warning the Jewish community has already endured two years of rampant hatred and demanding Anthony Albanese not “dictate” the terms of their trauma.
Sheina Gutnick, the daughter of Reuven Morrison who charged down Sajid Akram in his final minutes, led efforts to assemble a joint statement from 17 families who wrote to the Prime Minister calling for a royal commission and was furious to see it cast aside.
She said the reasoning for blocking a federal royal commission was inadequate and “incomprehensible”.
“Prime Minister, please don’t tell us how to feel. We’re traumatised, and this is what we’re asking for. We know what we need, and that’s a royal commission,” Ms Gutnick told The Australian.
“It’s the absolute audacity for them to come out and tell us how we are going to feel about this. It’s incomprehensible on Albanese, trying to dictate what’s going to traumatise us. Let’s take these steps to ensure that there will be no further trauma. We don’t know how safe we are within Australia right now without a royal commission, and we won’t feel safe until we get answers.”
Mendy Amzalak, who lost his 78-year-old grandfather Tibor Weitzen in the mass shooting, criticised Mr Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke as “insane” for refusing a royal commission. “The Jewish community has put up with the worst voices for the best part of 2½ years and if we have to hear them one more time to get to the bottom of this – the truth – then we will do it, heads need to roll,” said Mr Amzalak, who came across his grandfather’s body after running down to the beach during the shooting.
“If they truly believe they’ve done nothing wrong, then they should welcome a royal commission instead of hiding behind reviews they control.”
The Albanese government will hold an internal security review led by former spy and public servant Dennis Richardson, with Mr Burke saying a royal commission would “provide a public platform for some of the worst statements and worst voices, to effectively relive some of the worst examples of anti-Semitism over the last two years”.
Mr Amzalak said the Richardson review would be “inadequate”.
“When it comes to the federal government we have had zero interaction, there has been no one who has reached out, and it almost feels like no accountability has been taken,” he said.
“Our loved ones have paid the price for that negligence.”
Jenny Roytur, the niece of Bondi victim Boris Tetleroyd, joined the chorus of criticism, calling Mr Albanese a “coward” in an interview with Nine newspapers.
Great Synagogue, Chabad North Shore and Central Synagogue chief rabbis Benjamin Elton, Nochum Schapiro and Levi Wolff – three of the nation’s most prominent religious leaders – said the Albanese government was blatantly ignoring the wishes of the families of the victims.
“Sadly, trauma is a part of history for Jewish communities. In every major city around the world you will find Holocaust museums. Jewish communities are adamant that these museums, as disturbing as their contents are, serve to remind people of the horrors that occurred,” Rabbi Wolff said.
“The same is true for Bondi. It is the deadliest terror attack on Australian soil. It goes without saying that a royal commission will undoubtedly bring up some very disturbing elements in our country. But how can we prevent another attack if we do not unmask the deadly cancer that has metastasised in our society – anti-Semitism?”
Rabbi Elton said Mr Albanese had to learn it was “more important to listen to the families than to speak for the families”, dismissing concerns over re-traumatisation and re-platforming anti-Semitism.
“People are still in trauma, I’m not sure we’re at the stage of being re-traumatised … This isn’t about reopening old wounds; these are current wounds,” he told The Australian. “If their concern is to the health of the Jewish community … They should listen to Jewish community and find out what we want, not speak for us.”
Rabbi Schapiro said the government would not be able to prevent another attack if it did not confront why the Bondi massacre happened.
“In order to deal with a problem you need to fully understand what contributing factors led to the attack. It’s the only way to stop it from happening again,” he said.
“The voices calling for the royal commission will not end here.”
A senior figure in the Jewish community on Monday confirmed Mr Albanese had met privately with families of the victims over the weekend.
However, Mr Albanese has not met with Ms Gutnick, despite her repeated appeals to the federal government.
Chana Friedman, a close friend and associate of several victims, said Mr Albanese was “gaslighting an entire community of people”.
Newtown Synagogue vice-president Toby Raphael said confronting evidence was needed to promote change. “If you don’t open old wounds, you can’t heal,” he said. “Look at the royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse … at least people faced it, and they talked about it, and things came out of it.”
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Just who is Labor trying to protect?
The Australian | Janet Albrechtsen | 30 December 2025
Sunlight is always the best disinfectant. Unless of course you are the Albanese government with so much to hide and so much to lose from a royal commission into the worst terrorist attack in the history of this country.
That much became clear at Monday’s press conference when Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the reason the Albanese government would not establish a royal commission was that it would involve providing a platform for evil people.
A royal commission in the form proposed by the Coalition would, Burke said, provide a public platform for “some of the worst examples of anti-Semitism”. The government, he said, was “deeply concerned” about social cohesion and unity.
The Prime Minister added insult to injury with this award-winning word salad: “As the minister has just said, the issue there is that royal commissions can be good at deciding facts; what the Richardson review will do is decide facts. Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views and to enable, which is what it would do, a repetition of some of the worst elements.”
The most charitable thing one can say about these comments from the Prime Minister and the Home Affairs Minister is they will go down as some of the ridiculous responses imaginable by this government to growing calls for a royal commission into the rise and rise of anti-Semitism in this country. Hard-headed people will reach for much less complimentary language.
You don’t improve social cohesion by refusing to expose evil, by letting it fester in terrorist breeding grounds in our suburbs.
Labor’s excuse is so poor, so obviously bogus, that Albanese and Burke must know things we don’t know – there must be something so deep and dark within the Labor government, and the broader Labor Party, that they believe any excuse that can save them from exposure is justified. Whatever it takes, as former ALP senator and powerbroker Graham Richardson would have said.
Many royal commissions deal with deeply disturbing evidence. The tendering of evidence during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse would have been deeply traumatising for the victims and their families. But the greater good was the exposure of evil.
In recent years, we have had royal commissions into defence and veteran suicide; violence, neglect, abuse and exploitation of people with a disability; the Robodebt scheme; and aged care quality and safety. The single unifying feature of each of these royal commissions has been that they produced seriously traumatic evidence – for victims of child sexual abuse, for people with a disability who were abused and neglected, for aged care residents who were abused while in care, and for victims of the appalling Robodebt scheme.
Given that history, the excuse from Albanese and Burke is deeply insulting. Do they think we are complete idiots?
Devastated Jewish families who lost their children, mothers, fathers, husbands, friends, rabbis are not afraid of hearing evidence about the rise of anti-Semitism in this country. For years, they have lived with the growing tide of anti-Semitism. If the victims of anti-Semitism are not afraid of it being “re-platformed” (to borrow Burke’s word) but actually want it to be ventilated again, why are the Prime Minister and his Home Affairs Minister running scared?
A royal commission would necessarily investigate the rise of anti-Semitism, not just in the wider community, not just within arts bodies, not just on university campuses, but also inside our political institutions.
Last week, a few courageous Labor Party members demanded that Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns crack down on widespread anti-Semitism and inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric running rampant within the ALP.
On Monday, as Burke and Albanese continued to refuse calls for a royal commission, The Australian was told by Labor insiders that the Clovelly branch of the party – Clovelly is a seaside suburb close to Bondi – passed a motion last year that included a statement that rabbis called for the murder of Palestinian babies and submitted it to Labor’s federal electoral council for adoption.
No evidence was offered to support the claim. Though the statement was deleted, Labor insiders told The Australian they were deeply troubled by the “avalanche of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish motions coming from some of Labor branches – including Clovelly – in Wentworth”.
Are Albanese and Burke trying to hide from dreadful anti-Semitism within their own party – at the expense of keeping Jews safe?
We gave Morgan D, a high-ranking law-enforcement professional, with decades of frontline experience in Australia and overseas within the Australian Federal Police, an alias to protect him. He told us that the AFP had briefed the government, particularly senior ministers Penny Wong and Burke, repeatedly on the “growing and foreseeable threat” of terrorism. These ministers appear to have done nothing.
We asked on the weekend whether Burke especially faced an irreconcilable conflict in national security matters given the importance of the Muslim community in his electorate – a conflict so potentially serious that it may demand he step down from his role as Home Affairs Minister.
In light of Burke’s insulting excuse this week for not holding a royal commission, we ask again: is the real reason we are being denied a royal commission on these attacks and related matters that it might reveal conversations and briefings that Burke, and maybe Wong and others, would rather not have revealed? Or reveal the rot inside the Labor Party?
What happened to Albanese’s sanctimonious vows about integrity and transparency in government? Albanese was happy enough to make those promises to win office. Now Albanese is determined to break those promises to hold onto power. And where are those apostles of transparency, those evangelists for integrity – the so-called teals? They should be leading the calls for a royal commission, their voices a chorus line of indignation.
The Albanese government’s determination to do no more than scratch the surface is deeply troubling. The Richardson review has a politically convenient narrow remit. It will not explore the rise of anti-Semitism in our country, a dark stain that should, as Mick Keelty argued in The Australian on Monday, warrant the important powers of a royal commission.
Our suspicions are on high alert that the only people Albanese and Burke are trying to save from trauma are themselves and their fellow Labor ministers.
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PM reveals Richardson review powers
The Australian | Jack Quail | 30 December 2025
A snap review of law enforcement and intelligence agencies following the deadly anti-Semitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach will examine whether authorities operated at maximum effectiveness, had adequate powers and appropriate procedures in place.
But the inquiry, to be led by former defence and intelligence chief Dennis Richardson, will not consider the broader rise in anti-Semitism that preceded the shooting, nor the threat to Australia posed by radical Islamic extremists.
Continuing to resist calls to establish a federal royal commission into the massacre, which claimed 15 lives, Anthony Albanese on Monday set out the terms of reference for the review, maintaining that the shorter inquiry would deliver more immediate results.
“The government is committed to making sure that we can’t wait years for answers, we need to get on with any changes that are required,” he said in Canberra.
“This ISIS-inspired atrocity in Bondi is a stark reminder of the rapidly changing security environment that we face, and the need to make sure our agencies have what they need, and we’re determined to make sure they get exactly that.”
Scheduled to be completed by the end of April, the review will enable Mr Richardson to consider what federal agencies – namely the Australian Federal Police and ASIO – knew about the alleged offenders prior to the attack, alongside intelligence-sharing arrangements between state and federal authorities.
Mr Richardson will seek to determine what judgments were made and actions taken by authorities before, during and after the shooting in an effort to distil whether any additional measures could have been taken at a federal level to prevent it from occurring.
The review will examine whether federal agencies were constrained by existing laws and regulations, and assess whether additional measures are needed to prevent similar attacks. It will also consider whether agencies have the necessary powers, processes and systems in place, including for sharing information, accessing data and using warrants, and if changes to the law are needed.
The terms of reference also note that Mr Richardson will engage with NSW authorities, and agencies in other states and territories if necessary, and will have “full access” to all material he considers may be relevant. “Relevant departments and agencies are to co-operate fully with the review and provide assistance in the form of documents, data, materials and meetings as requested,” the terms of reference state.
Mr Richardson will be assisted by a newly established secretariat within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Mr Albanese has previously committed to making the review’s findings public, although he has not specified a timeline for their release.
Still, the review will not satisfy the demands of some Jewish groups and several leading security experts who have argued that a far broader, royal commission-level investigation – the highest form of public inquiry – is needed.
They argue that this type of probe would offer the greatest independence, potentially led by a former judge with wide-ranging powers, including the ability to compel witnesses to testify. It would also provide greater transparency and accountability through public hearings, unlike the closed-door review being conducted by Mr Richardson.
John Blaxland, a professor of international security and intelligence studies at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said that with ramifications reaching beyond NSW, a federal royal commission now presented the “best way forward”.
“I think (Mr Albanese) has to deal with the fallout – the ramifications are national, the societal implications are quite profound,” he said. “A royal commission may help him clear the air and provide a course of action that allows the political sting to be taken out of this.”
Professor Blaxland said that if a royal commission were to proceed, the best approach would be to have a clearly defined remit and reporting period.
The NSW government has launched its own state-based royal commission into the Bondi attack, which Mr Albanese has pledged to co-operate with. However, its scope will be confined to matters within NSW’s jurisdiction and it will be restricted in the witnesses it can compel to give testimony.
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Albanese leaves the job undone with Bondi probe
Terms of reference do not address the bigger issues of anti-Semitism
The Australian | Editorial | 30 December 2025
Anthony Albanese is right to suggest an expedited review by former spy and public servant Dennis Richardson into how our intelligence and security agencies performed in the lead-up to the Bondi Beach massacre is needed and in the national interest. But he is wrong to think this should be the end of the matter when it comes to a detailed and forensic federal probe into Australia’s worst terror attack. Like Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore’s initial decision to light the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a dove on the New Year’s Eve fireworks display, the Prime Minister’s in-house security probe leaves out the most important thing. Ms Moore made the right decision to change the projection to a menorah. Mr Albanese should accept the wishes of the families of the dead, and the advice of respected national figures, and call a federal royal commission. To not do so now represents a lack of leadership that begs the question: What has he, his party and government got to hide? It is particularly insensitive to leave the pleas of 17 families representing 11 of the Jewish victims unaddressed. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the families called for a royal commission to investigate the rapid rise of anti-Semitism in Australia following Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023; how anti-Semitic hatred and Islamic extremism were allowed to grow dangerously unchecked, and; what changes must be made to protect all Australians.
Mr Albanese’s review is silent on these points in the face of a widely held view that his government prioritised its electoral position in Sydney’s western suburbs over confronting the rise of anti-Semitism in the wake of the October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. There is mounting evidence of anti- Israel sentiment within the Australian Labor Party at state and federal level. In the weeks before the Bondi Beach massacre, the state ALP in Queensland adopted policies hostile to the Jewish community. Young Labor in NSW raised the alarm about the number of Jewish members deserting the party. Trade unions marched alongside the flags of proscribed terrorist organisations.
In the community, schoolchildren were coached in slogans calling for the destruction of Israel. Jewish students were hounded from universities. And Muslim extremists were permitted to celebrate the Hamas terror attack on Israel unpunished.
In the wake of the Bondi terror attack, Mr Albanese hid behind the deep historic roots of anti-Semitism to absolve himself of responsibility. Yet statistics demonstrate clearly that anti-Semitism escalated dramatically under his watch.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry remained steady at fewer than 350 from 2013 until 2021, when they rose above 400. The number reached 478 in 2022, and soared to 2062 incidents in 2023 and 1654 last year.
The increase coincided with a failure of our institutions to recognise the danger, despite repeated warnings of what would happen next. The history makes Monday’s claim by Mr Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke that a federal royal commission would provide a public platform for “some of the worst examples of anti- Semitism”, and that they were “deeply concerned” about social cohesion and unity, all the more insulting and risible.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has been praised for his strong leadership in the wake of the terrorist attack in his state. He has acknowledged his own failings and those of his government, pledged to strengthen security and to hold a state royal commission. Mr Minns says the state inquiry will have the full co-operation of national agencies but it will not have the legal authority to compel co-operation when the rubber hits the road.
Mr Richardson will conduct his inquiry under the auspices of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. He will investigate the performance and powers of ASIO and the AFP, and their co-operation with other federal, state and territory agencies. He will probe what contact the alleged offenders in the Bondi Beach attack had with intelligence agencies and law enforcement. And, in relation to the Bondi attack: what relevant commonwealth agencies knew about the alleged offenders before the attack, and when; the interaction and information-sharing between commonwealth agencies, and with their state counterparts, and; what judgments were made and actions taken by relevant agencies. Mr Richardson will assess whether there were any additional measures that relevant commonwealth agencies could have taken to prevent the terrorist attack, and what additional measures, if any, should be taken by relevant commonwealth agencies to prevent similar attacks occurring in the future.
These are all big questions that demand immediate answers. Mr Richardson is well-qualified to do the job. But the terms of reference he has been given do not address the bigger issues of the rise of anti-Semitism and the threat still posed by Islamist terror ideology to Australia. These questions still demand an answer. Not just for the Jewish community and families of victims of the Bondi Beach pogrom, but for decency, for safety and for us all.
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PM, all Jews deserve the chance to be heard
The Australian | Ronald Sackville | 30 December 2025
Repeated and earnest calls for unity in the aftermath of the Bondi pogrom have been in vain. Symptomatic of the disunity is Anthony Albanese’s refusal to countenance the widespread demands for a commonwealth royal commission to investigate the explosion of anti-Semitism in this country and the multiple failures that allowed the Bondi catastrophe to occur.
The NSW government has announced its intention to establish its own royal commission. This is a given. A commonwealth royal commission would therefore complement or perhaps supplant the state body.
An open letter signed by many senior barristers and former judges (I was one) identified important and fairly obvious reasons why a commonwealth commission is required.
They include the need to address: nationwide issues such as anti-Semitism on campuses; the adequacy of national counter- terrorism networks; gaps and weaknesses across jurisdictions, and; recommendations capable of consistent implementation.
There are additional, perhaps less obvious but no less important, reasons to overcome the Prime Minister’s resistance.
First, the commonwealth has resources that NSW, acting alone, simply does not. This is not just a matter of money, although adequate funding is of course essential.
For example, the commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department has a substantial royal commissions branch very experienced in the complex task of setting up a large royal commission rapidly: premises, staffing, protocols, training of personnel and the like.
Second, a royal commission provides a forum for “truth-telling” by Jewish people who have experienced the scourge of anti- Semitism in its multitude of forms.
The Disability Royal Commission, for example, allowed many hundreds of people with disability to recount their experiences of violence, abuse and exploitation.
Their stories informed the wider community of the nature and extent of the abuse routinely directed at people with disability and helped shape recommendations for change. Since anti-Semitism in Australia is not confined to NSW, it is crucial that all Jewish people deeply affected by anti-Semitism be able to tell their stories and be heard.
Third, a commonwealth royal commission has formidable powers of compulsion that can be deployed to investigate the violence, abuse, intimidation, “doxxing” and “cancellation” inflicted on Jewish people throughout Australia, as well as the failures leading to the Bondi massacre. Those powers include compelling individuals and organisations to produce documents but also to provide written information on matters specified by the royal commission. It is one thing for the federal government and its agencies and institutions, such as universities and funding bodies, to promise co-operation with the NSW royal commission; it is quite another for them to be required by a national inquiry to divulge information they would much prefer to keep secret.
Fourth, the creation of a commonwealth royal commission would influence states other than NSW to issue their own commissions to commissioners appointed by the federal government. This is what happened for both the Disability Royal Commission and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse. Conjoint commissions overcome constitutional problems that otherwise might be encountered in obtaining information from the states or their agencies, and signal that the states are serious about combating anti- Semitism.
Fifth, while it might be open to a NSW royal commission to suggest changes to commonwealth laws combating hate speech and anti-Semitism, any such proposals would lack the authority and moral force of recommendations made by a commonwealth royal commission. A national inquiry would be specifically instructed to consider reforms to federal laws, taking into account the efficacy of the many state laws addressing anti-Semitism and other forms of race hatred. No national government could ignore recommendations for reform.
Responses from various sections of the community to the unprecedented act of terror demonstrate that disunity is alive and well. There will be constitutional challenges to legislation limiting protest marches in certain circumstances. There will be misguided claims that the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. (Is it really so hard to read plain English?) It will be said that laws proscribing hate speech infringe freedom of expression and religious freedom. Some will persist in confusing support for Zionism by the vast majority of Australian Jews as their support for every action of the current Israeli government.
The idea that a commonwealth royal commission will harm social cohesion is misconceived, for several reasons. There will be a royal commission. A national inquiry is no more likely to harm social cohesion than a state one.
Both the commonwealth and at least two states have announced measures to combat anti-Semitism.
There will be no shortage of people and organisations opposed to those measures. They will not be shy in making their views known publicly and vigorously, regardless of the existence of a royal https://todayspaper.theaustralian.com.au/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=7e29839b-8ab9-4667-b964-42f264fbbf74&share=true
It is distinctly odd that social cohesion is used as an excuse for avoiding a commonwealth royal commission when it is virtually the entirety of the Australian Jewish community, including the victims, who want the inquiry. They want their voices heard and they have earned the right to be heard.
Of course a royal commission will take time. But we have already seen that a comprehensive inquiry is no barrier to long overdue actions being taken in the short term.
They will not mark the end of the actions needed to prevent more disasters.
A change of heart by the PM on the issue of a commonwealth royal commission would remove one significant source of disunity in this country.
Ronald Sackville was a judge of the Federal Court of Australia from 1994 to 2008.
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Weak leaders responsible for the demise of our ‘safe’ nation
The Australian | Letters | 30 December 2025
It is with a heavy heart that I have been reading we could be on the verge of a possible deployment of the ADF to strengthen security within Sydney and possibly other locations, especially with New Year celebrations approaching.
How on earth did it all come to this in such a short period of time? What has happened to the Australia of just a few short years ago? In any context, this is unbelievable and a sorry reflection on our political leaders. They have taken their eye off the ball in relation to their number one responsibility to keep all Australians safe and secure.
They have allowed their political ideologies to reign supreme over this basic human right of all Australians.
Along with the vast majority of Australians, I thought that this possibility would never be required in our once great country.
We have gone from the most secure country in the world to one where we no longer feel safe and secure, especially in our Jewish communities.
In a sense, we are now fighting for a peaceful and secure Australia, something that we never ever should have to do.
Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic
Security shock
It is quite shocking that NSW Premier Chris Minns is considering requesting for the ADF to be deployed to protect Sydney’s Jewish community.
Maybe this needs to be implemented for Jews nationwide.
When in Australia’s history were the armed forces required to protect one group of Australians from being terrorised or killed by other Australians?
Pia Brous, Armadale, Vic
Lack of intelligence
I read the article, “Jewish Leaders back use of ADF” (29/12), with interest.
Many Australians could be deeply concerned about the negative optics of deploying troops on our streets.
I believe a cheaper, more effective and less draconian alternative lies in better intelligence. If ASIO became aware of events like the Bondi shootings before they took place, they could be prevented by conventional policing.
John Reid, New Norfolk, Tas
Don’t blame victims
Premier Chris Minns is to be congratulated for taking strong steps to reclaim public places and make them safe for all.
This is what a free society should look like. I’m appalled to see emerging in social media and in letters in certain media outlets a shameful and dangerous victimblaming, whereby the organisers of the Bondi Hanukkah event are in effect accused of putting people at risk by holding their event.
The people endangering others are the terrorists and their inciters.
Telling Jewish people to remain inconspicuous and refrain from being “openly Jewish” in public is more of the moral inversion we have regrettably seen too much of during the past few years.
There are some among us who seem to prefer a society where Jews should enjoy less freedom of assembly and speech than jihadis and their supporters.
Judy Maynard, Rose Bay, NSW
Peace harder to reach
The majority of Australians hope for peace in 2026 and beyond.
Raw emotions have not subsided and the Bondi Beach massacre is barbarously etched into our history.
With peace as the aim, we cannot ignore, like it or not, our involvement in global upheavals for a number of reasons. This government has elected to join other nations in speaking out on the Gaza situation and promoting a twostate solution. Hate speech, disguised as protest, continues to test rights to freedom of speech. We celebrate a multicultural society and must manage the inevitable pressures and adjustments, cultural, racial, religious and economic, that eventuate. There is a need for strong alliances to confront changes to world order.
Once peace and safety were unquestioned on our remote island continent. Now, it is within our government’s ambit and there is a pressing responsibility to act on these issues with a readiness for a considered response to external challenges.
Ros Smith, Middle Park, Qld
PM ‘wilfully blind’
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is refusing a federal royal commission into anti-Semitism, because it will expose his embarrassing wilful blindness to increasingly serious warnings from federal agencies over the past two years.
This is in sharp contrast to proactive NSW Premier Chris Minns, a real leader, who recalled the NSW parliament and passed laws to curtail anti-Semitism.
Allan Sangster, Randwick, NSW
Hope for peace and joy
My wife and I, along with thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish Australians, attended the impressive ceremony mourning the 15 victims shot by two hateful terrorists inspired by ISIS.
It was a very moving ceremony, watched by millions of Australians and people worldwide, in sympathy with our Jewish community.
President Donald Trump has proposed a plan for peace in Gaza to resolve the conflict. The hostages have all since been released, but the killings on both sides continue, the bombing continues and terrorism continues.
All these things will continue until a comprehensive peace in the Middle East is achieved.
Hopefully Christmas brought some joy to those who are suffering from the horrendous and tragic events at Bondi, and may the New Year allow the victims to put their sorrows behind.
Dominic Williams, Double Bay, NSW
Labor ducks scrutiny
The necessity of armed guards to protect Jewish individuals and facilities highlights a significant failure in the government’s fundamental responsibility to safeguard its citizens.
Although Premier Minns has proposed deploying troops to protect the Jewish community in NSW, the Australian Defence Force is a federal agency and it can only be deployed with the authorisation of higher authorities, probably the Governor-General and the federal government.
The Prime Minister’s refusal to initiate a royal commission into anti-Semitism and the Bondi incident suggests that the potential outcomes might be unfavourable for both him and the Labor Party.
Additionally, it is likely he would be reluctant to authorise the deployment of troops to protect Jewish communities due to the negative optics it would create, potentially indicating a loss of governmental control and attracting international scrutiny.
The Prime Minister’s reluctance to take proactive measures has led to a crisis that he appears unwilling or unable to resolve. Deploying the ADF will only compound this.
Tom Moylan, Dudley Park, WA
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‘Don’t tell us what we need, PM’
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun, Courier-Mail) | Madeleine Bower | 30 December 2025
Families of Bondi massacre victims have rejected Anthony Albanese’s claims a royal commission would be too traumatic after he dismissed their open letter calling for the powerful probe.
The Prime Minister yesterday doubled down on his refusal to hold a royal commission into the attack and the rise of anti-Semitism that led up to it, instead standing by his decision to run an independent departmental review into the federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Speaking after receiving an open letter from the families of 11 of the 15 people killed in the attack, Mr Albanese said while his “heart breaks for the families” it was in the interests of Australia’s “national security” to have an independent government review instead of a royal commission.
He also said a public national inquiry would “platform” those with anti-Semitic views.
The daughter of Bondi hero Reuven Morrison accused Mr Albanese of speaking for the victims’ families without listening to them.
Sheina Gutnick told The Daily Telegraph the departmental review was not going to be as “transparent and cohesive” as a royal commission.
“The Prime Minister has claimed a royal commission is going to be too traumatic. Please don’t tell us what we need – we have faced enough trauma,” she said.
“Australians deserve to know what happened, they deserve to know the truth.
“The review is not going to give us the answers we need.”
Sydney rabbi Yossi Friedman said: “It is deeply disappointing that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is refusing a royal commission. Not because we want blame, but because we want clarity. How did all our warnings go unheeded?”
The comments follow the release of the terms of reference of the independent review to be conducted by former spy chief Dennis Richardson.
The review will assess whether Australia’s federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies – mainly ASIO and the Australian Federal Police – performed effectively and had the right powers and procedures in place. It will also look into what federal agencies knew of the gunmen before the attack and whether it could have been prevented.
Despite pleas from the victims’ families for a royal commission, Mr Albanese said a national inquiry of that type would take too long to make recommendations.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said a public inquiry would platform people with anti-Semitic views.
“It is not simply the people who feel they have been harmed by things that have been said or slogans that have been used that will be called, it will also be those who have made those statements that will make submission, they will under a royal commission be platformed,” he said.
“No one can tell me that it is in the interests of unity to re-platform some of the worst voices.”
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I know I saved lots
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun, Courier-Mail) | Tyson Jackson & Danielle Gusmaroli | 30 December 2025
The hero who disarmed one of the Bondi Beach terrorists says his “soul” called on him to tackle the gunman and put himself at risk to save countless lives.
Speaking for the first time since disrupting Australia’s deadliest terror attack, Ahmed Al-Ahmed said he was not worried about anything but taking away the gun Sajid Akram was using to shoot innocent people.
“I jumped on his back, hit him and … hold him with right hand and start to say a word, like, you know, to warn him, ‘Drop your gun’,” Mr Al-Ahmed told US television network CBS.
“I don’t want to hear his gun. I don’t want to see people screaming and begging, asking ‘help, help’.”
As hundreds of people at and around the beach, where Jewish people had gathered to celebrate Hanukkah, ran from the sound of the shots fired by Akram and his son Naveed, footage now famous around the world shows Mr Al-Ahmed springing out from behind parked cars and rushing at the father.
“That’s my soul asking me to do that,” the 44-year-old devout Muslim said.
“Everything in my heart, in my brain, everything … worked just to manage to save the people’s lives.”
Asked whether he knew his actions had “saved countless lives” on December 14, when 15 people were killed and at least 40 more injured, Mr Al-Ahmed replied: “I know I saved lots of people’s lives – innocent kids and women and men.”
“I know I saved lots, but I feel sorry still for the lost,” the Sutherland tobacconist, originally from Syria, said.
Mr Al-Ahmed, who survived the attack despite being shot five times, was photographed yesterday on the balcony of a luxury 33rd-floor suite at the Crown Towers hotel at Barangaroo.
Having undergone surgery during his time at St George Hospital, where he was visited by politicians who thanked him for his bravery, Mr Al-Ahmed had his left arm in a sling as he looked out at Sydney Harbour.
Moved by his heroics, the public has raised more than $2.6 million for Mr Al-Ahmed through an online fundraiser which has recorded nearly 45,000 contributions.
Well-wishers have also plastered his Cigara Tobacconist store on the Princes Highway with handwritten messages hailing his bravery.
One note, taped to the shutters, reads: “You are truly an admirable hero, and your bravery is applaudable. On behalf of our Sydney Jewish community. and the Australian population, THANK YOU!! We all hope you have a seamless and healthy recovery! Much love to you, your family and friends over the holidays. We love you, Ahmed!!”
Another said: “Ahmed, you put yourself in mortal danger to protect others – true heroism.”
A third message read: “To Brother Ahmed, on ya mate… We are one and should look out for each other. Thanks again. We are Australian.”
Another well-wisher wrote that “like a fish in calm water, courage moves quietly but deeply.
“You chose good over darkness and we are incredibly proud of you and grateful to have you as part of our community,” the note continued.
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We want and deserve a full royal commission
Daily Telegraph | Maurice Newman | 30 December 2025
The left’s spin factory can sanitise dirty linen faster than you can say “Bondi Beach”.
Within hours of the Bondi Beach massacre, where 15 lives were allegedly taken by two Muslim terrorists, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the National Firearms Agreement, established after the Port Arthur massacre, would be renegotiated.
“People can be radicalised over a period of time,” he spun. “Licences should not be in perpetuity.”
It should come as no surprise to the Prime Minister that, just as machete bins in Victoria won’t fix African crime, gun control won’t fix the problem of radical Islam. Criminals and terrorists tend not to obey the law.
And now, for the first time since Israel responded to the October 7 2023 Hamas slaughter of 1200 victims, the left has changed the narrative. “From the river to the sea” is out, replaced by a caring call for “healing and unity”.
Anyone blaming religion, the government or its agencies for what happened at Bondi is scorned for seeking crass political advantage.
So, when Liberal leader Sussan Ley criticised Foreign Minister Penny Wong for not shedding “a single tear” after the attack, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen offered an outraged deflection.
“I thought that was a disgusting element of an increasingly partisan politics in the wake of a national crisis,” Bowen said. “Australia has in the past come together at moments like this … and oppositions have chosen not to make political points.”
Erased from history is Wong’s anti-Israel bias, evidenced by her refusal to visit the site of the October 7 massacre and her support for Palestinian sovereignty.
She and her colleagues set the domestic tone which allowed anti-Semitic hatreds to flourish.
Labor’s initial response to the firebombing of Melbourne’s Adass Synagogue was perfunctory.
The targeting of Jewish leaders, Jewish schools, Jewish students at universities and Jewish homes passed largely without comment.
But, as Bowen now piously lectures, apportioning blame is to be partisan. Labor’s reliable mouthpiece, the ABC, speculated that Josh Frydenberg’s powerful condemnation of the government over Bondi was politically motivated.
Never mind Frydenberg is a Jew whose family felt persecuted for two and a half years because of their religion. Or that he was genuinely grieving over Bondi Beach. To the ABC he was just using the occasion as a platform to launch another campaign.
Of course, the official line maintains religion had nothing to do with the Bondi Beach massacre. Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett claimed the Bondi Beach attack was terrorism driven by ideology.
She, like the ABC’s Laura Tingle, seems unaware that Islamism is a political project, rooted in religious orthodoxy, which seeks to remake society according to strict Islamic codes. Better to suppress this truth lest too many Australians think Islamic jihad is behind that atrocity and succumb to Islamophobia.
Indeed, it is the rise of radical Islam which is behind the government’s fear of a royal commission. Such an inquiry risks exposing Mr Albanese and Labor as having turned blind eyes to growing threats to innocent Australian Jews. That when deciding between votes and national security, anti-Semitic forces triumphed.
There is compelling evidence to support a national royal commission. Australians are feeling betrayed by the people they trusted to keep them safe. Reinventing history won’t change lived experience.
Indeed, the deep stain on the nation’s fabric is so deep, no amount of soft soaping or spinning will make it disappear.
Sunlight is crucial.
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Senseless imbalance is Bondi’s dark legacy
Daily Telegraph | Tim Blair | 30 December 2025
humans judge and process danger in ways that don’t always make sense.
Someone bouncing around in a car, for example, may feel no anxiety at all. It’s just a bumpy street. No big deal.
But the same mild jostling in an aircraft will cause stress-indicating cortisol levels to spike – even if our terrified passenger knows that flight is massively safer than road travel.
Similarly, many of us enjoy holidays in nuclear-powered France but are petrified by the prospect of nuclear power in Australia. It doesn’t add up, unless you believe croissants and Citroens provide some form of protective atomic armour.
In which case, let’s back our Deux Chevaux up to the nearest patisserie and get chomping. Maybe we can eat our way to nuclear salvation.
And then we have our two main concerns of the modern era: climate change and Islamic terrorism.
The former hasn’t killed anybody. Not a single person, so far as anybody can prove. The worst thing climate change has done thus far is briefly frighten poor little Greta Thunberg – before she decided to be more spooked by Israel.
Yet there is never a penalty for exaggerating the dangers, if dangers they be, of climate change. Look how much cash our own politicians throw at climate alarmists, climate frauds, and magical climate cures.
Billions of dollars. Billions of your dollars. While simultaneously spending millions more of your dollars on their personal beachside properties.
Look at how wealthy Al Gore became by preaching the false holy warming gospel. “It could happen in as little as seven years,” he said in his Nobel Peace Prize speech of 2007, referring to the north polar ice cap vanishing during summer. “Seven years from now.”
Eighteen years on, it’s still there. Bigger than ever, just like Al himself.
In Australia, we have a government reshaping our whole economy to resist climate change. We have a climate change ministry. Two smaller political parties (Greens and Teals) focus on climate change. Two previously large parties (Libs and Nats) are ripping themselves to pieces about climate change. Media outlets obsess over climate change. Labor spent a fortune trying to host a climate change conference.
All this for something that’s given us a body count of net zero, perfectly fine sea depths and seasons closely following centuries-old patterns.
Climate change. Our political and media classes can’t get enough of it. Now move on to Islamic terrorism, which is killing more people every year – and about which political and media folk are either scared silent or anxiously evasive.
According to France’s Foundation for Political Innovation, nearly 250,000 deaths were caused by 67,000 Islamic terrorist attacks between 1979 and April 2024.
Climate change isn’t turning more lethal, but Islamic terrorism sure is. From 1979 to 2000, the foundation recorded 620 Islamic terrorism deaths per year. From 2001 to 2012, it recorded 3470 deaths per year. And from 2013 to 2024, the total jumped to more than 18,600 deaths per year.
When the Foundation for Political Innovation compiles its next list of terrorist victims, it will include the 15 innocent souls shot dead at Bondi Beach. As with those annual death tolls, hatred of Jews in Australia was soaring long before the Bondi atrocity.
“The escalation has been stunning,” The Spectator Australia’s Daryl Mather wrote six weeks prior to Bondi. “Surveys show that more than half of Australians now perceive anti-Semitism as ‘on the rise’, and that nearly seven in 10 believe the Israel-Gaza war has made prejudice respectable again.
“Among Jewish Australians under 30, almost half say they have been insulted or harassed since October 2023. Many now hide religious symbols in public. That is not cultural sensitivity. It is fear.”
Tragically justified fear, as it transpired. But we didn’t hear anything post Bondi from our Minister Against Islamic Terrorism, because we don’t have one. Nor do we have anything like the political or media focus on terrorism that was obviously required years before Bondi became a bloodbath.
Even when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong grudgingly apologised for their total uselessness, they were fake apologies. They were, as Andrew Bolt pointed out, “sorry you’re sad”, not “sorry I did something wrong”.
Those bogus regrets are the tell. Labor is trying to ride this out. It hopes we’ll soon be distracted again by the sea levels on Bondi Beach rather than by Bondi’s 15 dead bodies.
It hopes Australians continue to process danger in ways that don’t make sense. It may be right.
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Why Israel is vital to the US – and the civilised world
Daily Telegraph | Hugh Hewitt | 30 December 2025
US President Donald Trump has the great asset of being very unpredictable.
The ruins of Iran’s nuclear program are a testament to that, and Operation Midnight Hammer, which crushed the mullahs’ underground nuclear weapons facilities, is the certain guarantee that the second Trump term is already a success.
That single order to send the B-2s will never not be significant in world history because it kept the most powerful weaponry known to mankind out of the grips of theocrats with a crazed ‘end-times’ theology. The world has breathed so much easier since June 22, 2025.
America’s allies are many and varied and spread across the globe, but make no mistake: Israel is our most important strategic ally.
That is because Israel is a nuclear and intelligence superpower with the will and ability to project deadly force over vast distances.
It is also home to, along with emerging American defence companies like Anduril and Palantir, the crucial defence-tech industries of the free world.
That President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are such close friends is of great importance to both countries.
So are the president’s relationships with the leaders of our major Sunni allies.
For the next three years, this partnership between the US, Israel and the Gulf States is the most important one for America’s near and medium term.
That’s because fanatical theocrats run Iran.
A second round of blows may be headed soon towards Iran, because the fanatics who lead it are rushing to rebuild and expand the regime’s ballistic missile program, which poses an existential threat to Israel as well as our Gulf allies and Europe.
The US is not in the regime change business.
It is not exporting democracy to lands that are balancing modernity with deeply traditional cultures.
But neither will President Trump stand aside if Iran continues on this self-destructive course.
President Trump will not allow the US or its citizens to be threatened or killed. President Trump posted on Truth Social recently as strikes on ISIS in Syria were underway – in all caps – the core “Trump Doctrine”: “YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.”
That’s it. In less than 25 words, President Trump put the whole globe on notice. The key word he included in his post: “THREATEN.”
This is deterrence.
And while the US has many allies it can count on to join in retaliation for attacks on US citizens, it has one that it can, for sure, rely upon when it comes to regimes that threaten us: Israel.
Hugh Hewitt is a former lawyer and academic turned US radio presenter. This column was first published by Fox News
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Voters treated as mugs
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 30 December 2025
Voters treated as mugs
Well, Albo and his ring masterless clown show continue to treat the Australian voters as mugs.
Who could forget the Medicare bulk billing promise running along his Mediscare campaign, then the promise of power bill savings.
The costly, disastrous and divisive Voice referendum deserves a notable mention.
Then along comes the travel rort revelations under his watch.
Then, sadly along come two alleged Islamic extremists, with a few high- powered weapons, who inflicted such horror on Australians enjoying a day at our premier beach, with the clear intent aimed at a Jewish festival being held at the venue.
What was Albo’s and his clown show MPs’ first reaction?
Point the finger directly at the “right wing extremists” (not a mention of Islamic extremists) and to somehow channel John Howard by announcing he was lowering the amount of legal guns a licensed gun owner can have to four.
To rub salt into the wounds, when pushed for a federal royal commission into the Bondi massacre, he is resisting, citing two previous Coalition leaders not holding a royal commission after Port Arthur and the Lindt siege.
That’s comparing apples with oranges.
He even cited the prohibitive cost and time a commission would take.
He didn’t cite cost or time when he rushed through the Robodebt royal commission, as there was the opportunity to embarrass Scott Morrision and a Coalition government.
Even if by some miracle Albo does call a federal royal commission into Bondi, think about who gets to set the scope of the commission and you can easily see any possible outcome.
Fred Campbell, Bangalee
Calls for a full royal commission into the Bondi terror atrocity and the relevant cause are growing by the day (DT, 29/12).
The opportunity for the average taxpayer to clearly be able to identify an area where money needs to be spent rarely comes up and now when it does seem obvious, the federal government is ignoring the nation’s wishes.
Countless groups of Australian taxpayers, including many of the general public who have signed petitions, large numbers of high-level legal professionals, rabbis and other church leaders of various faiths, and now the grieving families of those murdered in the attack are all demanding a federal royal commission be initiated.
The Prime Minister has brushed off requests with excuses about it “costing too much” and “it will take too long”.
Time consuming and extravagant expenditure in some other areas does not seem to have been a problem.
There will always be a difficulty in matching the way the government spends taxpayer dollars and the wishes of the public, but here we have a great opportunity to provide the nation with answers to some important questions and our leaders appear to be looking the other way.
Graeme Payne, Lane Cove
Unless this Labor government calls a federal royal commission, as thousands of Australians are demanding, the Prime Minister and his government will be tainted.
His only legacy will be a failed Indigenous/treaty referendum and the stigma of the anti-Semitic Bondi terrorist attack.
To use previous Coalition incidents is absolutely pathetic.
A weak-kneed PM who is out of his depth must act now or forever be banished to failed political ignominy.
Andrew Edson, Homebush West
Mark Morri is correct, Australia needs answers to the terrorist attack at Bondi (“We need answers to many questions”, DT, 29/12).
While the focus of the terrorists was the Australian Jewish community, it was an attack on Australia’s freedom.
Telling us to chill out, no need for a royal commission, isn’t good enough.
Complacency and misdirection seems to be the only response from the federal government, treating the attack as a PR exercise.
This was a terrorist attack on home soil and all the PM and his team can say is nothing to see here.
How many more people have to be murdered for the Prime Minister to have a royal commission?
Clearly the two alleged terrorists had external assistance to plan the execution of the Bondi attack.
While the federal government sticks its head in the sand failing to act, the external actors could be preparing another attack.
Wayne Brown, Queanbeyan
Clinging on to power
As usual, Andrew Bolt’s analysis of the Bondi massacre and its aftermath is spot on (“Albanese and Wong play games with evil”, DT, 29/12).
We all have our opinions as to why the Prime Minister is opposed to a commonwealth royal commission and what might be uncovered if he and his government are put under the spotlight under oath.
His feeble excuses that a national royal commission wasn’t held after the Port Arthur massacre and the Lindt Cafe siege just doesn’t cut it, nor does saying sorry to the Jewish community after ignoring their pleas for two years about the rise in anti-Semitic behaviour and incidents.
No, this is all about power and holding onto it at all costs.
It’s not holding an inquiry that might reveal that the PM and the government may have contributed in some way or that may offend part of Labor’s voting base.
Bolt aptly called it “morals-free maths” – Muslims here outnumbering Jews nearly 10 to one.
If our PM cannot be persuaded to call a commonwealth royal commission, even after the deaths of 15 innocent people by terrorists, heartfelt letters from families of Bondi victims and rabbis, together with calls from national security, legal and political leaders, then we can only conclude we have a government that values clinging to power more than it values its own people.
Ann Thompson, Coffs Harbour
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Brave stand
Herald-Sun | Letters | 30 December 2025
Brave stand
What a heroic and courageous opinion piece by Henry Pinskier (“Shame on my many ALP ‘friends’ who betrayed us”, HS, 29/12).
Here we have a person who for most of his adult life has devoted himself to the Australian Labor Party.
He has now chosen to go public with how he feels in relation to the Bondi Beach massacre.
He feels extremely let down by the actions or lack thereof of his beloved ALP.
For such a high-profile Labor figure to come out and decry the Albanese government at this time of tragedy is noteworthy.
Upon reading that there are elements within the hierarchy of the ALP that are openly anti-Semitic would really rub salt into his wounds, although he probably was aware of this reality.
There have been calls from some current and ex-Labor ministers for a commonwealth royal commission, something Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would be screaming out for if it was a Coalition government in control at such a horrific time.
I would also like to challenge Macnamara MP Josh Burns to join in the call for a commonwealth royal commission.
After all, it is on the weight of the Jewish vote in his electorate which has made him their representative.
It is time for Burns to stand up and join his Jewish communities in their time of dire need. Nothing less should suffice.
Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham
Fence sitters
Well said Henry Pinskier, whose opinion piece (“Shame on my many ALP ‘friends’ who betrayed us”, HS, 29/12) highlighted what a vast majority of Australians think of the morally devoid federal government, the PM and his ministers.
Unfortunately, he omitted a couple others who decided to fence sit from October 8, 2023.
Premier Chris Minns allowed it to start from that day and did nothing to stop mass demonstrations, one of which was the largest, across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and which included many celebrities, politicians and the Sydney Lord Mayor to name a few, with banners and flags in hand.
Premier Jacinta Allan followed suit, while supposedly toughening hate speech laws which proved as useful at stopping these hateful marches as a screen door on a submarine.
Hate speech laws and rhetoric only strips us of free speech and the truth which in this time offends the left and emboldens them, whereas those in the centre or leaning to the right are not allowed to even disagree and, if so, are chastised, demonised, punished and charged with a crime.
Division and weak leadership are what is driving hatred and a collapse in social cohesion, not those who were innocent, lawful citizens.
Shame on the Minns and Allan governments – and the NSW Liberals who supported this.
- Branecki, Camberwell
Demand for answers
Nothing less than a royal commission will be satisfactory in fully uncovering why the Bondi massacre could occur (“We demand the truth”, HS, 29/12).
Meanwhile, the less far-reaching inquiry the Prime Minister prefers won’t be completed until April.
The questions are, are the interim preventative measures in place to protect our communities and are they comprehensive and effective?
Should another attack occur, do we have enough trained personnel to deal with it?
Linda Mellon, Beaumaris
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Non-Jewish Australians also vulnerable to ISIS
Herald-Sun |Theo Theophanous | 30 December 2025
ISIS is not only a threat to Jews. The massacre of Jews in Bondi in an ISIS-inspired if not directed attack was heralded by that organisation on its al-Naba website as a “source of pride”.
In its commentary on Bondi, ISIS also made mention of its role in the attack in Syria at a Greek Orthodox Church that claimed the lives of 25 parishioners in June this year.
An ISIS-aligned terrorist group, Saraya-Ansar al-Sunnah, claimed direct responsibility for the church attack. The Syrian government also confirmed it was an ISIS attack.
When the Bondi massacre occurred,many Australians of Greek background could not help but draw parallels with the massacre of Christians in Syria. Both were inspired if not directed by ISIS. Both were certainly inspired by Islamic extremist ideology.
As a Greek Cypriot living in Melbourne and as president of the Melbourne Cyprus Community, I, my family and members of our community were distraught at the loss of innocent Christian lives in Syria and of Jewish lives in Sydney at the hands of Islamic terrorism.
Non-Jewish Australians are living in a fool’s paradise if they think they are immune because they are not Jews. ISIS Islamic terrorism is based on hatred of all religions that are not their own, including some Muslim sects.
As Christians, we must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters. Adapting the oft spoken words from Martin Niemoller after World War II, we might say: “They came after Jews, and we did not speak out enough because we were not Jews. Soon they will come after us and our way of life and who will speak out to stop them?”
What is clear is that we did not do enough and now the entire Jewish community is suffering following the worst terrorist massacre in recent Australia’s history at Bondi.
The day after the October 7 attack in Israel where 1200 innocent souls were murdered and 250 hostages taken, the latent anti-Semitism within our community raised its ugly head at the Sydney Opera House.
The protests on that day included chants of “From the river to the sea”. Reportedly a video from the protest included chants of “gas the Jews”.
There is an important Australian narrative that is disintegrating before our eyes – that Australia is a democratic sanctuary where a condition is that the hatreds and dangers from conflicts overseas are left behind and we live in peace, free of the dangers from which we escaped.
This narrative has been shattered. Part of the responsibility for this must rest with political forces and religious fundamentalists who capitalise on division by playing on accentuated emotions about conflicts overseas.
My roots are from Cyprus, which experienced a forced physical division between Greek and Turkish Cypriots 51 years ago with the Turkish invasion. We cannot allow our Greek Christian – Turkish Muslim backgrounds to foster communal conflict here even under the provocation of a Greek massacre in Syria or the ongoing division of Cyprus.
Leadership by community leaders is necessary in Australia to show that despite our religious and ethnic differences, we can live together in a country founded on principles of democracy, tolerance and equality. This may help to inspire real leadership also in Cyprus as hope for a resolution to reunite the island emerges.
I say this because had we had peaceful co-existence with and support for our Jewish community in Australia, this would have done more to help Palestinians than all of the hateful actions and terrorist attacks.
Instead, Islamic extremism has shattered communal harmony. If unchecked, it will serve as a model to up-end harmony between many communities in Australia. Islamic extremists will foster religious hatred between Muslims and Christians as well as Jews with predictable outcomes.
Our Jewish community should never have been subjected to calls to bring intifada to Australia, to slogans such as “Glory to Hamas” and “From the River to the Sea”. Selected members of parliament should not have had their office windows smashed, their staff threatened and endured hate-filled graffiti.
These were the outward manifestations of a strategy by some political forces for political advantage.
We need to stamp it out using all means. ISIS represents an Islamic terrorist religiously motivated extremist ideology that inspires terrorist attacks. The leaders of the Islamic community should not merely condemn the Bondi attack; they should make strong statements in opposition to anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism.
Our mainstream political leaders at both state and federal level should unite to deal with what is a national moral imperative.
In Victoria, Dan Andrews and Jacinta Allan have been strong supporters of the Jewish community, as have leaders of the Liberal Party.
Our Prime Minister and other leaders from Labor and Liberal have adopted a “whatever it takes” approach. But without addressing the causes of the erosion of Australia as a haven of peaceful co-existence and the consequential rise of anti-Semitism, I fear we will all fail.
Theo Theophanous is president of the Cyprus Community of Melbourne and Victoria, and former Labor minister
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Inquiry only option
Courier-Mail | Letters | 30 December 2025
We all know who, what, when and why the shootings occurred at Bondi.
What needs to be uncovered now is how it manifested and came to a point where the shootings were inevitable.
This can only happen with a royal commission instigated by the federal government.
To avoid this option only leaves so many questions as to what motives were appeased along the chain of events.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needs to “bite the bullet” (please forgive the pun), show some moral fibre and institute the royal commission with wide ranging powers immediately.
It is the only option for the government to take, if they are to salvage some credibility from this appalling assault on Australia’s pride, dignity and reputation.
Michael Jones, The Gap
The Jewish community would have serious concerns about Anthony Albanese’s decision to respond to the Bondi Beach tragedy by commissioning the Richardson Review.
While any effort to improve public safety is welcome, this approach risks appearing less like accountability and more like buck passing.
By assigning a closed door review to examine whether security agencies “could have done better”, responsibility is shifted away from elected leadership and into opaque processes that the public cannot scrutinise.
Reviews of this kind too often delay answers, dilute responsibility and quietly disappear once public attention fades.
Many Australians are asking difficult but reasonable questions: Were warnings issued, were risks known and were opportunities to act missed?
If the review were to find that the government had prior knowledge or failed to respond adequately, what assurances do we have that those findings would be acted upon transparently rather than buried behind confidentially and national security claims?
Public trust depends not just on investigation, but on openness and accountability at the highest level.
An internal review, conducted largely behind closed doors, does little to restore confidence or demonstrate leadership.
What is needed is clarity, public disclosure where possible, and a willingness for government to accept responsibility, not simply outsource it.
Australians deserve more than reassurance, they deserve answers.
Keith Whiteside, Sippy Downs
Open your eyes
The opinion piece by Henry Pinskier (“Shame on my many ALP ‘friends’ who betrayed us”, C-M, 29/12), criticising the betrayal of fellow ALP members who turned a blind eye to the anti-Jewish sentiment in Australia, should be compulsory reading for all politicians.
I’ve been fortunate to have visited many different countries, but my tours to Auschwitz and Poland would leave the most lasting horrible memories.
A fellow traveller to Auschwitz commented that it hadn’t really had an impact on her until she saw the baby booties in the glass display case taken from the prisoners before they went to the gas chambers.
I’ve also had the privilege of visiting the Yad Vashem History Museum in Jerusalem, and listening to the stories told by survivors is truly memorable.
Barbara Kavenagh, Buddina
The heart of every decent individual would have to go out to Henry Pinskier and every Jewish person who has been betrayed by the federal Labor government.
“Politics drives you, not people” is one point made by Pinskier, and how relevant is that?
The opposition from Albanese to not hold a royal commission into the causes which enabled the Bondi massacre, his unwillingness to even say “Islamic terrorism”, his ignorance in not understanding or wanting to comprehend the various warning signs and his arrogance in putting Muslim votes before the safety of a people mired for generations in hate with the Islamist’s goal of being erased from the Earth, is breathtaking.
As an ALP member, Pinskier has uncovered the party’s sham.
Claire Jolliffe, Buderim
What a magnificent opinion piece by Henry Pinskier.
Straight from the heart, and with the courage of his convictions to spell out what most of us are thinking.
Diane Knox, Biggera Waters
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Bondi has tested us. We passed
Courier-Mail | Ali Kadri | 30 December 2025
The tragedy at Bondi shocked the nation. But beyond the crime itself, moments like this test something deeper. They test whether a country responds with reason or with fear, with justice or with collective blame.
On that test, Australia largely passed. What stood out after the attack was the calm and measured response. Authorities focused on public safety and individual responsibility. There was no rush to scapegoat entire communities. Mosques stayed open. Australians did not turn on one another.
In many parts of the world, an incident like Bondi would trigger collective punishment, unrest, or restrictions on entire groups based on identity rather than evidence. Australia chose a different path. Here, guilt is personal, not communal. Responsibility sits with the individual, not with their faith, ethnicity, or background.
This does not mean there were no ugly voices. A small number of extremists, mostly confined to online echo chambers, tried to exploit the tragedy to push division. But they did not represent mainstream Australia.
What we saw instead was restraint, solidarity, and a quiet confidence in our institutions.
I experienced this firsthand when I attended a vigil organised by the Jewish Board of Deputies. Despite my strong and well known opposition to the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, I stood in solidarity with Jewish Australians in their moment of grief. These positions are not contradictory.
But we need to be honest about prejudice in Australia. Antisemitism exists and must be confronted directly. Jewish Australians have every right to feel safe and protected. Violence or intimidation directed at them is unacceptable, full stop.
Islamophobia also exists. It often shows up as collective blame, suspicion, or dehumanising language directed at Muslims as a whole. These two problems are not competing concerns. Both are fuelled by fear, misinformation, and opportunism, and both undermine social cohesion.
So can Australia remain united? Yes, but unity does not mean pretending differences do not exist. It means shared values, equal application of the law, and a rejection of violence and hatred, regardless of who commits it.
Our strength is not found in slogans or outrage. It lies in restraint, fairness and a commitment to justice. That quiet discipline is what holds the country together. And it is worth protecting.
Ali Kadri is CEO of the Islamic College of Brisbane
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Trump, Netanyahu to discuss next phase of Gaza plan
Canberra Times / AAP | 30 December 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9142832/trump-netanyahu-to-discuss-next-phase-of-gaza-plan/
US President Donald Trump is expected to push for progress in the stalled ceasefire in Gaza when he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks that will include Israel’s concerns over Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran.
Netanyahu said this month that Trump had invited him for talks, as Washington pushes to establish transitional governance and an international security force for the Palestinian enclave against Israeli reluctance to move forward.
Netanyahu, who will meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago beach club on Monday afternoon, said on December 22 that discussions were expected to cover the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, as well as Iran and Lebanon.
Washington brokered ceasefires on all three fronts, but Israel is wary of its foes rebuilding their forces after they were considerably weakened in the war.
For Gaza, Israel and Hamas agreed in October to Trump’s plan to end the war, which ultimately sees Israel withdrawing from Gaza and Hamas giving up its weapons and forgoing a governing role in the enclave.
The first phase of the ceasefire included a partial Israeli withdrawal, an increase of aid and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
An Israeli official in Netanyahu’s circle said that the prime minister will demand that the first phase of the ceasefire be completed by Hamas returning the remains of the last Israeli hostage left in Gaza, before moving ahead to the next stages.
The family of the deceased hostage, Ran Gvili, has joined the prime minister’s visiting entourage and is expected to meet officials in Trump’s administration, which has indicated it sees the plan moving forward soon.
Israel has yet to open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, also a condition of Trump’s plan, saying it will only do so once Gvili’s remains are returned.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that Washington wants the transitional administration envisioned in Trump’s plan – a Board of Peace and a body made up of Palestinian technocrats – to be in place soon to govern Gaza, ahead of the deployment of the international security force that was mandated by a November 17 UN Security Council resolution.
But Israel and Hamas have accused each other of major breaches of the deal and look no closer to accepting the much more difficult steps envisaged for the next phase.
Hamas, which has refused to disarm, has been reasserting its control as Israeli troops remain entrenched in about half the territory.
Israel has indicated that if Hamas is not disarmed peacefully, it will resume military action to make it do so.
While the fighting has abated, it has not stopped entirely. Although the ceasefire officially began in October, Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 Palestinians – most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials – and Palestinian militants have killed three Israeli soldiers.
In Lebanon, a US-backed ceasefire in November 2024 ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and required the disarmament of the powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite group, beginning in areas south of the river adjacent to Israel.
While Lebanon has said it is close to completing the mission within the year-end deadline of disarming Hezbollah, the group has resisted calls to lay down its weapons.
Israel says progress is partial and slow and has been carrying out near-daily strikes in Lebanon, which it says are meant to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding. Iran, which fought a 12-day war with Israel in June, said last week that it had conducted missile exercises for the second time this month.
Netanyahu said last week that Israel was not seeking a confrontation with Iran, but was aware of the reports, and said he would raise Tehran’s activities with Trump.
The Israeli official said Netanyahu was expected to present intelligence on Iranian efforts to build up its arms.
The official did not elaborate on any Israeli demands or actions regarding Iran.
Trump in June ordered US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites but has since then broached a potential deal with Tehran.
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Report misrepresented
Canberra Times | Letters | 30 December 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9142723/acts-financial-challenges-stem-from-flawed-structure/
At a time when we should be doing everything we can to fight anti-Semitism, Jack Waterford irresponsibly tries to discredit the very important report and recommendations from the Anti-Semitism Envoy by misrepresenting her.
He claims the tenor of her report is that any criticism of Israel should lead to prosecutions (December 27).
This is totally false. She wants anti-Semitism defined according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, definition.
The definition states, “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”
He also suggests the victims, the Jewish community, should be put under any inquiry’s microscope for what he falsely claims is defining anti-Semitism to make Israel accountable to no-one.
He seems to absolve Palestinians and their supporters of any blame, calling for authorities to be probed on the way they’ve treated them rather than looking at the incitement from hundreds of marches and speeches.
This is typical of the offensive nonsense Jack Waterford produces whenever he writes about Israel or Jews.
Arthur Parnwell, McKellar
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PM must heed families’ plea for truth
Canberra Times | Editorial | 30 December 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9142596/bondi-victims-demand-royal-commission-inquiry/
The heartbreaking open letter released this week by the families of the innocents slaughtered at Bondi Beach is more than a cry of grief; it is a damning indictment of a government that seems determined to look away.
For Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to continue to refuse a royal commission in the face of this united plea from 17 devastated families is to risk appearing not just stubborn, but arrogant and callous. These Australians have lost parents, spouses and children in the deadliest terror attack on our soil. They are asking for the one mechanism capable of delivering the unvarnished truth. To deny them is an insult to their loss.
The Prime Minister’s preference for an administrative review led by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson is woefully inadequate. While Mr Richardson is a public servant of high standing, he lacks the coercive powers of a royal commissioner. He cannot compel witnesses, he cannot demand documents under threat of sanction, and he cannot offer the forensic, public accountability that this national crisis demands. An administrative review cannot turn over every rock or go down every rabbit hole to explain how our nation deteriorated to the point where police with semi-automatic weapons are required on the streets on New Year’s Eve.
We must be clear-eyed about the threat. It did not end at Bondi. In the terrifying weeks since the attack, we have seen young men, known to police and ASIO, apprehended on their way to the massacre site. We have seen a rabbi’s car firebombed in Melbourne. Just last week, a man in Western Australia was arrested for propagating anti-Semitic hate while allegedly sitting on a stockpile of firearms and ammunition.
This is the grim reality of Australia in late 2025: a state government in NSW is seriously considering deploying armed troops to protect synagogues. The Jewish community is living under a reign of terror.
We must also stop the cowardly conflation of this violence with Islamophobia. They are not the same thing. Jewish Australians are not firebombing mosques. They are not plotting mass casualty events. It is Islamic extremists who are massacring Jews and hunting them in their places of worship and recreation. The government must find the courage to call this out for what it is. To obscure the specific nature of this threat with broad-brush “social cohesion” language is a failure of leadership.
If the moral argument does not move Mr Albanese, perhaps the political reality will. The opposition has made it clear: if the government will not call a royal commission, they will.
The Prime Minister used a royal commission to expose the failures of his predecessors, arguing that only a powerful inquiry could deliver justice to the victims of “robodebt”. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If Mr Albanese refuses to act now, he hands his opponents a potent weapon for the next election.
More importantly, he takes a strategic gamble he is likely to lose. If he calls the commission now, he retains control over the terms of reference. He can ensure the inquiry is focused and constructive. If he waits, and loses government, a Coalition-led royal commission will have terms of reference that are very broad indeed.
The Prime Minister has a choice. He can take his medicine now, initiate the inquiry, and show the families the respect they deserve. Or he can wait, hoping the anger subsides, and risk a far more damaging reckoning later.
The families of the Bondi victims have demanded the truth. It is not within the Prime Minister’s gift to bring back their loved ones, but it is within his power to ensure we learn the lessons required to prevent the next massacre. He must call a royal commission.