Opinion | How Politics Got in the Way of Australia’s Terrorism Response

On December 14, 2025, two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people. The victims included a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor. This attack on the Australian Jewish population coincided with rising antisemitism over the past two years and marks the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly 30 years. In the aftermath, knee-jerk reactions have led to rampant politicization and rushed legislation. Protesters opposing a visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog were met with police violence on Sydney’s streets only two months later. How did Australia, a country supposedly proud of its multiculturalism and tolerance, get here?

Many politicians were quick to weaponize Bondi in a likely attempt to score political points. Right-wing parliamentarians like Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter made xenophobic statements, claiming that “the wrong people” have been allowed into Australia, bringing “hatred and wars” with them—all to justify their anti-immigration stance. Meanwhile, then-Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley attempted to expose the Labor majority government as ineffective by putting enormous pressure on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to recall parliament early, offering the Liberal-National Coalition’s “full and unconditional support” for a decisive response. But when Parliament returned early on January 19, 2026, Ley warned against a rushed response, calling the proposed legislation “unsalvageable”.

New laws restricting gun access, hate speech, and protests have been the subject of great debate with significant political consequences. Concern has been expressed across the political spectrum about the implications of hate speech laws for free speech. Legal experts have warned that the concept of “hatred” runs the risk of being too open to interpretation, inviting biased enforcement and subjective judgment. While the Liberals eventually provided the support necessary for a revised hate speech bill to pass, the Nationals (along with the Greens and a few other parliamentarians) remained opposed. The Coalition split for the second time since the federal election in May 2025, leaving the opposition in tatters. Although the two have now reconciled, the partnership remains tenuous at best, with Ley having been ousted as leader.

At the state level, political panic over the need for a swift and sweeping response was even more pronounced. New South Wales’ new laws on guns and protests were bundled together and passed after a marathon debate in the early hours of the morning on December 24, 2025. New protest restrictions allow the police commissioner to refuse authorization for any protests for up to three months after a declared terrorist event. This particularly raised eyebrows among the Indigenous community in the lead-up to January 26, known as Australia Day—but also widely recognized as Invasion Day, a day of mourning and protest for First Nations communities. Only a mere six days before the date, the planned protests were cleared to proceed.

Perhaps the most politicized issue was the question of a royal commission. In the aftermath of an event that had previously seemed impossible to many Australians, the search for answers has led to demands for the highest form of public inquiry. Albanese initially argued against a royal commission, claiming it could deepen divisions in Australian society rather than promote harmony. However, on January 8, 2026, he reversed this position and announced a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, bowing to pressure from the Jewish community, and increasingly, his own party. Albanese and the Labor Party’s perceived inaction in the face of terrorism has resulted in decreased popularity. Albanese’s approval rating has dropped to its lowest since the federal election in May 2025, which his party had won in a landslide.

As the public looks for an explanation for this unprecedented attack, the pro-Palestine movement has come under particular fire. Antisemitism has been rising in Australia since October 7, 2023: Jewish places of gathering and worship have regularly been targets of vandalism and destruction; one year before Bondi, a Melbourne synagogue was subject to an arson attack. At the same time, the Australian pro-Palestine movement has gained significant traction: On August 3, 2025, an estimated 90,000 people marched over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in protest of Israel’s siege and humanitarian blockade of Gaza. Just over a month later, Australia formally recognized the state of Palestine in a coordinated effort with Canada and the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later blamed this decision for the terrorist attack. This international political discourse, combined with new protest restrictions and the criminalization of poorly defined hatred, has constructed a sort of implicit link between rising antisemitism and pro-Palestine activism. 

Antisemitism has indeed grown alongside outrage at the situation in Gaza, with the pro-Palestine movement arguably contributing to a climate where antisemitism has been allowed to pervade. But the vast majority of Australians did not march across the bridge because they are antisemitic; they did so in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli government does not indicate a hatred of its people, nor the Jewish population at large. The individuals responsible for the terrorist attack have no evident links to the protests or any other part of the movement. Yet, much of the discourse surrounding the shooting, and many of the laws that have since come into effect, run the risk of suppressing the pro-Palestine movement altogether, which can only lead to further division and resentment in Australian society.

Rushed legislation in the name of social cohesion was put to the test on February 9, 2026, after Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrived in Sydney. Albanese invited Herzog as a source of comfort to the Australian Jewish community in the wake of the Bondi. Given Herzog’s position as a representative of a state accused of genocide, however, some Australians felt that he brought division with him, embodying an explicit link between Israel’s actions in Gaza and the antisemitic terrorist attack in December. A protest was planned, but under New South Wales’ new laws, demonstrators were not allowed to march through the city. Heavy police presence restricted the movement of participants, with videos emerging of protesters being pepper-sprayed and punched. In giving police the power to decide which protests are and are not legitimate, the government has sown the roots of polarization, not cohesion. 

Polarization resulting from the Bondi response extends beyond Sydney. In January 2026, the Adelaide Festival Board, at the suggestion of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, disinvited Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from its Writers’ Week lineup over “cultural sensitivity” in the wake of the Bondi shooting. The board cited unspecified previous statements that Abdel-Fattah had made about Zionism and Israel. In response to this decision, Abdel-Fattah claimed it was an act of “blatant anti-Palestinian racism”, which essentially attributed the terrorist attack to her because of her identity and politics. Within five days, 180 Writers’ Week participants—including former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern—had withdrawn, the festival’s director resigned in protest, and all board members resigned after announcing that the event would be cancelled altogether.

The Adelaide Writers’ Week boycott demonstrates that the public is capable of holding two truths at once. Australians can be horrified at the attack on innocent Jewish lives at Bondi, while also recognizing that attempts at censorship and division only add fuel to a political fire that undermines the necessity of coming together in the wake of terrorism.

Edited by Hannah Lalonde

Featured image: Memorial set up at Bondi Pavilion in the days following the shooting. “Flower Memorial at Bondi Pavilion, 2025-12-18” by DaHuzyBru is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.