The death of 15 innocent people has been used shamelessly and immorally as a political debating point. I hope the vast majority of Australians are disgusted.
Josh Frydenberg, no doubt gutted and shattered in the heat of the moment and therefore should be given leeway, should seriously now consider what he said. He said that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is personally responsible for the death of those innocent people, including a 10-year-old-girl.
In a moment of quiet reflection, Josh – who knows what it is like to have a 24/7 public job with impossible demands – should understand the effect that such a statement would have on Anthony. Prime Ministers are human, too. After that reflection maybe he should pick up the phone, and not apologise, but just say sorry.
Former Prime Minister John Howard accused the Prime Minister of lack of leadership in failing to do enough to stop antisemitism and using gun control as a diversion. Again, suggesting the Prime Minister is responsible for the deaths.
This is the man who sat mute in 1996 when the then disendorsed Liberal but successful independent Member for Oxley, Pauline Hanson, spouted her poisonous and factually inaccurate “swamped by Asians” speech.
Howard said he disagreed, but agreed with her right to say it. Hypocrite. Those politicians who have in the past deplored criminalising hate speech against races, religions, and sexuality, now say Albanese, who supported those laws, did not do enough. They argued that criminalising hate speech was woke.
Worse was Barnaby Joyce and Hanson’s appearance at Bondi. Their utterances were laced with racist comments about restricting immigration from Musim nations and the gutterally mad suggestion from Hanson that she wear an Israeli flag into the Senate to see how that would compare with the reaction to when she wore a burqa into the chamber.
Have they no empathy or understanding? Innocent people are dead and injured. Families are grieving. Australian families.
Why couldn’t there have been a single dignified national memorial moment on Bondi Beach as soon as possible after the event at which all political, religious, and social leaders could have expressed what has been and should be reaffirmed as the quintessential Australian characteristic of respecting diversity and affirming unity?
Instead, we had a Punch and Judy show – Pauline and Barnaby, Josh, John and Sussan one-by-one engaging in a disgraceful political puppet show.
Surely, Australians, in memory of the innocent dead, can rise to the occasion and not let the occasion sink us to these depths. The surfers and swimmers did, but not the above politicians. Are they so desperate to get back into power they will stoop so low?
Contrary to the “not-enough-done” chanters, no amount of education or immigration blocks would have made a jot of difference to Sunday’s event. But a ban on non-citizens owning firearms; banning firearms within city limits unless you are in uniform; limiting the number of firearms one person can own; and better use of intelligence (which had actually identified and questioned these perpetrators) could well have prevented those deaths.
Without guns Bondi would have been a controllable (even if horrible) fisty-cuffs and slanging match with no deaths.
Of course it is about guns. The victims were shot, weren’t they.
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 19 December 2025.
Thank you Crispin, very well said. So sad to receive such “amazing wise counsel” from those who should know better.
This is a time to focus on positivity, kind healing words, unity, not negativity and political point scoring.
I’m so glad to read an article about the Bondi tragedy that makes sense. Well thought out and well written. I think it is a national disgrace that has been liberal politicians have come out and laid the total blame on the PM like as if he did the shooting. In my humble opinion a lot of the blame for antisemitism lays squarely on Netanyahu for his absolute slaughter of over 70K men, women and children in Gaza. No I don’t agree with Hamas for what they did either. Unfortunately it has transpired into antisemitism and Islamophobia in our own country. A part solution would be to ban their protests but of course then all the do-Gooders would have a whinge about that.
Politicians on both sides are jumping in on it, now wanting to ban speech. Words didn’t kill, guns did.
Netanyahu (wanted for war crimes) immediately jumped on it blaming the Australian government,saying the attack was antisemitism, yet he didn’t blame himself for the October 7 attack, nor the hundreds of attacks in Israel over the last 50 years.
The fundamental reason for problem management is to get the root cause. Israel (and a collection of other nations) need to acknowledge that Israel’s obstruction to a two state solution, their occupying the west bank and treatment of Palestinians is the root cause cause of terrorism, is it anti semitic to say or acknowledge that?
Hi Crispin, thanks for your latest article. So well said and so true. I’ve also been disgusted by the pile on of blame by the far right side of politics. Have they no shame or moral compass? Regards Margaret
By world standards, Australia has tough gun controls, very low gun homicides. Sadly, our duopoly has voluntarily imported sectarian slaughter we never had before, through lax immigration vetting and extremely high numbers. If the reactive response is look-over-there at guns and antisemitism measures, the 15 have died in vain.
It just goes to show how desperate the right wingers are. They were trounced in the election, they are deeply divided and completely bereft of alternative policies. So what do they do after a major terrorist incident? They try to blame just one person, the Prime Minister, declaring him “personally responsible”. Perhaps the government could have done more. So could the national security agencies and even the local police. There are always things that can be improved. But they were not “personally responsible”. The terrorists were “personally responsible”.
Sadly you are right. The low politics is disgusting. The National Party leader even used the stupid NRA ‘slogan’;: Guns don’t kill people – people kill people;. Bloody moron…: