Two years prior to the Bondi Beach terrorist attacks, the federal Labor government moved a motion in the Senate for an inquiry into right-wing extremist movements in Australia.
Senator James McGrath, on behalf of the LNP, moved to amend the inquiry to remove references to “right wing” and instead proposed that the inquiry cover all ideologically motivated and religiously motivated violent extremism.
Keep in mind that the government’s inquiry came just two months after pro-Palestinian protesters made threats to Australia’s Jewish community at the Sydney Opera House in the wake of the Hamas attacks on October 7.
As Senator McGrath told the Senate in moving our amendment, “having a sole focus on right-wing extremism forgoes considerations of the broader reality that violent extremism in general is the true threat to our society, specifically the horrific antisemitism that we have seen in recent weeks”.
Labor voted down the LNP’s reasonable amendment, so we ended up with an inquiry driven by a left-wing government into only right-wing extremism. Following Bondi, there is no doubt that Labor got this wrong.
To protect the Australian Jewish community, Labor should have been focused on all types of extremism, including the threat of Islamic extremism.
Because Labor loaded the dice of the inquiry, the resulting report mentioned Islam 71 times but all but one of those references were in regard to Islamophobia, not in relation to the threat of Islamic extremism.
The one other mention of Islam quoted our main intelligence agency (ASIO) saying that “there’s been a moderation in the threat from religiously motivated violent extremists”.
ASIO said that support in Australia for ISIS and al-Qaeda had been declining.
In 2021, ASIO announced that it would avoid using the term “Islamic extremism” because Muslim groups saw the term as damaging and misrepresentative of Islam.
Six months after Labor established its biased Senate inquiry, the news broke that the government had removed our intelligence agencies from the National Security Cabinet and replaced them with the Department of Climate Change.
The National Security Cabinet is the paramount decision-making body for matters of Australia’s national security. It deals with classified issues, and our intelligence agencies should have remained on the committee. It is not clear why the Climate Change Department should be there.
Labor remains so obsessed with the temperature of the globe (that it cannot control) that it has ignored the growing threats of division in our country (which they can control).
Labor’s obvious blind eye to the growing threat of Islamic terrorism probably explains why the Prime Minister is refusing to establish a royal commission into the Bondi attacks. This is the worst terrorist attack in Australia’s history.
The Prime Minister’s stubborn refusal to call a royal commission seems like he has something to hide. Instead, the Prime Minister has asked his own department to conduct a review into just the intelligence agencies. This review won’t be trusted by the broader public because the Prime Minister has questions to answer and those questions should not be answered by his own department given their clear conflict of interest.
Further, the questions that people are asking after the Bondi terror attacks go to much more fundamental questions than just the performance of our intelligence agencies. What is the role of hate preachers that have faced no sanction even when they make violent threats from a religious platform? How do we deal with terror threats that so precisely target Jewish Australians?
Why don’t we call a spade a spade anymore and refuse to mention Islamic terrorism? Why do we no longer emphasise the need for the assimilation of new migrants, and instead encourage the development of ethnic enclaves that reduce national unity? Are we taking in too many people so that it is just impossible to maintain our unity and integrate everyone fully to Australian life?
No doubt these are uncomfortable questions for a Labor Party and a Prime Minister that constantly say that “diversity is our strength”. But the Prime Minister’s unwillingness to take on his own side for the sake of the nation is weak and cowardly.
The Prime Minister’s actions are in stark contrast with those of John Howard following the Port Arthur massacre. Then, Howard tackled the issue of gun law reform which many on his own side opposed. Howard showed courage and a commitment to what he thought was the national interest regardless of the political impact to him and his party.
It is time Anthony Albanese took a leaf out of John Howard’s book to restore confidence and national unity after the shocking Bondi attacks. We need a no-holds-barred royal commission into Bondi.
