Howard has gone too far. His comments about Albanese tear us apart

2 months ago 12

Opinion

December 18, 2025 — 5.00am

Follow our live coverage of the Bondi shooting here.

The public space in Australia has never been quite right since Hamas inflicted its barbarism on Israel on October 7, 2023. Truly shocking in its cruelty, no event since the Holocaust has affected the people of Israel and the Jewish diaspora, especially in Australia, so profoundly. Also in the wake of the attacks, supporters of Palestine felt emboldened to take to the streets and some marchers chanted “From the river to the sea” and waved flags of organisations that challenged Israel’s right to exist.

A schism opened. It widened further as the Israeli government laid waste to Gaza as it sought to wipe out Hamas, with an estimated 70,000 deaths. The world looked on as the death toll rose. A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October.

Anthony Albanese at the scene of the Bondi Beach massacre on Monday.

It is impossible to overstate the searing pain felt by so many people over what happened on Sunday, which is a stain on our country. Fifteen innocent people have died and 41 have been injured. The deliberate, cold-hearted way in which the violence took place chills to the bone. The nation will need a long time to recover.

The critique of Anthony Albanese is that the rise in antisemitism in Australia since October 7, 2023, led directly to Sunday’s Bondi terrorist attack, and is in part due to his prime ministership. Taken together, the criticisms are that he was not merely inactive, allowing it to flourish (Sussan Ley), but that he managed to spur it on by recognising the state of Palestine in a moment of heightened self-satisfaction (John Howard).

The rise in antisemitism from incidents of personal abuse to firebombing of synagogues and businesses, according to a great number of Jewish Australians interviewed by the media this week, made Bondi inevitable. Albanese could have acted to help prevent Bondi, but didn’t: that is, in essence, the charge.

Is that fair? The father, Sajid Akram, who arrived here in 1998 when John Howard was PM, and his son, Naveed Akram, who was born here, were on the radar of security services as far back as 2019 because of the son’s activities and jihadist connections. Naveed was investigated and Sajid was interviewed. Naveed Akram was deemed not to be a threat. At the time, Scott Morrison was prime minister and Peter Dutton the home affairs minister. Sajid Akram was keen on guns. His gun licence application lapsed in 2015. He applied for a licence again in 2020 and was granted it in 2023.

There is also the attempt to sheet home to Albanese indirect responsibility for the burning of a synagogue. The most egregious antisemitic act between October 7, 2023, and last Sunday was the arson attack on the Melbourne’s Adass synagogue in 2024. It has been regularly cited by the government’s critics as the harbinger of Bondi, part of a continuum of escalating offences. But it was not, according to the security authorities, a product of locally generated antisemitism. ASIO concluded after an investigation that the firebombing of the synagogue and a Sydney cafe were the work of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard employing criminal gangs. In August, the government responded by expelling Iran’s ambassador to Australia.

Increasingly the horror at Bondi is looking more like the result of a series of failures of intelligence going back well before October 2023. The perpetrators were, at least in their own considerations, operating in the interests of Islamic State. Would individuals so perverted, so dehumanised that they would shoot families with high-powered firearms not have reached this point if the government had cracked down harder on antisemitism?

It’s becoming harder to hold the constituent parts of our polity together. John Howard’s contribution, with its focused criticisms of Albanese, was unbecoming for a former prime minister. The effect of his intervention was to give his assent to the Coalition to go full bore on politicising Bondi. Slagging off the man entrusted with trying to steer the nation through this powerfully difficult moment – whether you like him or not – will ultimately not help Howard’s side of politics. It will hurt it.

It’s so typical of these highly polarised times that the instant criticism of the national cabinet decision to tighten gun laws was that it’s a distraction – a side issue. Typically, Ley, who behaves as though she is still the Liberals’ deputy leader rather than the actual leader, has allowed her colleagues and the Coalition’s media friends to take her to this position too.

Former Australian prime minister John Howard visits the Bondi Pavilion memorial site this week.

In a statement on Sunday night she said: “I provide the prime minister and all Commonwealth and state agencies with the Coalition’s full and unconditional support as both governments respond to this situation.” On Monday, she set that aside and attacked the government and said it was not the time to be talking about gun laws but later said changes to the laws needed to be on the table. By Tuesday, her home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam refused to endorse the idea of changes without seeing the detail; by then, the line that gun laws were a distraction had hardened. By Wednesday, the National Party took it further and started to develop a version of the argument that guns don’t kill people, people do, so the exclusive focus must be on stamping out antisemitism.

How wonderful it would be to eradicate this ancient hatred: it would be one of the greatest achievements since the establishment of the first societies. Is it possible in an ever more interconnected world of digital disruption and disinformation campaigns in which antisemitic nations can orchestrate acts of destruction and worse in other countries? What we know already is that our major political parties are extremely unlikely to work together to achieve it.

The Albanese government alienated the Jewish community early on in the Gaza conflict by not using stronger language when condemning antisemitic outbursts and incidents. But the entirety of Albanese’s style as leader is built on caution, and he is not going to change. This is the greatest test of his way of leading. He looks static while his detractors become ever more ambitious in their attacks on him. The Coalition needs to be careful as it uses this rotten situation to score political points. I doubt that most Australians want to see it. Or live through it.

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist, an author and a former associate editor of The Age.

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