PM’s inaction on antisemitism comes back to haunt him

December 17, 2025 — 7.30pm

A new marriage and world acclaim over the teen social media ban put Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on top of the world just a few days ago.

But his inaction on antisemitism has made him a guilty bystander to the Bondi Beach shootings.

And he knows it, too. He knows he has not done enough and has lost kudos defending his dismal record as though he had done everything possible. He also looks increasingly isolated as Labor colleagues, including Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and one of the ALP’s most prominent Jewish voices, Victorian MHR Josh Burns, admit the obvious: more should have been done.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaking to the media at Parliament House after the shootings.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese is unlikely to attend the funerals of the 15 people killed at Bondi Beach. His failure to return to the scene of the crime has allowed others to fill the void and instead of uniting the nation at a time of crisis, has turned national tragedy into political circus.

Current and former Opposition MPs have paid their respects, and even One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce fronted up. The residual anger was so palpable that Hanson received a round of applause when she declared Australia didn’t have a gun problem, but a radical Islamic extremism problem.

In September last year, Albanese announced the appointment of an Envoy to Combat Islamophobia. Then, amid mounting attacks on synagogues and Jewish homes and businesses, last winter he personally chose a woman as his special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. She carried considerable family baggage that dented her credibility and her subsequent 28-page report released in August proved so problematic that months later many of her recommendations remain unimplemented and the government has yet to fully respond.

Meanwhile, a perception arose that the prime minister had indulged the Palestinian protests as he tried to satisfy all sides. Albanese’s problem is that, in the shadow of the Bondi Beach killings, his attempts to calm fears about rising antisemitism now look little better than window dressing.

It is not easy being in the eye of a storm. But others manage to rise to the moment.

Albanese has been defensive, evasive and flatfooted throughout the week, but Premier Chris Minns, who also faces questions about the role of NSW authorities at Bondi Beach, has been far more surefooted, candidly admitting responsibility and wishing he had done more in retrospect.

And John Howard declared Albanese’s proposed gun law reforms an “attempted diversion” from tackling antisemitism. The former PM said “his [Albanese] greatest failure is not to provide the moral leadership that a prime minister can in denouncing antisemitism” – a sobering reminder of how Howard faced down the National Party after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre to introduce strict, uniform laws across Australia.

Albanese had his own rump in the Palestinian protests, but in his quest to be something for everyone he failed to stare them down. Being more proactive on antisemitism could have hurt Labor’s western Sydney vote, but leadership requires courage, vision and integrity. Instead, we have a prime minister who appears frozen.

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