By MEMBER FOR BOWMAN HENRY PIKE
The brutal violence at Bondi was an act of senseless hatred.
Innocent people lost their lives in a place where families should have felt safe.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and all those who will carry the trauma of that day for the rest of their lives.
The attack has confirmed a hard and confronting truth.
In some Australian homes and neighbourhoods, hatred is being taught, normalised, and reinforced.
Ideology has replaced moral formation.
Evil is given intellectual cover instead of being named and rejected.
As we ask how this could have happened, we must confront the warning signs that the Albanese
Government ignored.
As Jillian Segal, the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, has said “hate speech gives rise to hate acts.”
We see it when violence is justified, bigotry is minimised and moral lines are blurred in the name of historical grievance.
Bondi is the terrible end point of that moral failure.
That is what our nation witnessed on Sunday night.
A hate act that was born out of two years, since October 7 2023, of proliferate hate speech in our country directed to the Jewish Australian community.
Hate speech that Albanese and his government failed to confront.
Ms Segal’s report outlined measurers that should have been taken up as a matter of urgency but were not.
The Albanese Government are now turning their attention to gun reform.
Sensible reform should always be supported, and I know my Coalition colleagues will engage constructively.
But let us be clear: if someone is determined to inflict harm, they will do so with a gun, a knife, or an
explosive.
Gun reform does not address the reason this terrorist attack occurred.
The root cause is anti-Semitism which has been allowed to fester and grow unchecked in our
nation.
We need more than words.
We need strong leadership, decisive action, and an unwavering stand that antisemitism in any form will not be tolerated in Australia.
Those who refuse to abide by that principle are not welcome.
