In stark contrast to most leaders’ actions in the immediate aftermath of public tragedy, Australian PM Anthony Albanese has been all-but publicly invisible since the Bondi terror attack. The PM visited Bondi pavilion, sure – alone, surrounded by a Praetorian guard of police, with no members of the public in sight. Tony Burke tried to slither in under the cover of darkness.
Is it any wonder? We all know what would happen if Australians, let alone Jewish Australians, got their chance to tell the PM exactly what they thought?
But abject terror of ‘bad optics’ doesn’t excuse such rank political cowardice. Even the odious Mehreen Faruqi, whose crocodile tears aren’t fooling anybody, showed up. Sure, it was damage control rather than any heartfelt expression of regret, as her wooden recital of plainly hollow sentiment to journalist Sharri Markson showed, but, to damn her with faint praise, Faruqi was at least prepared to run the gauntlet.
Because, as new One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said, it’s a politician’s job to do so. No matter what. “You turn up. It’s a sign to everybody else of your character”.
It’s the most basic character test of leadership that Albanese has too-obviously failed. So has his hand-picked governor-general. Old Labor mate Sam Mostyn has been practically invisible in the past few days of national mourning. To add insult to injury, neither attended the first funerals for Bondi victims.
Compare their vanishing act with, say, then-PM John Howard after the Port Arthur massacre, or Governor-General William Deane after the Bali terror attacks.
In the face of growing calls for a royal commission, or, at the very least, a recall of parliament, the government is slipping even further into the shadows.
The coalition has been calling for a royal commission to investigate antisemitism and its impact on the Bondi terror attacks which claimed 15 lives and injured dozens more, as key ministerial and Jewish figures within Labor say they can do more to tackle the ancient hatred.
Labor are having none of it.
Jim Chalmers has jumped to the defence of embattled Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke after he knocked down the idea of a royal commission into the Bondi Beach terror attack […]
This was after Mr Burke was asked if he agreed with former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s calls for a royal commission into the massacre, to which he replied: “You don’t want the delays that are involved in a royal commission.
“The priority has to be, what actions do we take to keep people safe?” Mr Burke said.
Well, they haven’t taken any yet – and they’ve had over two years to do it. So it seems Labor don’t have a problem with delays when it suits them.
After Dr Chalmers was pushed on the other royal commissions held for issues such as aged care, he responded: “Well, the point I’m trying to convey to your listeners, and I think the point that Tony was making last night, is we want our agencies 100 per cent focused on the investigation. That’s the best use of their time, and that’s our focus as well.”
If only they’d been 100 per cent focused on monitoring known jihadis who were being issued firearms licenses, hanging out with anti-Semitic hate preachers, and visiting jihad hotspots in south-east Asia. But they weren’t, not least because ASIO’s budget had been cut and dozens of senior agents mothballed.
At the same time, Tony Burke was rushing to the airport to welcome thousands of Hamas supporters and attending top-secret meetings to conspire to import Islamic State jihadists under a cloak of secrecy.
Josh Frydenberg has laid into Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, while accusing the Labor leadership of being “weak” and “not up for the job” […]
“At the end of the day, we have a home affairs minister who is weak. We have a home affairs minister who’s full of excuses. We need a home affairs minister who is strong and is full of solutions. That’s the problem we’ve got,” he said.
“The people who are in charge are not up to the job, and he can’t keep going with excuses.”
You want to take bets on that? This is exactly what Labor will do, hoping that everyone will forget over the summer, and long before the next election.
