Australians need more closure from the tragic events at Bondi as shown by theme selected by the Jewish Chabad Community ‘Light will win, a gathering of unity and remembrance.’
The Community Bulletin of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (15 January 2026) acknowledges the lingering tensions afflicting families:
- Many parents are feeling a deep sense of anxiety as the school term begins, and that returning to school is a delicate moment not only for families, but for children themselves. CSG’s role is to help ensure that every child can return safely to what should be their happiest and safest place, feeling supported, protected, and free to focus on learning and being a child. The below outlines the security measures that will apply from the first day of term across all Jewish schools in NSW.
- Police presence at schools. Police officers will be deployed at Jewish school campuses as part of “Operation Shelter.”
- CSG presence at schools. In addition to police coverage, CSG will be present on and around school campuses.
- Third-party security guards. Schools will continue to have their existing third-party security guards in place as part of their established security arrangements.
- Ongoing security arrangements. As the term progresses, CSG will continue to assess arrangements in consultation with its Intelligence Department and relevant stakeholders, and any material changes will be communicated through schools.
- To date, the Federal and State Governments have committed approximately $60 million to support wellbeing, resilience and recovery initiatives for victims and affected communities.
Closure on these tensions was promoted by an evening of Community Mental Health on 20 January to promote shared understanding, reflection and practical guidance with health professionals in attendance:
At a political level, the Albanese Government has faced the painful realities of its senate numbers. Twenty-eight Labor senators is far from a senate majority.
In the Senate, the anti-hate legislation succeeded by 38 votes to 22 with the Nationals splitting from the Liberals to join the Greens, One Nation and some key independent senators. In justifying the decision of the Liberal Party to support the Senate legislation, Sussan Ley said:
“We have succeeded in narrowing the scope of this bill to deal with what we said it should do – tackle antisemitism and tackle radical Islamist extremism.”
The Guardian (21 January) noted that Liberal MPs who were critical of the original bill, including Andrew Hastie, eventually supported it after Ley secured the changes. Explaining his position in a video to supporters, Hastie said the new visa cancellation powers and banning of hate groups were worth supporting.
As noted by Law Professor Luke McNamara of UNSW legislative texts need to be supported by closure on fractious issues that divide communities on sensitive issues:
“Australia’s approach to free speech has always been more qualified and pragmatic, recognising the need to balance competing interests and rights.
It will take some time before we can make a full assessment of the significance of this new offence if it is introduced. But it would be a mistake to expect too much of the criminal law as a tool for changing attitudes and behaviours.
Criminal laws can play an important symbolic and educational role. They offer some capacity to deter harmful behaviour, and they facilitate punishment where the conduct is detected and prosecuted. But such laws are rarely a panacea for social disharmony, and they should never be used as a tool for restricting legitimate political expression.”
Social tensions are still being stoked by shrill media coverage at a time when consensus is being challenged by problems associated with living standards and access to affordable housing.
Encampments frequented by homeless people exist beside the inner-city bikeway in Brisbane by the riverbank right behind Police Headquarters at Roma Street.
Having rejected co-operation with the Albanese Government on its firearm buyback legislation, Queensland Premier Crisafulli retains great faith in future legislative controls and law enforcement against antisemitism. However, the Queensland Government will support the National Day of Mourning (Premier’s Media release 20 January 2026).
Embedded in this grief are unresolved mental health and social divides in which racial hatred festers.
There is an epidemic of mental health problems across Australia and in other developed countries. The situation in Queensland is part of this dark picture (Queensland Government):
Let’s hope that more light prevails on these ongoing social tensions with fewer inflammatory banner headlines on political reactions to the Bondi massacre.
It is time to move on from this dark episode in Australia’s social history with remedial action on all those problems in which racial hatred is embedded.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.
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How does one “move on” when, from everything I’ve read, we’ve now got an even greater problem, as our rights are being stolen by politicians, allowing 0.4% of the population to set the rules for the 99.6%. Rules with a 15 year jail sentence if broken. Please, change my mind, set me right. I need it for my mental health. I have grandchildren and things seem to be going in the wrong direction for them.
Failure on this anti-hate legislation would have resulted in a year of political regrets
Both aspects of the current legislation were propellled by canny negotiations behind the scenes .
How can Jewish Australians move on when they have to live everyday protecting their children from harassment. I am not Jewish but a servant of Christ, a jew. Online I am labelled a Zionist. This is a democracy. We should respect each other’s right to disagree. But this does not give anyone the right to threaten us.
Is there ever a way to legislate against hate and bigotry? No, it’s impossible to make a law which is inherently against human nature. The followers of PHON are examples. Will anything stop people hurting others based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other mindless reason to assume someone is not worth space on this planet ? No. All we can do as a country, as a government, as a religious group, as a school or community is call it out when it happens near us, loudly and clearly. Stop accepting racial vilification with a shrug, CALL IT OUT.
Having less guns in the community may not mean there will never be shootings, but it sure as hell means less people are likely to die. We only have to look to the US where they accept hundreds of shooting deaths per – even per day – as the norm. We must NEVER get there.
It is up to each of us every day to make this country safe for all – free speech NEVER means hate.
Bev, I agree with your comment, but it is not only Jewish people who are vilified daily.
Muslim omen wearing the prescribed dress codes are spat at and name called, Africans are discriminated against, women are silenced.
I have a neighbour who is from Zimbabwe, a wonderful, intelligent, successful woman who faces discrimination daily for who she is.
A relative recently came out as gay and is marginalised for her honesty by non other than her grandmother.
Hate is much more than antisemitism, hate is not accepting the rights of people to be who they are, respecting the freedom to believe what ever a person believes, and most importantly, when demanding the freedom to be who ever we are, how ever we define ourselves, that we afforded all others that same right.
Do people actually hate? Or do they simply dislike? Hate is such a strong sentiment and I doubt very much that every instance of anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, anti-Israeli-ism, anti-Jewishness, anti-Islam-ism is actually hate. I mean, I dislike broccoli but I don’t hate it. I dislike some Brits and some Americans but I don’t hate them. One can dislike but one doesn’t need to publicise it – I guess if you do publicise your dislikes you will be labelled as a hater by the hate industry. The hate industry relies on claiming to be victims and so they justify their position of being the arbiters of virtue and thus assume the right to suppress what otherwise might be a harmless opinion.
Related over the past year or two starting with multiple arson and graffiti attacks on Synagogues, Jewish buildings etc. thousand sof words in media and on invstigations, which led nowhere…ditto for now Bondi?
After ALP’s reelection AG Jewish Dreyfus was ditched and disappeared by media, along with Josh Burns, just in case voters thought ALP was a friend of Judaism vs RW MSM and LNP their true guardians…..provided you ignore blackshirts and implicit anti-semitism of the white Christian nationalist right, neo-Nazis etc.
Too easy and one wonders how different media and public narratives would have been if Dreyfus was till AG; the RW MSM etc. would have lost their battering ram ‘the left is anti-semitic’?
One also views NSW ALP as still very socially conservative and Christian; the old Vic Libs were more socially liberal…..
Thank you for an interesting commentary on important national issues.
Narcissism fostered by mass advertising has become our national ideology.
Narcissism is also the major source of mental health problems which generates hate speech and racism.
Marx told everyone 160 years ago that individuals are alienated from political power in regimented market economies. In those days it was the regimented factory system and its imperial outreach when Britain ruled the waves like MAGA Madness today under Trump.
Individuals do not have the personal influence to change the world for the better when they act alone or submit to the politics from the White House.
National politics returns to needs based policies. Our governments thrive in the polls when leaders take up real issues of concern.
Albo’s historic majority in 2025 was embedded in policies to make health and housing more affordable. Let’s work to consolidate this agenda after the tragic events at Bondi by promoting more discussion.
Albo’s government must foster real commitment against tax evasion by multinational companies which are taking billions from the government revenue base and reducing political capacity to more hollow rhetoric.
The LNP appalled when government spending increases from 26 to 27 percent of GDP but shows no concerns when increases of $20 billion in a decade to an annual defence expenditure of over $80 billion that is reinforced by US bomber transits and 2,000 US troops here on routine assignments at Australian defence bases and communication surveillance facilities here.
Naturally, this increases public sector spending but it is not going in sufficient amounts to preventative mental health, artistic endeavours and provision of affordable housing.
Australian conservatives are champions of the misuse of the term antisemitism with support from the Murdoch press.
The LNP opposed recognition of the state of Palestine by Albo’s government and supports the position taken by the US on this issue.
Most countries recognise Palestine including the Vatican since 2015.
For progress religious leaders today, religion is no longer the sedative of the masses.
Commitment to liberation theology is a widespread political framework in global Catholicism which has good relations with countries like Cuba which has been visited by three Popes.
When will Pope Leo XIV take up the offer to visit Havana?
Deliver more funding of preventative mental health and affordable housing Albo to make up that 3-4 percent lost in recent polling to the far-right from the summer campaign by Sky News and other reactionary outlets that import Trump politics to Australia. The heartland of Trump is full of social division, crime and worse. Old pop songs like Galveston construct a fake image for Deep South Towns like Galveston in a Texas state where executions are commonplace: Fortunately, Australia dropped executions in 1967: Four executions are planned in Texas before June: three of the four victims are Black.
Enjoy Galveston but know that it is fake imagery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBLboy3aXA0