Grief before politics

Australia is grieving. Before arguments about policy, borders, protests, or ideology, there are families whose lives have been torn apart and communities sitting with shock and fear. Jewish Australians were targeted in an act of antisemitic terror. That reality deserves to be named clearly and without qualification. It also sits alongside another reality that emerges every time violence is framed through identity. Muslim Australians begin to feel the familiar weight of suspicion, even when members of their community acted with courage to stop further harm.

Both truths can exist at the same time. Refusing to acknowledge either does not strengthen security. It deepens division.

In moments like this, societies are tested not only on their capacity to respond, but on their capacity to pause. Grief has a moral priority. When it is rushed aside, tragedy becomes a tool. Fear becomes currency. And the space for careful judgement collapses.

Peace work does not mean minimising violence or softening language about antisemitism. It means resisting the urge to convert grief into immediate political leverage. It means recognising that the days after an attack are when calls for sweeping action sound most compelling, and when mistakes made in haste can shape law, trust, and social cohesion for years.

Jewish Australians deserve safety, dignity, and the ability to gather openly without fear. Muslim Australians deserve not to be treated as a problem to be managed or a threat to be neutralised. These are not competing claims. They are the same claim made twice, through different histories.

Any serious response to Bondi must begin here. With loss. With care. And with a commitment to get the analysis right, not fast.

What everyone is saying right now

The political response to the Bondi attack hardened quickly.

Opposition figures have argued the attack was foreseeable and that the government failed to act on clear warnings. The language has been urgent and accusatory. The claim is that antisemitism has been allowed to escalate unchecked, and that stronger action since mid year would have prevented this outcome.

Jewish community leaders and organisations have echoed the sense of urgency. Many have spoken about months of rising intimidation, threats, and hostility. Several have pointed to a detailed 15 point plan put forward after earlier attacks, arguing that it offered a clear blueprint that was not taken seriously. For people living with fear, the distinction between delay and indifference can feel academic.

Alongside this, a different concern has surfaced. Muslim leaders, civil liberties advocates, and many ordinary Australians have warned about the speed with which blame is spreading. Claims about immigration, protest movements, and ideology are already circulating, often without evidence and sometimes with sweeping generalisation. The fear is not abstract. History shows that when violence is framed as cultural or religious, innocent people are quickly caught in the fallout.

Media coverage has struggled to hold these tensions at once. Headlines compress complexity into binaries. Social platforms reward outrage. In that environment, calls for bans, emergencies, and crackdowns feel decisive, even when the details are vague or unworkable.

What is largely missing from the noise is a careful separation of three questions that should never be collapsed into one. What is morally understandable in the wake of grief. What is legally and operationally possible within Australia’s system. And what is likely to make people safer, rather than simply feel reassured in the moment.

That gap between emotion, law, and effectiveness is where this debate has gone wrong.

What the government is saying and doing

In its public statements after the Bondi attack, the federal government has taken a consistent line. It has described the attack as terrorism and as antisemitic violence. It has expressed solidarity with Jewish Australians and committed to ongoing protection of Jewish institutions and community life. It has also cautioned against speculation while investigations continue.

Substantively, the government has pointed to three things.

First, it has emphasised that Australia already has extensive counter-terrorism laws and capabilities. These include intelligence and surveillance powers, terrorism offences, control orders, preventative detention, and visa cancellation provisions under the Migration Act. The government’s position is that these tools were not dismantled and remain in force.

Second, it has highlighted resourcing. Budget papers show increased funding for both ASIO and the Australian Federal Police over recent years. While counter-terrorism sits within broader national security funding that also covers espionage, foreign interference, and cyber threats, the government has rejected claims that counter-terror capability has been reduced or neglected.

Third, the government has stated that the recommendations of the Special Envoy on Antisemitism are being acted on. Ministers have referred to security funding, coordination with law enforcement, online safety measures, and engagement with institutions as evidence that work is underway.

Where the government’s response has been weaker is in communication. There has been no single public document setting out a formal response to the Special Envoy’s report. There has been no clear statement of which recommendations were accepted in full, which were modified, which were already in place, and which would take longer to implement. There has been no public timeline or ownership framework.

This absence has mattered. In a highly charged environment, silence is easily interpreted as inaction. Communities living with fear are unlikely to be reassured by assurances that work is happening behind the scenes. Without a visible roadmap, it becomes easier for critics to claim that warnings were ignored and harder for the government to demonstrate that prevention and protection were being treated seriously.

That gap between action and explanation sits at the centre of the current dispute.

What the Special Envoy’s report actually recommended

Much of the political argument since Bondi has relied on shorthand descriptions of the Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism. Those descriptions often imply that the report called for emergency powers, speech bans, or criminalisation of protest. It did not.

The report was structured around strengthening existing systems rather than creating new extraordinary ones. Its recommendations fall into several clear areas.

First, definition and consistency. The report recommended the consistent use of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a reference tool across government, public institutions, regulators, and publicly funded bodies. The purpose was alignment and clarity, not criminalisation. The definition was explicitly treated as guidance to help institutions recognise antisemitism in context. It was not proposed as law and not intended to create new offences.

Second, coordination and data. The report identified fragmented responsibility across federal, state, and local levels, as well as inconsistent data collection on antisemitic incidents. It recommended improved information sharing between agencies, clearer points of accountability, and better national data to inform prevention and response. The emphasis was on moving from reactive responses to informed, strategic action.

Third, education and institutional capability. The report called for targeted training for police, prosecutors, regulators, educators, and public servants so antisemitism is identified accurately and addressed early. It also addressed schools and universities, stressing the need for safe environments while recognising the importance of academic freedom and lawful protest. The focus was on capability and judgement, not blanket restrictions.

Fourth, online harms. The report identified digital platforms as accelerators of hate and harassment. It recommended stronger engagement with existing online safety mechanisms, cooperation with regulators, and pressure on platforms to enforce their own standards. It did not propose new emergency censorship powers, but rather better use of frameworks already in place.

Fifth, migration and border integrity. The report addressed migration only within existing law. It recommended ensuring that current character and security checks are properly resourced and consistently applied where there is credible evidence of extremist involvement. It did not call for blanket bans, ideological screening, or changes to citizenship law.

Finally, physical security and community protection. The report acknowledged that Jewish schools, places of worship, and community institutions face elevated risk and require ongoing security support while threats remain high. It recommended continued government funding, coordination with law enforcement, and planning that allows Jewish communities to live openly rather than retreat behind fear.

Taken together, the report was not a call for emergency rule. It was a call for coherence. It assumed that antisemitism could be confronted through better coordination, resourcing, education, and enforcement of existing law, rather than by suspending democratic norms.

How the Special Envoy’s report differs from the 15-point plan

It is important to be precise about where the Special Envoy’s report and the Jewish community’s 15-point plan align, and where they diverge. Treating them as interchangeable has added to confusion and resentment on all sides.

Both documents start from the same premise. Antisemitism has increased. Jewish Australians are feeling unsafe. Existing responses have not always felt adequate or visible. Both call for stronger coordination, clearer responsibility, and meaningful protection of Jewish communal life.

The difference lies in posture.

The Special Envoy’s report is framed as a system-strengthening exercise within existing democratic and legal boundaries. It assumes antisemitism is serious, persistent, and damaging, but not something that requires suspension of ordinary governance. Its recommendations are incremental, cumulative, and designed to be absorbed into current institutions. The emphasis is on consistency, capability, and coordination.

The 15-point plan, by contrast, is framed as an emergency response. It speaks the language of crisis and urgency. It calls for national emergency declarations, a single ministerial authority over counter-terrorism, stronger protest controls, more aggressive use of migration powers, and uniform policing approaches. Its tone reflects the fear and exhaustion of a community that feels under siege and unheard.

Neither document is irrational. They are responding to different risk calculations.

The Envoy’s report asks how Australia can reduce antisemitism while preserving democratic norms. The 15-point plan asks how Australia can demonstrate resolve and restore a sense of safety quickly. Those are not the same question, and they do not lead to the same answers.

Understanding this distinction matters, because much of the current anger is driven by the assumption that the government rejected a clear, reasonable blueprint. In reality, it faced a choice between two different policy philosophies. One sought reform within the system. The other sought to escalate the system itself.

That does not mean the 15-point plan should be dismissed. It does mean it cannot be adopted wholesale without significant consequences beyond antisemitism.

Why the 15-point plan was not readily implementable

A recurring question in public debate is why the government did not simply adopt the 15-point plan in full. That question deserves a clear answer, because without one, delay is easily interpreted as indifference.

The short answer is not that the plan was ignored. It is that several of its core proposals sit outside Australia’s legal, constitutional, and political guardrails, particularly in the absence of a genuine national emergency.

The proposal to declare a national emergency is the most obvious example. In Australia, emergency declarations are designed for acute, system-wide crises such as natural disasters or pandemics. Recent experience during Covid showed how quickly emergency powers can fracture public trust, provoke legal challenge, and harden social divisions, even when introduced for public health reasons. Declaring a national emergency in response to hate crimes or terrorism would represent a profound shift in how those powers are used. It would almost certainly trigger constitutional scrutiny, resistance from states, and significant public backlash. Whatever its symbolic appeal, it is not a neutral administrative step.

Similarly, the call to place counter-terrorism under the authority of a single minister runs into structural reality. Counter-terrorism in Australia is deliberately dispersed across federal, state, and territory jurisdictions. Intelligence, policing, prosecution, and prevention are separated to prevent concentration of power and to ensure oversight. Centralising this authority would require legislative change, renegotiation with states, and likely resistance from the security agencies themselves. It is not something that can be done quickly, quietly, or without serious consequence.

Several elements of the plan also imply new restrictions on protest, speech, or political expression. While framed as necessary responses to antisemitism, Australia’s legal system does not allow governments to prohibit slogans, ideologies, or political positions in the abstract. Courts require context, intent, and harm. Blanket bans would almost certainly fail constitutional tests related to political communication. More importantly, they would establish precedents that could later be used against other communities, including Muslims, Indigenous activists, or dissenting political movements.

The migration measures proposed in the plan face similar constraints. Australia already has some of the strongest visa cancellation and character powers in the democratic world. Expanding these powers to act on ideology rather than conduct would expose decisions to legal challenge and raise serious concerns about discrimination. Even where governments are inclined to act aggressively, courts routinely overturn migration decisions that rely on vague or ideological reasoning rather than evidence.

None of this diminishes the fear, anger, or urgency felt within Jewish communities. It does, however, explain why governments tend to move cautiously. Adopting the 15-point plan wholesale would not simply have required political will. It would have required a fundamental reordering of Australia’s legal framework, with implications extending far beyond antisemitism.

This is precisely why the Special Envoy’s report took a different approach. Rather than calling for emergency powers, it focused on strengthening coordination, improving enforcement of existing laws, building institutional capability, addressing online harms, and funding physical security where risk is elevated. It assumed that antisemitism could be confronted within democratic norms, not by suspending them.

Understanding this distinction matters. When calls for emergency action are framed as the only moral response, restraint is misread as apathy. In reality, restraint is often a deliberate choice to protect the same freedoms that allow minority communities to live openly, organise, protest, and belong.

What was realistically being done before the attack

One of the strongest claims circulating after Bondi is that nothing meaningful was being done before the attack. That claim does not hold up to scrutiny, even while leaving room for improvement.

Australia already operates one of the most extensive counter-terrorism frameworks in the democratic world. ASIO and the Australian Federal Police have broad powers to investigate, disrupt, and prosecute terrorism-related activity. These include surveillance authorities, terrorism offences, control orders, preventative detention, and visa cancellation powers under the Migration Act. None of these tools were dismantled in recent years.

Resourcing also matters. Budget papers show that funding for ASIO and the AFP has increased over recent years. Counter-terrorism sits within broader national security funding that also covers foreign interference, espionage, and cyber threats, but there is no evidence that counter-terrorism capability was cut or deprioritised. The suggestion that agencies were starved of resources is not supported by the public record.

What is often misunderstood is scale. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies manage very large pools of low-level cases and a much smaller number of high-risk ones. Thousands of people may appear on the radar at some point through association, online activity, or past investigations. Only dozens at any given time are subject to active surveillance. Most people flagged never act. Agencies are forced to make probabilistic judgements about where to focus finite resources.

This does not mean the system is flawless. It means prevention operates under conditions of uncertainty. Decisions are made based on likelihood and available evidence, not hindsight. When an attack occurs, it can feel obvious that more should have been done. Beforehand, the same signals rarely look that clear.

Recognising this reality is not an excuse for complacency. It is a necessary foundation for honest assessment. If the public conversation assumes that perfect foresight is possible, every future response will be judged against an impossible standard.

What might actually have made a difference

If the aim is prevention rather than reassurance, it is important to separate measures that feel decisive from those that plausibly reduce harm.

One area with direct relevance is firearms access. Where attacks involve legally held weapons, licensing thresholds, suitability checks, storage requirements, and rapid cancellation mechanisms matter. These controls sit at the intersection of public safety and individual rights, and they are one of the few levers that directly limit a person’s capacity to cause mass harm. Reviews of firearms access after violent incidents are not ideological. They are practical.

Another area is risk reassessment. Individuals who have appeared in past investigations may warrant renewed attention if new behaviours, stressors, or capabilities emerge. Access to weapons, sudden isolation, escalating rhetoric, or significant life disruption can all alter risk profiles. Improving the triggers and resourcing for reassessment is not about expanding surveillance indiscriminately. It is about sharpening judgement where credible indicators change.

Event security is the third area where prevention and harm reduction intersect. Public gatherings are, by definition, soft targets. Planning, liaison, and proportionate security presence can reduce casualties and improve response times, even if they cannot eliminate risk entirely. This is not a question of militarising public life. It is about ensuring that security frameworks keep pace with threat context.

By contrast, many of the measures most loudly demanded after Bondi are unlikely to have changed the outcome. Banning slogans, tightening protest laws, or broad immigration crackdowns may signal toughness, but there is no clear causal pathway from those actions to preventing a specific attack of this kind. Symbolic action can calm some fears in the short term, but it rarely substitutes for targeted, operationally relevant prevention.

The uncomfortable truth is that effective prevention is often quiet, technical, and incremental. It does not look like a decisive political moment. It looks like better checks, better judgement, better coordination, and fewer assumptions.

Public events, threat context, and proportionate protection

One of the least ideological and most constructive areas for review after Bondi is public event security.

The Hanukkah gathering at Bondi was a public religious celebration, reportedly attended by around a thousand people. It was known to police and included within routine patrol tasking. It was not treated as a “major event” requiring dedicated on-site policing. That distinction is important, not as a basis for blame, but as a prompt for learning.

In NSW, the concept of a major event has traditionally been driven by crowd size, transport disruption, and logistical complexity. This approach makes sense for traffic management and emergency access. It is less well suited to capturing threat-driven risk. A public gathering of hundreds can be higher risk than a stadium crowd of tens of thousands if it is open access, symbolically significant, and occurring during a period of heightened hostility toward a particular community.

This is not unique to Jewish events. Muslim festivals, religious processions, political rallies, and other community gatherings can all face elevated risk depending on context. Risk is not a function of identity. It is a function of timing, symbolism, visibility, and threat environment.

What Bondi raises is the question of whether current event classification thresholds are flexible enough to respond to changing conditions. Being “tasked” for patrol coverage is not the same as having a formal security plan, dedicated liaison, or agreed response protocols. None of these imply militarisation. They imply planning.

A more mature approach would allow threat context to sit alongside logistics as a trigger for security planning. Police already assess threat internally. The issue is not capability, but whether frameworks allow that assessment to translate into proportionate action at the event level.

This kind of adjustment aligns with the Special Envoy’s emphasis on protecting Jewish communal life while allowing it to remain open and visible. It also avoids the trap of treating security as something that must escalate only after tragedy. Prevention does not require extraordinary powers. It requires the willingness to adapt ordinary ones.

Where the government does deserve criticism

There is a fair criticism to make of the government, and it is not about softness or indifference.

The government should have communicated more clearly that it accepted the Special Envoy’s report in principle and was implementing it. It should have published a formal response setting out which recommendations were accepted, which were already underway, which required longer-term work, and who was responsible for delivery. Even a draft roadmap with indicative timelines and resourcing would have made a meaningful difference.

This is not an unreasonable expectation. Transparency is a core function of democratic governance, particularly when communities feel unsafe. In the absence of a visible plan, fear fills the vacuum. Critics are able to frame delay as neglect. Communities are left guessing whether their concerns are being taken seriously.

Clear communication would not have resolved every disagreement. It would not have satisfied calls for emergency powers or sweeping crackdowns. But it would have anchored the debate in reality rather than rhetoric. It would have shown that some work was already being done, and that other elements required care, coordination, and time.

Failing to communicate does not mean failing to act. But in moments of heightened fear, the difference between those two can feel invisible. That invisibility has costs.