Bondi massacre: Parliament resumes to mourn, Albanese, Ley lead tributes for victims

Anthony Albanese is eyeing two paths to navigate his legislative response to the Bondi Beach terror attack, passing a watered-down hate crimes bill with the Liberals and gun reforms with the Greens.

In 11th hour talks on Monday night after Parliament was recalled for a special summer sitting, Labor appears to have clinched a deal to pass the contentious laws with the Liberal party.

In a party room meeting convened by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley after a day of condolence motions in the House, the Liberals agreed to key fixes to the government’s legislation including strengthening offences for hate preachers and tightening migration powers. It’s understood the Nationals are still working through the details.

It comes after he spilt an omnibus legislation package over the weekend — which Ms Ley had described as “unsalvageable” last week — and ditched a controversial anti-vilification element that was widely opposed.

The two separate bills will be tabled to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, where they’re expected to pass the lower house as the government has a 94-seat majority before proceeding to the Senate.

However lively debate is expected in the Senate chamber where consideration of the draft laws could extend into the evening.

While the Greens have committed to support the passage of the gun reforms, leader Larissa Waters took to social media to criticise the Albanese government’s push for changes to the Migration Act and new powers for the Home Affairs Minister.

“Labor has dropped highly controversial hate speech laws but is still trying to get Coalition support for dangerous changes to the Migration Act and new powers for the Home Affairs Minister,” she said.

“These changes are bad, and the Greens stand with the community to oppose them.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam on Monday said he held “hope” progress can be made in negotiations, saying they were “working together to try and get the best outcome possible”.

“This is a national response requiring unity, requiring everyone to be on the same page, in order to, in a united way, stamp out antisemitism and extremism. What we are doing now should have been done right at the beginning,” Senator Duniam told Sky.

Mr Albanese told breakfast radio he was taking an all-or-nothing approach to passing his hate speech legislation, warning if it doesn’t get up on Tuesday it may not be revisited.

Asked if he’d walk away from the laws if not passed tomorrow, the PM responded: “Correct”.

“Well, we’re not going to... we’re not a government that puts things up over and over again to see them defeated,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

During an emotionally charged day in Parliament, relatives of those killed in the Bondi terror attack sat in the public gallery to hear the names of their loved ones read out.

Ms Ley had used her condolence motion to declare they were owed an apology for the Government’s slow response to the tragedy.

Delivering his condolence motion after a minute’s silence, Mr Albanese labelled the killings “cruel and senseless”, but insisted “it was not random” as he seeks to pass new hate speech and gun reforms this week.

“Our Parliament comes together in sorrow to offer our nation’s condolences to the people who knew and loved them best,” Mr Albanese said.

Spiritual leaders also joined family members of victims and their friends in the public gallery.

Addressing the relatives and loved ones of the 15 victims of the Bondi massacre Mr Albanese declared they would “not be left in darkness”.

“Their bravery was an act of shared humanity and that is the spirit in which Australians have responded every day since,” the PM told the House.

“The defining and enduring truth of that fateful Sunday is not fear or bloodshed, it is not the cowardly anti-Semitic evil of the terrorists nor the perversion of Islam they took as inspiration, it is the courage and kindness of people risking their own lives to save others.”

“As Prime Minister, I give you this solemn promise, on behalf of every Australian, we will not meet your suffering with silence. We will not leave you in darkness,” the PM said, adding “responsibility starts with me”.

“We will continue to do everything required to ensure your security, uphold your safety and protect and honour your place here with us as Australians.”

Mr Albanese said there was disbelief and anger in Australia following the country’s worst-ever alleged terror attack, but said that must be channelled into meaningful action to ensure an atrocity such as this can never happen again.

“A Holocaust survivor was gunned down in a nation that had given him refuge from the worst of humanity. A 10-year-old girl will never have another birthday,” Mr Albanese said.

“Terrorists, inspired by ISIS, murdered our citizens on our soil.

“In the long days and hard weeks that have followed, so many of us have thought to ourselves and said to each other, ‘This doesn’t happen here. Not in Australia. It’s not the Australian way’. “

Ms Ley also paid tribute to the 15 victims and declared: “We must unite as a Parliament to confront and defeat this evil.”

“I say to the families here today, you are owed an apology for how long it took. You should never have had to juggle grieving your lost loved ones with national advocacy for the royal commission you so understandably wanted and deserved.”

Ms Ley used her speech to highlight her and Coalition colleagues’ presence in the Bondi Jewish community in the wake of the attack, which included attending the funerals of victims, vigils, community events and speaking with locals at the scene.

It had come in direct contrast with Mr Albanese, who had been booed and heckled when he attended a memorial one week on.

“In the past weeks, I have attended funerals and memorials. I was with those who sat Shiva (the seven-day Jewish mourning period) with families in their deepest grief and I have held the hands of mothers who lost children, children who lost parents, husbands and wives who lost their beloved partners,” she said.

“At Bondi Beach, a sea of flowers bloomed outside the Pavilion where the attack took place. I was there every day for a week. You had to be present to actually feel the grief, the pain, the bewilderment and, yes, the anger.

“There has been anger through the heartache. So many times we heard, ‘I don’t want your words. I want something to be done’.

“At funerals and on the streets, I saw strangers weep for someone they never knew.”

Independent MP Allegra Spender, whose Sydney electorate includes Bondi, delivered the third condolence motion to Parliament, calling on all her colleagues to unite in response to the terrorist attack and to build better social cohesion in Australia.

“Anti-Semitism has become normalised in this country in a way I’ve never thought I would see,” she told the House.

“We must not tolerate the violent extremism. Social cohesion must be consciously built

“Each of us, including everyone in this House, must personally reflect on how we contribute to that cohesion and each of us must do better.

“We will disagree passionately but we owe it to one another to disagree well.

“We must not dehumanise one another. We cannot fight hate with hate.

“Australia must become a nation where kindness is louder than hate, where decency is stronger than fair.

“This was the most violent attack of hatred in modern Australia. And I do believe that we as a country can emerge more united, was steadfastly committed to our common values and our shared humanity than ever before.”

Labor’s most senior Jewish MP Mark Dreyfus was among those to address the House on Monday morning, giving an emotional speech before reading a Jewish prayer while wearing a kippah.

“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest. An attack like this hurts all of us,” he said, at one point appearing to fight back tears.

“I have spoken the names of those who were murdered. Each one was a life full of meaning. People who were loved, who contributed to their communities.

“Their loss is not only an overwhelming private sorrow for families and loved ones, but the wound felt across the nation.”

He was followed by the Coalition’s most senior Jewish MP Julian Lesser, who warned fellow parliamentarians that their response to the Bondi attack shouldn’t be a “midpoint to a story that gets worse”.

“I will finish with a warning. We cannot continue the 800 days of neglect,” he said.

“Bondi can either be the crescendo to a bad chapter in our history or the midpoint to a story that gets worse.

“Without change, without political change, without cultural change, without a reprioritisation of anti-Semitism as the foundational threat to this country, what we have seen will get worse.

“It is naive to think Parliament can sit for two days and then move on as if that is enough to deal with this issue.

“We need to deal with anti-Semitism every day this parliament sits to get the job done.”

He insisted there needed to be “political change” in three key areas where “anti-Semitism has taken hold”, including in “violent Neo-Nazi groups”, “radical Islamist” and “the cultural left”.

He listed “writers’ festivals”, “universities” and “conferences”, saying “we have seen hatred framed as artistic expression’”.

Ms Ley also claimed Jewish Australians had been ignored despite repeated warnings of a “menacing storm” in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack.

“You warned of this menacing storm, and you said you felt unheard,” Ms Ley told the House.

“Anti-Semitic hate fuelled the terrorists on December 14 but it came out of the shadows in October 2023.

“It walked our streets. It marched over our bridges. It took over our landmarks.

“It camped in universities. It painted graffiti on our buildings. It firebombed our places of worship.

“It sent children to school behind locked gates and armed guards.

“Like a slow creeping disease, it festered in plain sight.”

Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns also delivered an emotional condolence speech to the House, which was briefly interrupted by the cries of his daughter Lilah who was born just days after the Bondi attack.

The Macnamara MP returned to Canberra just weeks after her arrival for the special sitting week.

Midway through his speech, which called for parliamentarians to unite to “create stronger laws” to protect Jewish Australians he apologised and said, “that’s my beautiful new daughter”.

Shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien rose to thank Mr Burns for the touching motion and said Lilah only served as a reminder of the responsibility law makers had to make Australia better for the next generation.

“The member for Macnamara need not apologise for the beautiful sound from your child. I think it’s a summary to all of us, that we are here for a condolence motion, but indeed an obligation to the next generation.”

“So, thank you for having your little one in the parliament with us.”

Mr Dreyfus had walked over shortly after his motion, to give Mr Burns a gesture of solidarity.

Defence Minister and Deputy PM Richard Marles described the attack as “the moment that terrorism came to our shores”.

“Bondi is the moment that terrorism came to our shores. The Bondi massacre was a clear and calculated attack on Jewish Australians. It was a horrific act of anti-Semitism,” he said.

Nationals leader David Littleproud told the House that Australia had “failed” the Jewish community by allowing anti-Semitism to “fester”.

“Jewish Australians have warned and pleaded for us to act. We have failed them,” Mr Littleproud said.

“This cycle of poisonous anti-Jewish hatred must end. Otherwise this will all be in vain.”