Albanese: 'More could have been done'

Australian PM vows new laws to crack down on hate after deadly Hanukkah terror attack

Reforms will target extremist preachers, as some urge expansion of hate speech definition to include ‘Globalize the intifada’; killers said to have holed up in hotel for most of Philippines visit

Australia’s prime minister vowed to stamp out extremism on Thursday as the Bondi Beach Hanukkah shooting reignited allegations that the country had not done enough to combat antisemitism.

Father-and-son shooters Sajid and Naveed Akram are accused of firing into crowds at a beachside Jewish festival on Sunday evening, killing 15 people in a terror attack authorities have linked to “Islamic State ideology.”

Speaking to reporters as a second day of funerals for the victims got underway, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised a sweeping crackdown to banish the “evil of antisemitism from our society.”

“Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge,” he told reporters.

Albanese said the government will seek to introduce legislation that makes it easier to charge people promoting hate speech and violence, included new powers to target extremist preachers and to refuse or cancel visas for those who spread hate and division.

Australia would develop a regime for listing organizations with leaders who engage in hate speech, he said.

“Serious vilification” based on race would become a federal offense.

“There have been organizations which any Australian would look at and say their behavior, their philosophy and what they are trying to do is about division and has no place in Australia,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told reporters.

“And yet for a generation, no government has been able to successfully take action against them because they have fallen just below the legal threshold.”

The announcement followed Albanese’s pledge to tighten Australia’s gun controls, which are already some of the toughest in the world. State leaders, too, have promised additional initiatives on firearms and stricter rules for protest gatherings.

Jewish leaders, Israeli officials and others have accused Australian authorities of failing to address rising antisemitism in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and the Gaza war, leading to the shooting Sunday targeting a Jewish community event marking the first night of Hanukkah.

Still, the fact that Albanese has not attended any of the victims’ funerals so far — with local media reporting he has not been invited, despite the presence of other political leaders — hints at the fury among some Australian Jews feel toward the leader.

Albanese said measures his government has already enacted, including a ban in February on Nazi salutes, show that he has taken the threat of antisemitism seriously.

“I of course acknowledge that more could have been done and I accept my responsibility for the part in that as prime minister of Australia,” Albanese said Thursday. “But what I also do is accept my responsibility to lead the nation and unite the nation.”

Even after Sunday’s attack, antisemitic incidents have continued to mount. A 19-year-old Sydney man was charged and will face court on Thursday after allegedly threatening violence toward a Jewish person on a flight from Bali to Sydney on Wednesday.

“Police will allege the man made antisemitic threats and hand gestures indicating violence towards the alleged victim, who the man knew to be affiliated with the Jewish community,” Australian Federal Police said on Thursday.

‘Hatred left untouched’

Australian prosecutors say the shooters drew their inspiration from the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, but members of the Jewish community and others have linked the attacks to widespread anti-Israel protests that they say contributed to an atmosphere in which Jews were subject to constant harassment and worse.

“When words and hatred are left untouched, it leads to violence,” said survivor Arsen Ostrovsky, wearing a thick gauze pad to cover the wound where a bullet grazed his skull. “We saw the manifestation of that on Sunday.”

In wake of the massacre, the University of Sydney moved to fire academic Rose Nakad on Thursday, after she was filmed in October berating Jewish students as “filthy Zionists” and hurling other antisemitic invective.

The treasurer of New South Wales, the Australian state where the terror attack took place, said Thursday that the chant “Globalize the intifada” is hate speech.

Daniel Mookhey made the statement shortly after the UK said that it would begin cracking down on the chant, announcing the first arrests under the new policy hours later.

“I personally think that any reasonable person would just see what the consequences of that has been on Sunday night. I think a person who is chanting ‘globalizing the intifada’ is chanting a hate speech,” Mookhey said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The phrase has been chanted regularly at anti-Israel protests in Australian capitals since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel that began the war in Gaza.

The attorney general of Queensland, another Australian state, said the government is weighing expanding its list of banned hate symbols.

“Already, the Nazi symbol is outlawed in this state, and we’re working on others – that work has already commenced,” Deb Frecklington said.

Government envoy for antisemitism Jillian Segal said Australia stood at a crossroads.

“Not only for our community, but for fighting antisemitism around the world,” she told reporters.

Meanwhile, Australia’s close-knit Jewish community continued Thursday to make their way to funeral after funeral. As well as the service on Thursday for the youngest person killed, 10-year-old Matilda, whose last name is being withheld at her parents’ request, mourners attended a funeral for the oldest, 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman, and Tibor Weitzen, 78, who moved to Australia from Israel in 1988.

The Holocaust survivor was protecting his wife when he was shot dead, she told reporters outside a hospital this week. Others slain included rabbis, a man shot while throwing bricks at one of the gunmen, and a married couple who were killed when they tried to tackle one shooter as he got out of his car to begin the attack.

At Matilda’s funeral, a rabbi read a tribute from teachers at the 10-year-old’s school, who described her as “our little ray of sunshine.”

Philippines stay

Questions are also mounting over whether Australia missed warning signs that could have thwarted the gunmen.

Sajid Akram, 50, was killed by police during the attack, but his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram survived and was charged on Wednesday with 15 counts of murder, an act of terrorism, and dozens of other serious crimes.

Naveed came to the attention of Australia’s intelligence agency in 2019, but he was not considered to be an imminent threat at the time.

Australian police are investigating whether the pair met with Islamist extremists during a visit to the Philippines weeks before the shooting. The men entered the Philippines on November 1, with Davao listed as their final destination, immigration officials confirmed this week.

They checked into room 315 of the GV Hotel the same day, paying about $16 per night for the small room with two single beds.

Hotel staff said the duo barely left their rooms during a nearly monthlong visit to the restive Mindanao region, which has a long history of Islamist insurgencies.

“They weren’t approachable like other foreigners,” night desk manager Angelica Ytang, 20, told AFP.

“Other foreigners usually chat with me, but they didn’t,” she said, adding that her only interactions were with Naveed, while the father “always looked down” and avoided eye contact.

The pair never discussed the purpose of their stay and would typically leave the hotel in the morning, but “didn’t stay out long… the longest we observed was about one hour,” Ytang said.

Ytang said she had never seen the men meet with anyone or take a vehicle.

“They just walked around. That’s all they did,” she said.

Staff recognized their faces instantly in news reports about the Sydney massacre, she said. Two other hotel employees confirmed their stay.

A regional police spokeswoman said Davao police will release a statement on Thursday, without providing further details.

Philippine authorities said there was no evidence that the country was being used for “terrorist training.”

The Bondi Beach attack is the deadliest mass shooting since 35 people were killed in the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

That shooting sparked sweeping reform of Australia’s gun laws. However, in recent years, authorities have documented a steady rise in privately owned firearms.