A CHANUKA CATASTROPHE IN AUSTRALIA
- Mike Lyons
- Jan 2
- 6 min read
This is part 2 of the article published here on 18 December:
Calls for a Commonwealth Royal Commission
Despite pleas from Jewish and other leaders across the political, legal and business worlds (including the former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Robert French) for Prime Minister Albanese to call a Commonwealth Royal Commission, he continues to refuse, arguing that no such royal commission was called following the Port Arthur massacre, nor the Lindt siege. What he failed to mention was the comparable Christchurch massacre when New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promptly ordered a royal commission. The Prime Minister’s failure is now described as “A National Crisis”.
Albanese’s pathetic response was to say, there is “No place in Australia for this kind of hatred and it has to stop” and “We need to root out any evil that is anti-Semitism across the board. My government is committed to do that and that is what Australians want to see”. He spoke as if merely uttering these words would bring an end to the hostility and terror but, there was no action from him - none even after a rabbi’s car in Melbourne, displaying Chanukah decorations in the heart of Melbourne’s St Kilda East was firebombed in the early hours of Christmas morning. Albanese merely said, “What we will do is continue to co-operate and work with Premier Minns” who plans to hold a commission in New South Wales. It was a complete “copout” by the Prime Minister.
Time’s up, Mr. Albanese. No more excuses!
Wilful Blindness
The Bondi massacre demanded an extraordinary national response. Instead, Albanese delivered an internal departmental review. That is not leadership. It was retreat. Albanese could not even bring himself to back the Minns government crackdown on chants such as “From the river to the sea” and “Globalise the Intifada”.
Albanese is accused of “wilful blindness”. Instead of meaningful action, his government has instead tasked former defence chief Dennis Richardson to undertake a snap review of Federal enforcement and intelligence agencies – namely ASIO and the AFP, and their role in the terror attack! Unsurprisingly, this has angered these organisations which are concerned that the government is “throwing them under the bus” to deflect from its own inaction. Albanese had been warned by security chiefs that existing anti-vilification and hate speech laws were too weak and that the thresholds for prosecution needed to be lowered, but there was still no action. The proposed departmental review has been trashed – it has failed to even mention Jewish Australians, anti-Semitism, radicalisation or Islamic extremism!
Alarm bells were ringing long ago. There was the 9 October 2023 protest at the Sydney Opera House, the 300% rise in harassment, threats and assaults against Jewish Australians, the arson and vandalism of Jewish businesses, schools and places of worship, anti-Semitism on university campuses as well as the weekly protest marches in Australia calling for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. At the centre of the tragedy is the rise of radical Islamist extremism and violent anti-Semitism. Individuals who entered Australia holding extremist ideologies were able to obtain firearm licenses and to purchase weapons.
Does the Problem Lie Within the Labor Party?
Some Labor Party members have themselves called out widespread anti-Semitism running rampant within the ALP and have said that “extremely hateful language” was frequently used in branch meetings.
Only two weeks before the Bondi massacre, the Queensland Branch of the ALP had unanimously passed a series of resolutions condemning Israel, including accusing Israel of “genocide”. When such tropes are endorsed within mainstream political institutions, any boundary between criticism of the Jewish state and hatred of the Jewish people collapses. Only days ago, a group of rabbis from across Australia wrote to Albanese referring to “The most tragic and violent manifestation of a climate in which visceral hatred towards Jews has been allowed to grow louder, more normalised and more tolerated”. They spoke out against the injustice of permitting weekly pro-Palestinian marches, marked by intimidation and threats, while Jews were advised by the police to stay away from public spaces “for their own safety”!
On December 29, Janet Albrechtsen, writing in The Australian, described the Prime Minister’s “award-winning word salad” when he said, “The issue there is that royal commissions can be good at deciding facts. Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views and to enable, which is what it would do, a repetition of some of the worst elements”. As Albrechtsen remarked, those comments “Will go down as some of the most ridiculous responses imaginable by this government”. Labor’s excuse was so poor and so obviously bogus that Albanese must know things that we in Australia do not know – something so deep and dark within the Labor government that they believe any excuse that can save them from exposure is justified.
There is a Better Side to Australia
As Gemma Tognini wrote, also in The Australian, there is another version of what Australia is, “It is a hero called Ahmed al-Ahmed who attacked and disarmed one of the terrorists, the Russian speaking Jewish migrants in their 60s, Sophie and Boris Berman, shot dead trying to disarm the terrorist at the start of the bloody rampage, and a woman shielding a stranger’s child as bullets rained down”. They indeed represent the very best of us. As for this Australian government, there is no time to lose and no place to hide.
In stark contrast, NSW Premier Chris Minns has given a masterclass in what must be done. While Albanese has been unwilling to comment on questions about anti-Semitism within the Labor Party, the Jewish community holds up Premier Minns as a prime example of the leadership they want from Canberra He will bring a state royal commission and will step up limits on protests. The NSW Police Commissioner, Mal Lanyon has already taken steps to enforce the new anti-protest laws and has announced a two week moratorium on all applications for public demonstrations. The moratorium would stretch across south-west, north-west and central Sydney and its duration may be further extended.
However, Josh Lees and his Palestine Action Group (PAG) is said to be planning a constitutional challenge to these restrictions. PAG previously succeeded in persuading the Supreme Court to strike down a law enacted in February 2025, when it argued that it breached constitutional freedom of political communication!
A Follower – Not a Leader
There is much evidence to show that this Prime Minister is a follower, but he is not a leader:
He called for the premature recognition of a Palestinian state but did so only after following in the footsteps of Britain, France and Canada.
Shortly before the 2022 Federal election, Albanese learned that then Prime Minister Morrison had secretly negotiated and agreed to the AUKUS deal involving Australia obtaining nuclear powered submarines at an eye watering cost of AU$368 billion. Morrison did so without even consulting his own cabinet. However, faced with an imminent election, Albanese made the fateful decision to follow in Morrison’s footsteps and he continues to do so, even now.
In the face of the Bondi massacre when 15 innocent Australians were murdered, Albanese refused a Commonwealth Royal Commission, saying instead that no such commission had been called after the Port Arthur massacre nor the Lindt siege.
It is Time for this Prime Minister to Stand Aside
It is increasingly evident that new leadership is desperately needed in Australia. The Australian nation deserves a leader who puts the security and unity of all Australians above political interests. Australia would be better served if the Prime Minister took the courageous step of standing down and allowing the kind of leader which Australia so desperately needs, to take his place. Not only would this be in Australia’s best interests but, in all likelihood it would also benefit Mr. Albanese who recently married Jodie Haydon and acquired a large clifftop home in Copacabana on the New South Wales Central Coast. As a retired Prime Minister, he would be the beneficiary of a comfortable retirement pension. Should the Prime Minister heed the calls to step aside, he might even be praised for having the courage to do so.
There is currently a petition circulating in Australia demanding such resignation. Many thousands of Australians have already signed up.
AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM – HEAR THE OTHER SIDE
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