You have failed us’: Josh Frydenberg’s full speech at Bondi memorial

By The Hon. Josh Frydenberg
Read the article online at The Sydney Morning Herald

After laying flowers at the Bondi Pavilion memorial for Sunday’s shooting, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the first Jewish person to hold the position, gave an impassioned speech calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to act on antisemitism.

Below is a full transcript of what Frydenberg said:

Thank you, everyone, for being here.

I’m here to pay my respects to the souls of 15 innocent people, who have lost their life in the deadliest terrorist attack in Australia’s history. In the greatest loss of Jewish life since October 7 anywhere around the world outside the state of Israel.

Rabbis, Holocaust survivors and the beautiful 10-year-old Matilda. Her parents said they gave her that name because it was the most Australian name they knew.

What a tragedy. This massacre at Bondi is the greatest stain on this nation. Has brought the greatest shame to our nation. I’m here to mourn, but I am also here to warn. Unless our governments, federal and state, take urgent, unprecedented and strong action, as night follows day we will be back grieving the loss of innocent life in another terrorist attack in our country.

This was all too predictable. Ever since those hours after Hamas’ horrific attack on October 7, we saw the heinous scenes on the steps of another national icon, the Sydney Opera House, with people celebrating that death and destruction. Who was apprehended that day? None of those who hate Australia and hate Jewish people, but a simple Jewish man holding in solidarity the Israeli flag.

And since that day, we have seen the doxxing of Jewish creatives, the cancelling of Jewish artists, the boycotting of Jewish businesses, the graffiti-ing of our schools, the harassment, the intimidation of Jewish students and staff on our university campuses and of course the firebombing of our synagogues and day care centres and daily, daily protests of hate in this, the lucky country, which is lucky no more.

And for 2½ years, as the Australian Jewish community and others have raised the alarm bells, they were told by people who should know better that this was not as significant as they had said. We were told they didn’t say “gas the Jews” on the steps of the Opera House, they simply said “where are the Jews?”

The university vice-chancellor at the ANU, when one of her students went out publicly and supported a listed terrorist organisation, Hamas, we were told: “I don’t agree with what she has said, but it is her right under academic freedom to say it.”

And then we have the nurses in Bankstown calling for the death of Israelis and we are told it’s just a joke. When a caravan has a deadly message against Jewish people, we are told it is just a hoax.

Well, the greatest massacre in Australia’s history is no hoax. It is no joke. It’s a horrible, evil crime. So make no mistake, I am here, we are here to fight for the soul of Australia and to fight for the survival of the Australian Jewish community that has been here since the arrival of the First Fleet. Just over 100,000 strong. It has produced Australia’s greatest citizen soldier, Sir John Monash, who would be turning in his grave right now.

Our first Australian-born governor-general, Sir Isaac Isaacs, and the man who brought a touch of healing to our country, Sir Zelman Cowen, and Olympic gold medallist Jessica Fox. Chief scientists and our greatest philanthropists, Frank Lowy, and industrialists: this is what the Jewish community has contributed in that 125 years or more, and this is how our government repays us.

We, as a Jewish community, have been abandoned and left alone by our government. Our governments have failed every Australian when it comes to fighting hate and antisemitism.

It is time for [Albanese] to accept personal responsibility for the death of 15 innocent people, including a 10-year-old child. It is time our prime minister accepted accountability for what has happened here.

Josh Frydenberg

Our prime minister, our government, has allowed Australia to be radicalised on his watch. It is time for him to accept personal responsibility for the death of 15 innocent people, including a 10-year-old child. It is time our prime minister accepted accountability for what has happened here. And it’s time our leaders stood up and led at last.

This is a time for accountability and action. So prime minister, I am going to give you some ideas about what you need to do.

Firstly, prime minister, ban the hate preachers. On October 8, in Lakemba ... you had Islamic preachers say that October 7 [Hamas attack] was an act of courage and pride. When the Muslim community hears that message for the last 2½ years, is this any surprise? The shooter here, who did this, was linked to a factory of hate in Bankstown. How can that factory of hate be allowed to open its doors for one day more? I say no, I say never.

Second: Prime Minister, ban these extremist organisations that have been allowed to flourish on your watch in our country, when you have been prime minister. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in the United Kingdom. It is banned in Germany. It is banned in moderate Muslim states. Yet it is not banned here in Australia.

Eighteen months ago, the Channel Nine papers and 60 Minutes with Nick McKenzie exposed how Hizb ut-Tahrir was grooming young men in schools, online and across Australian society. Prime Minister, for 18 months what have you done? The answer is nothing, and the result is this.

Prime Minister, weeks ago, you had extremist right-wing organisations, Nazi sympathisers, standing on the steps of the Victorian parliament and the New South Wales parliament. Premier of Victoria, Premier of New South Wales, Prime Minister of Australia, what have you done? Nothing. That was your answer. This is the result. Ban those organisations immediately.

Third: Prosecute those who incite violence and hate that has produced this. I interviewed the prime minister for my documentary 18 months ago on antisemitism. I put to the prime minister that Dennis Richardson, one of Australia’s most distinguished security professionals, the former head of ASIO, the former secretary of defence, the former secretary of foreign affairs, the former Australian ambassador to the United States said that the statement “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was a very violent statement that had no place on our streets. And I put to you, I put to you, Prime Minister, that this is what Dennis Richardson said. And you agreed. You said it had no place on our streets. Yet what have you done, Prime Minister? Nothing! Nothing!

And people are allowed to parade on our streets with Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS flags and signs that say “Jews are Nazis”, “Zionists are terrorists”, yet where are the prosecutions? Where is the action?

Prime Minister, what other country in the world are people in your country allowed to call for the abolition of? No other country, except the state of Israel. Well, I can tell you, I won’t accept it and the people here will never accept it.

Fourth: Stop the protests. For 2 ½ years, we have put up with daily protests which have become incubators of hate. There is a ceasefire in the Middle East. Israel launched a defensive action against a listed terrorist organisation that took more than 1200 innocent lives and hundreds of Israelis hostage. And you have allowed these protests, unabated, to go on for 2½ years, destroying businesses and now destroying lives. Stop the protests!

Fifth: Invest in education. When I did the documentary on antisemitism, I interviewed Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard said one of the reasons for the level of hate rising in our country is because young people don’t have the information, the understanding. The knowledge of either the history of the Holocaust or the history of the Middle East. Across Australia, there is some Holocaust education but it is piecemeal. It is uncoordinated and it is different according to different states.

You are the prime minister of Australia, and the history of the Holocaust is that bad things happen when good people stay silent. So it’s up to you – not to sprinkle a bit of money around Holocaust education after a horrific terrorist attack but to take the initiative now, with whole-scale, wholesale, wide-scale reform to our education system.

Teach Australian values of tolerance, respect. This was an attack on Australia and this needs root-and-branch change of our education system so that this never happens again.

Sixth: Prime Minister, put in place a much more effective and rigorous and strong immigration system. On your watch, thousands of people have come from a terrorist hot spot without sufficient security checks. Your home affairs minister, who couldn’t even put his face here in daytime, has to send officials out of the room to make promises about ISIS brides. You tell me how that is in Australia’s national interest? You tell me how bringing people to this country who don’t accept, who don’t know our democratic ideals, our values of tolerance, you tell me how that makes any of us, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, more safe? It doesn’t. And until you change our immigration system to remind people it is a privilege to come to this country, it is a privilege to stay in this country, it is not their right, then nothing will change.

Seventh: Prime Minister, and this brings great shame to you and your home affairs minister and your government: You hand-picked a special envoy on antisemitism. She put together a comprehensive program that had initiatives for everything from the digital and media space to our universities and to our creative arts, to hard security, to soft security. She talks in that report about more resources for operational security. And today, we are talking about a graphic and tragic failure of operational security.

Yet she presented her report to your government more than 150 days ago, in July of this year. It has been gathering dust on your desk. If there were ever a metaphor, if there was ever a sign, if there was ever an example, if there was ever an illustration of your failure, of your government’s failure to treat the dangerous rise of antisemitism with the urgency and the importance that it deserves, that was it. For 150-plus days you had a report and you did nothing. And this is the result.

And finally, Prime Minister – no ifs, no buts, no equivocations, no distractions – you must call a royal commission into what has happened here and into the rise of antisemitism in our country.

Prime Minister, you have supported a royal commission into our banks. You have supported a royal commission into our welfare system. You have supported a royal commission into aged care, and now the deadliest terrorist attack in Australia’s history has occurred on your watch. There is no ifs, there is no buts, there must be a royal commission called immediately. And we here deserve answers.

We don’t need pious words of comfort, we need answers. How did people come into this country with these views that are so antithetical to our democratic ideals? How did these people in Australia go unchecked to the Philippines for terrorist training? How did these people acquire licensed firearms that they used on innocent civilians? How were these people radicalised in Islamic ideology? And how with some 1000 people here in a heightened threat environment, did we just have three police, ill-equipped to provide the first and fundamental duty of both the state and the federal government to protect the safety of their citizens?

And we need answers, we need solutions, we need action. And Prime Minister, I heard you say yesterday that you are ready for the fight on guns. Well, let me tell you, guns may have stolen the life of 15 innocent civilians, but it was radical Islamist ideology that pulled the trigger.

And if you, Prime Minister, can’t say those words, Islamist ideology, if you can’t speak them, you can’t solve them.

So, Prime Minister, you have failed us. Your government has failed us. You sit in a chair. It is time you earned that title. If you don’t want to do the job, give it to somebody who will.

Tanya Cherny