Last night’s terrorist attack on families celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah at Bondi Beach is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. My heart goes out to the loved ones of all those killed and injured. After yesterday Australia will never be the same. Every Australian has been attacked by this evil and hateful act of violence. It was all too predictable and so many of us said so. The Director General of our national security and intelligence agency ASIO even rang the alarm bell himself warning that the dangerous rise in antisemitism was his ‘number one priority’ in terms of threats to life. Why didn’t our leaders listen and why didn’t they act? The massacre we have seen at one of our nations most inconic landmarks is the culmination of an unprecedented failure of leadership to heed the warning signs that were so obvious to every Australian who opened their eyes. From the disgraceful scenes on the steps of the Opera House just hours after Hamas’s attack on October 7 to the firebombing of synagogues and child care centres, the doxxing of Jewish artists, harassment of jewish students and daily violent protests on our streets, the last two years has seen a tsunami of hate that has left the local jewish community feeling abandoned and alone. In response we got little more than hollow words from our leaders as they stood by and watched the flames of hate burn. The Prime Minister’s public pledge after October 7 that he would not let antisemitism ‘find so much as a foothold here’ in Australia, is now fully exposed for the failure it has been. The fact is Australia is no longer safe for Jews. Everything must now change from here. Everything must be on the table. The law must be enforced. Those who spew hate must no longer be tolerated. We cannot as a country continue as we have done. Our leaders must now finally stand up, accept responsibility for what has happened on their watch and close this shameful chapter in our nation’s history. Every Australian must demand nothing less.

Julia Gillard’s important & unambiguous message from last night’s @SkyNewsAust documentary, Never Again: The Fight Against Antisemitism, was we must learn the lesson of history and call out antisemitism before it is too late.