By Paul Alexander Wolf

A terrorist attack occurred in Bondi on a late Sunday afternoon, targeting the Jewish community, during the tenure of a Labor government. Many were quick to blame the government. That instinct explains politics. It explains nothing about terrorism.

That fact must be stated plainly – not to assign blame, but to establish reality. Clarity is the first duty after violence. Without it, the conversation collapses into politics instead of prevention.

This attack did not occur because Labor was in power. It occurred because violent extremism does not wait for elections, does not pause for governments to settle in, and does not arrange itself to make accountability neat or convenient.

Stated just as plainly, this attack could have occurred under any Australian government. Labor or Liberal. New or established. No campaign slogan, no press conference, no hastily announced policy would have guaranteed otherwise.

To confuse timing with causation is not analysis. It is theatre.

If outrage reliably produced safety, Australia would already be invulnerable – but noise has never been a substitute for judgment, and performance has never stopped a blade.

Terrorism does not test which party governs when violence strikes. It tests whether a nation can think clearly while grieving, govern seriously under pressure, and choose action over outrage.

Australia will not be made safer by how loudly it reacts.

It will be made safer by whether it responds with measures that reduce the risk of the next attack.

Australia already possesses extensive counter-terrorism powers, hate-crime legislation, and some of the strictest gun controls in the democratic world. If legislation alone prevented violence, this country would be immune.

It is not.

What attacks like Bondi expose is not a shortage of laws, but the limits of detection and execution. Radicalisation that occurs quietly. Individuals operating below reporting thresholds. Administrative seams that are narrow, technical, and easily missed until they are exploited.

These failures do not yield to outrage. They yield to precision.

Prevention lives in intelligence work that is properly resourced, tightly coordinated, and constrained by judicial oversight that sharpens effectiveness rather than paralyses it. It lives in the unglamorous disciplines of data-sharing, licensing review, and operational continuity – work that attracts no applause and produces no headlines.

When this work succeeds, nothing happens.

And when nothing happens, no one notices.

That is not a flaw. That is the point.

By contrast, some responses sound decisive while delivering very little. Banning lawful protest does not dismantle extremist networks. Broad rhetorical crackdowns do not sharpen intelligence capability. Royal Commissions that report years from now do not stop threats already forming today.

If volume were a security strategy, Australia would already be the safest nation on earth.

These measures may satisfy the demand to be seen doing something. They should not be mistaken for doing the right thing.

One practical action that does matter is strengthening trusted, well-resourced community reporting pathways – so early warning signs of radicalisation or hate-driven violence can be raised safely, acted on quickly, and resolved before harm occurs.

A serious national security response requires restraint and bipartisan discipline. Security institutions depend on continuity, trust between agencies, and freedom from being weaponised for short-term advantage. When national security becomes a stage for partisan theatre, prevention is displaced by performance, and the system weakens precisely when steadiness matters most.

There is another truth that must be confronted honestly.

Australia does not exist in isolation from the world, but it must not allow the world’s conflicts to fracture its own social fabric.

The grief within the Jewish community is raw, real, and deeply human. The loss of family, friends, and future carries a weight that cannot be absorbed by slogans or gestures. That pain deserves safety, dignity, and protection – without qualification.

At the same time, the suffering in Gaza is real. Families erased. Bodies torn apart. A civilian population enduring devastation, fear, and hunger. This is not abstraction. It is human life, 14,000 kilometres away, but no less human for the distance.

The scale, duration, and civilian burden of that suffering matter morally. Acknowledging it does not excuse terrorism, diminish Jewish grief, or threaten Australian social cohesion. It strengthens it – by affirming that compassion is not a finite resource and that justice is not selective.

It is also true that public empathy and media attention are not always distributed evenly, and recognising that imbalance honestly is part of maintaining moral credibility at home.

Let me be plain.

Every human life counts as one.

Every human being carries a story and a promise.

We all breathe the same air and, if allowed, hold a future with both hands.

What must not be tolerated is the importation of that conflict onto Australian streets.

Peaceful protest, including criticism of the actions of foreign governments, is not extremism and must not be treated as such. Hatred, intimidation, and collective blame directed at Australian communities are a different category entirely and must be confronted without hesitation.

Antisemitism must be confronted and stopped. So must anti-Palestinian hatred. Neither advances justice. Neither honours the dead. Both corrode the dignity of a nation that should know better.

No Australian community is responsible for the actions of a foreign government. No citizen should be asked to carry the guilt of a war they did not start and cannot control. Turning grief into suspicion is not strength. It is a failure of moral nerve.

Australia should also reflect on what it is modelling.

Because one day – God forbid – this country may face a mass disaster that tests us far beyond a single attack. A natural catastrophe. A coordinated assault. A moment when unity is not optional, but essential.

What we say now matters.

If our instinct in grief is to reach first for blame, to strip events of context, and to turn tragedy into a political weapon, we set a dangerous precedent. Not just for this moment, but for the moment when we will need each other most.

Nations do not suddenly learn how to unite in crisis. They rehearse it in smaller ones.

The standard we set now teaches us how we will respond then.

Australia’s strength has never been loudness. It has been steadiness. Restraint. The ability to hold difference without fracture and grief without collapse.

That is not weakness.

That is national maturity.

And when the next test comes – as it inevitably will – history will not ask how fiercely we argued in the aftermath of violence.

It will ask whether we remembered how to stand together.