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The political point scoring that has erupted after the terror attack last week is unusual in Australia, where leaders tend to unite after catastrophes.
Dec. 23, 2025, 12:00 a.m. ET
In the hours after the massacre at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney last week, it seemed that Australia’s leaders had come together to offer a bipartisan response, as they had done for many past catastrophes.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged unity, describing the assault on the Jewish community as an attack on every Australian. Sussan Ley, the leader of the conservative opposition, offered the government her party’s “full and unconditional” support.
That unity quickly broke down.
Opposition leaders seized on mounting anger in the Jewish community, where many say that Mr. Albanese’s center-left government had not acted enough on their warnings of a dangerous rise in antisemitism over the past two years. Days after the shooting, some of Mr. Albanese’s political opponents blamed him and his government for the mass shooting. Others attacked members of his government for not attending funerals for the 15 people killed and dismissed his move to tighten Australia’s gun laws as a distraction from the issue of antisemitism.
Mr. Albanese fired back, saying that his government had appointed Australia’s first antisemitism envoy and passed legislation to criminalize hate speech. And, he noted that he had condemned the apparent antisemitic motivations behind the attack.
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Scenes like this would not be out of place in the charged political landscape of the United States. But the speed at which a horrific event has turned into bitter partisanship has been unusual in Australia, where politics gravitates toward the center, lawmakers typically have little incentive to fan the flames of emotion, and the political class tends toward consensus in moments of crisis.
