No time to waste: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must adopt a new sense of urgency. Photo: Thomas Lucraft.
Parliament returns early this week to debate legislation proposed in response to the Bondi massacre, which despite the government calls for national unity has become hyper politicised.
The event and its aftermath have dominated the headlines, as a flagging Opposition seizes on an opportunity to restore its diminished stocks and win back supporters, who the polls say have deserted to One Nation.
Prime Minister Albanese’s been lambasted for his caution in not immediately announcing a royal commission but also for rushing new hate speech and gun control laws into Parliament.
Many are wanting it both ways. The horror of that December day demands a response but it seems that for those calling the loudest the purpose is more to bring the government down than achieve actual outcomes.
Bondi has become a lightning rod for a storm of issues, long-held gripes, and dog whistles, particularly about the rate and mix of immigration, and assumption that Labor is soft on national security.
Instead of the nation being brought together, too many are sowing division.
Before Bondi, Labor seemed unassailable and coasting to a third election win in 2028, with the Coalition divided, obsessed with itself and with few policy options.
After a cautious first term picking the low-hanging policy fruit and a thumping election victory some might argue vindicated that approach, Albanese may have thought time was on his side when it came to any legacy of reform.
Bondi dashed that hope, if it ever was that valid anyway.
While there must be serious scrutiny of the government, the intelligence community and how deep antisemitism and racism in general, runs in Australia society, this cannot hijack the rest of the nation’s policy agenda.
The current ferment has the potential to consume Australian political life and push to the background crucial policy questions that the Albanese Government has already put in the too-hard basket for too long.
These include tax reform; the structural deficit; funding to the states and territories, particularly when it comes to health and education, the supply, cost and tax treatment of housing; productivity; the energy transition and achieving net zero; the parlous state of our universities; and Australia’s continuing environmental degradation.
Not to mention how to negotiate an alliance in which that ally is systematically destroying the world order on which it was based.
The Albanese Government risks its energy being drained dry by the current tumult. It needs to regain the initiative and its agenda, because these issues are fundamental to the social fabric and are at the core of what kind of country Australia will be.
The Bondi killings should never be diminished and the royal commission and the laws being debated this week, whatever form they eventually take, are vitally important, but the Albanese Government and the Opposition cannot be diverted from the other issues intrinsic to the nation’s future that demand to be addressed.
