Abbott: Bondi massacre a milestone in national decline

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has described the Bondi massacre as “a dreadful milestone in our decline as a nation”, in a Melbourne speech on the eve of the third anniversary of October 7.

Speaking at a B’nai B’rith Armchair Society special event at Caulfield Shule on Tuesday night, Mr Abbott said one of the Bondi attackers had arrived in the 1990s on a student visa and “managed to stay for the next couple of decades hopping from visa to visa without in any way assimilating our values.”

He said the man’s son, who had presumably been born and educated in Australia, had also “not assimilated the fair go for all.”

“It says something terrible about our country, that we have given up on the things that we used to think were what characterised us,” Mr Abbott said.

He said immigration policy had “shamefully neglected our country’s right and duty to keep our core Judeo-Christian heritage and values.”