PM moves condolence motion for Bondi terror attack

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved a condolence motion on Monday for the victims of the “Bondi antisemitic terror attack” in the House of Representatives.

It stated that the house: (1) tenders our nation’s heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the 15 innocent people murdered at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025; (2)condemns the atrocity which stole their lives, an act of terrorism deliberately targeted at Australia’s Jewish community gathering to celebrate the first night of Chanukah; (3) unequivocally condemns the evil of antisemitism and vows new action to eradicate it; (4) honours the courage, composure and quick action of all the police officers, first responders and healthcare workers whose dedication and skill saved lives; (5) acknowledges the trauma of the men, women and children injured physically and psychologically, including those who witnessed the horror; (6) expresses Australia’s deep admiration for the heroes of Bondi, everyday people who showed extraordinary bravery and selflessness, including those wounded and killed saving others; (7) affirms the fundamental right of every Jewish Australian to live, work, worship and learn in peace and safety, to participate fully and freely in Australian public life and to gather in communal association unhindered, proud of who they are and proud of the profound contribution their community has made to our nation’s success; and (8) stands together in a spirit of national unity, resolved to confront and defeat the worst of hatred and division with the best of the Australian spirit.

Following a minute of silence, the Prime Minister read the names of the 15 victims killed in the attack. In his opening remarks Albanese said, “The minute of silence that we have just observed echoes with those 15 names, 15 innocent people for whom today should be just another Monday morning, another day in this beautiful country they loved, in the embrace of the family and friends they adored.

“Another day in busy lives, rich in passion and purpose, defined by hard work and by humour. Another day devoted to others, serving their community, nourishing their faith, another day of school holidays.

“Instead, our parliament comes together in sorrow to offer our nation’s condolences to the people who knew and loved them best.
We welcome all the family members and dear friends and spiritual leaders joining us here. From the depths of grief, you have summoned remarkable strength. You have given us a glimpse of who your loved ones were, how much they meant, and how brave they proved themselves to be.”

The Prime Minister added, “As prime minister, I give you this solemn promise on behalf of every Australian, we will not meet your suffering with silence.”

“We will not leave you in darkness. We will continue to do everything required to ensure your security, uphold your safety, and protect and honour your place here with us as Australians,”

“In the long days and hard weeks that have followed, so many of us have thought to ourselves and said to each other, this doesn’t happen here, not in Australia. It’s not the Australian way. Bondi Beach changed that forever. We must face that unforgiving truth, and we must learn from it,” he said.

Mark Dreyfus MP wore a kippah and read the Mourner’s Kaddish in the House of Representatives, and afterwards spoke emotionally about the Bondi attack.

“There are moments in our nation’s history that confront us with unimaginable horror and grief, that leave us searching for words, that leave us struggling to comprehend the scale of what has been lost, that compel us to reflect, to remember and to act,” he said.

“That test not only our laws and our institutions, but also the quiet assumptions of safety, decency and mutual care that distinguish Australia’s values.”

“For every person murdered, there are families and friends left behind, a home left quieter, clothes still hanging in wardrobes, photos on walls that will never be updated. Children asking when someone is coming home, a seat left empty at the dinner table, a laugh no longer heard, a longing for one more word, one moment, one more chance to say what was left unsaid.

“The pain of that absence does not pass quickly. They were parents, children, neighbours and friends. Their loss is not only an overwhelming private sorrow for families and loved ones, but a wound felt across the nation. It’s a reminder of how fragile our shared sense of peace and safety can be and how vital it is that we protect it together.

“There are some that seek to take that from us; we must not let them. You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us.”

Josh Burns MP spoke to the motion, “For Jewish Australians, this country means so much… This country means everything. It has been a safe haven for our community and a safe haven for our people who fled persecution and dehumanisation.”

“Well, I’m proud of my community, and our community are a proud people. We belong here, and we must not dehumanise one another,” he said.
“To every single Australian who has lit a candle, who has checked in on a Jewish community member, a friend, a colleague, I say thank you, because how a country responds matters. To all of the victims and to my community, this is our home. This is our country.”

Independent MP Allegra Spender, whose electorate includes Bondi Beach said, “Sunday 14 December was one of the darkest days in modern Australia. One part of our community—Jewish Australians—was murderously targeted. It was an attack on them and an attack on our Australian values.

“Our country will never be the same, nor should it be. The question is who we become now—how we honour the memories of the 15 beautiful people we lost and how we honour and care for the dozens who are physically injured, the countless who can never forget the trauma and bloodshed of the day, and the families who will live with the scars forever.

“Every person we lost that day was a precious gift to their family and their community. Simple words are inadequate to express their light. But saying the names of those we have lost has a special place in Jewish culture. People are not gone if we continue to say their names and remember them.”

Opposition response

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said that antisemitism “festered in plain sight” since October 2023.

“Antisemitic hate fuelled the terrorists on December the 14th, but it came out of the shadows in October 2023. It walked our streets. It marched over our bridges. It took over our landmarks. It camped in university quadrangles. It painted graffiti on our buildings. It firebombed our places of worship. It sent children to school behind locked gates and armed guards,” Ley said.

“Like a slow creeping disease, it festered in plain sight. Jewish Australians do not feel safe, and if Jewish Australians do not feel safe, then no Australian feels safe. You warned of this menacing storm, and you said you felt unheard. The Coalition heard you.”

“We must unite as a parliament to confront and defeat this evil. To do so, we must face uncomfortable truths. Radical Islamist extremism caused this. I repeat, radical Islamist extremism caused this. Leaders need to be able to express this clearly because if you can’t name the problem, you can’t possibly defeat it,” Ley remarked.

Ley added that the Jewish community was owed an apology for the government’s delay in establishing a Commonwealth royal commission into antisemitism.

Julian Leeser MP referred to the government’s track record since October 7, 2023 as “800 days of failure”.

“Bondi alone did not do this, but it has been accelerating in the 800 days between the Hamas attack on Israel and the Bondi attack – 800 days of failure across our national life. The feeling in the Jewish community right now is visceral. It’s of disappointment, of anger and of betrayal,” he said.

“Bondi represents a moment of choice. Will we stay in the political cul-de-sac that we’ve been in for over 800 days or will we tackle the sources and causes of antisemitism in this country? Will our leaders continue to treat antisemitism and violence against Jews as a political problem to manage, rather than the moral and cultural problem that it is? And will our leaders drag their heels or deal with the issues with priority, alacrity and zealous determination?”

Leeser said antisemitism was “festering” in neo-Nazi groups, radical Islamists and in the “cultural left”.

“It’s in the writers’ festivals that celebrate people who say their mission is to make Jews feel culturally unsafe. It is in the theatres where keffiyehs are donned and Jews are cat-called. It’s in the universities where Jewish students are harassed, and Jewish academics are de-platformed,” he said.

“It’s in the conferences in which Jews are silenced, shut down, humiliated called ‘mutt’, and where the term Zionist is used as an insult. In all these places, we have witnessed a failure of moral leadership.”

Opposition Senate leader Michaelia Cash said the Commonwealth royal commission must be “thorough, properly resourced and worthy of the family’s trust”.

“It must not be an exercise in closure. It must be an exercise in truth, however difficult that may be, and wherever it leads, because the families deserve honesty, and the country deserves protection,” she said.

“I say this without hesitation, the fundamentalist Islamist ideology that incites hatred and glorifies terror has no place in Australia, and it must be confronted and rooted out with the full force of the law,” she said.

“May the memory of those lost at Bondi be a turning point for our country, a turning point not just in how we speak about antisemitism, but in how we stop it. When this country stops managing antisemitism and starts defeating it, when we stop excusing intimidation and start enforcing consequences.”

The Greens 

The Greens speeches appeared to deflect from antisemitism. Greens Leader Larissa Waters said, “We must collectively act against all forms of hate and intolerance, whether it’s directed at a Jewish man for his kippah, a queer person for who they love, or a Muslim woman for wearing a hijab.”

Senator David Shoebridge said the attack could have “equally” happened to women or trans people, while Senator Mehreen Faruqi said the Bondi attack is “being exploited by powerful forces”.

Other tributes

In the Senate, Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong paid tribute to the victims, including Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman. “[He] wrote two books to tell the story of Jewish heroes in the Soviet Union during and after the Second World War,” Wong said.  “In the words of his daughter Sabina, he died doing what he loved most, ‘protecting my mother and standing up being a proud Jew.”

“We will not give terrorists what they seek, which is a divided nation,” she said.  “We will not allow them to shake our confidence in each other, or to tear what binds us, or to turn Australian against Australian. See, our patriotism demands that we do not let them.”

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek Sid she was at the Newtown Synagogue when she first heard about the Bondi terror attack. She called for Australians to choose love over division.

“Australians will continue in the shadow of this heartbreak to face a choice. Will we allow one evil act to divide us, to erode our principles, or can we remain steadfast and resolute in our commitment to love?” Plibersek asks. “In choosing the latter, I believe we not only heal, but we will find a better country waiting for us on the other side. It falls on us in this chamber to embody those values.”

Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly said, “To our Jewish community: we will not look away. We will not let your grief go unanswered and we will not let you grieve alone. We will wrap our arms around you and we will say to you, you are us, and we are you.”

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the Bondi terror attack was an “unfathomable tragedy” that rocked the Australian Jewish community with “pure antisemitic evil”.
“There was nothing random about this act of violence. This was an act of terror by individuals with hate in their hearts and guns in their hands.”

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke paid tribute to Ahmed Al Ahmed who wrestled a gun off one of the Bondi. “He went forward in the line of fire and we know what followed. When I visited him hospital, his explanation of what he did was very much about the hand of God, a story that you could have heard from somebody of almost any faith,” Burke said.

Defence Minister Richard Marles honoured Boris and Sofia Gurman, who attempted to stop one of the gunmen.
“Grainy dash cam footage captured them trying to confront the gunman right at the start, as they were getting out of the car, without any training,” he said.
“What I find utterly astonishing about their actions is how intentional they were. This was not a reflex. They didn’t have to put their lives on the line.”
“In fact, the more obvious path to have walked would, in all likelihood, have seen them alive on this day, and yet, in that moment, they staked all that they had, all that they had been to defend those around them,” he said.
Marles called the shooting a “clear and calculated attack on Jewish Australians”, saying that the “legacy of Bondi has to be that we return to the Jewish community, the Australia that they once knew”.

Nationals Leader David Littleproud remarked, “Ultimately, it is for us not to let this become a footnote in our history, but instead to have the courage to make it a defining moment as an enduring legacy to those lives lost to eradicate this type of evil from our country.”

Jewish community response

Families of the victims, including Sheina Gutnick, daughter of Reuven Morrison, and Rabbi Mordechai Guth, brother-in-law of Rabbi Yaakov Levitan were also in attendance, and met with Albanese and Ley in their offices.

Gutnick stated, “It was an honour to be present in Parliament for today’s condolence motion and to hear moving contributions from across the political spectrum.

“We had a very positive and constructive discussion with both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition today. We want to thank both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader for their time, their openness, and their respect.

“We will continue to engage across the political spectrum and through the Royal Commission process in the memory of the loved ones we lost at Bondi, in the hope of strong, bipartisan action to combat antisemitism.”

Among those in attendance during the motion were Jewish leaders including Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion, NSW Board of Deputies president David Ossip and Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Executive Director Colin Rubenstein. Israel’s Ambassador Amir Maimon was also present in the gallery, and  hosted the group for lunch after the parliamentary visit.

AIJAC head of Sydney office Arsen Ostrovsky who was injured in the attack was in attendance and told The AJN:

“AIJAC acknowledges and appreciates the many moving, heartfelt and eloquent speeches delivered in Parliament in support of the condolence motions following the horrific Bondi attack. The compassion expressed, the solidarity shown with the victims and their families, and the recognition of the deep shock felt by the Australian Jewish community were genuinely felt and deeply appreciated.

“However, words alone are not enough. The Bondi attack did not occur in a vacuum, but against the backdrop of a deeply troubling rise in antisemitism, incitement and extremism across Australia.

“Addressing this reality requires more than promises and speeches. It demands moral clarity, sustained resolve and the political courage to confront antisemitic hatred wherever it appears. It also demands urgent bipartisan leadership against this scourge, including in relation to the upcoming Hate Speech laws and the proposed Royal Commission.”

Other survivors of the Bondi attack who attended Parliament to hear the condolence motion included: Simon Sawday,  Michael Bassebarie, Yisroel Lazarus, Victoria Tiplitsky (daughter of person that was shot), Ryan Ziman (CSG guard at Archer Park, shot in shoulder and recovering) and his partner Talia Lapedus, Marc Schwartz and Ravid Rom.