Sorry, not sorry

Penny Wong has apologised to the Jewish community for the Bondi massacre, but the gap between her words and her actions is so wide it almost swallows the apology whole.

For a Foreign Minister at this moment in history, “desperately sorry” is not a line – it should be a posture, a presence, a willingness to stand visibly with the victims of one of the deadliest antisemitic terror attacks on Australian soil.

“Desperately sorry” – but for what, and from where?

In her interview with The Advertiser, reported elsewhere, Penny Wong said she is desperately sorry for what has occurred in our country and what the Jewish community has experienced. She went on: “I understand people’s grief, and pain, and anger.”

The words are carefully chosen, soft‑focused, almost pastoral. But how “desperate” is this desperation in practice?

Not desperate enough, her critics say, to attend a single funeral. She has stated that she did not go to funerals because they are “family‑led events” and she wants to respect families’ grief, even as grieving families and community figures have publicly lamented the absence of national leaders at their side and opposition figures have attacked her for not appearing at funerals or memorials.

Not desperate enough to be visibly present at Bondi in the immediate aftermath, according to those same critics – even when Jewish Australians were gathering on the grass near the beach, surrounded by flowers, candles and the traces of blood, trying to make sense of the massacre.

Not desperate enough to appear day after day, to insist that this antisemitic terror attack is a line Australia will never allow to be crossed again.

“Desperately sorry,”

Sounds a bit like an emotion pulled from a therapist’s notebook really.

The Jewish community needed and still needs something that is bold and simple and authentic. Courage, presence, a willingness to stand in the line of fire of public criticism and say, without flinching, “I am here for you.”

“The government has acted” – has it?

Wong says that “the government has acted” and that “we have to do more – and we are.” Okay.

And yes, on a technical level, this is true: the Albanese government has announced tougher hate‑speech and serious vilification laws, moves on hate symbols and extremist organisations, and further changes to gun and security laws. But timing and tone matter.

ASIO and Jewish community leaders have been warning for years about rising antisemitism and the risk of exactly the kind of attack that finally erupted at Bondi.

Those warnings intensified after 7 October, with clear evidence of serious threats directed at synagogues, schools and Jewish events.

So when Penny Wong says the government has acted and has more to do, she is talking from the wrong end of the timeline.

The community’s question is brutally simple: if you move this quickly after Jews are murdered at Bondi, why didn’t you move when ASIO was already ringing the bell?

The government is doing more now because the worst has already happened.

She also stated publicly that she will visit Bondi when it’s “appropriate”.

Appropriate?

Appropriate to whom? Appropriate when?

As many people have already asked: If not in the days when the ground was still stained and the flowers were still fresh, when would a visit be more appropriate?

If not now, when families around Australia have gathered for Christmas, when the whole country briefly pauses and has the mental space to face national trauma, when exactly does a Foreign Minister think it is suitable to show up?

Is this about respect, or avoidance? Is this a word you reach for when you want to sound sensitive while staying away from scenes you find uncomfortable?

Ah, now let’s compare this to how other leaders – in Australia and overseas – have behaved after major terrorist atrocities.

Prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers have raced to sites of attacks, even if they “hover in the background”.

Leadership is not just about policy but about being seen. It’s about leading, and you can’t lead if you don’t show up at all.

Really, is it not this way?

Leaders lead; they do not wait for the calendar to tell them when empathy is “appropriate”.

Wong has also said that the government needs to do more in response to Bondi, and she supports the government’s announced reforms, which include firearms and security measures as part of a broader package on antisemitism and extremism. It is the safe, familiar Australian reflex: when in doubt, talk about guns. But in this case, it is, and I am sorry to be blunt, just surreal.

The Bondi terrorists were driven by ideology – by a worldview in which Jews are legitimate targets, where a happy Jewish festival became a battlefield.

If they hadn’t procured guns, they would have found knives, vehicles, explosives or something else. The method could have changed; the hatred would have remained.

And let’s not forget Australia already has some of the strictest gun laws in the world.

Granted that tightening them further may have marginal benefits, but it is not a serious answer to the question of why Jews are being hunted in Sydney.

Talking about gun control in this context is safer than talking about ISIS‑inspired ideology, imported Middle East narratives, university radicalism, or failures to enforce existing hate‑speech and extremist‑organisation laws.

Guns may be the means, but ideology is the cause.

The danger facing Jews in Australia is not hardware — it is hatred.

If you look closely, Wong’s responses are scattered like breadcrumbs across platforms: an Instagram post calling the attack an “antisemitic terror attack”, a radio or TV grab, a newspaper apology, a line here about “sorrow”, a line there about “doing more”.

The Jewish community has every right to ask hard questions.

They are not demanding perfection; they are asking for presence and courage.

They are entitled to wonder why a Foreign Minister who could not bring herself to walk the killing fields of Nova and the kibbutzim in Israel also cannot seem to bring herself to stand, visibly and unequivocally, on the grass at Bondi.

“Desperately sorry.” “The government has acted.” “More needs to be done.” “When it’s appropriate.”

None are offensive alone. But after fifteen Jews were murdered at Bondi, they sound safe, distant and inadequate. If more needs to be done, it starts with showing up. Then we can talk about the rest.

Sharon Tidhar is a writer and observer.