Anthony Albanese faces primary test of his prime ministership in Bondi response

Barely two weeks ago, Anthony Albanese seemed to have had an intuition that his government's political fortunes were probably too good to last.

Given the overwhelming nature of the Bondi monstrosity it's easy to forget where things were even a few days ago.

But casting back to that now-distant Sunday morning as he took to the Insiders studio in Canberra, Albanese was a newly wed, post-honeymoon prime minister — a first — who had put the parliamentary year in the rear window and now had Christmas in sight.

There were plenty of reasons to feel good about things.

Particularly after the year he'd had, which resembled a Greek hero's odyssey from poll despair in January to an overwhelming election victory in May.

A good year

There was the political satisfaction of watching his life-long Coalition foes collapse into division.

Big policy wins rounded out the scoresheet on social media bans, environmental regulation and Palestinian statehood recognition. He had signed two consequential security deals with Indonesia and PNG.

Along the way he'd slayed the great manufactured threat posed by the dragon in the White House. Instead of a Zelenskyy-style humiliation, Albanese won the president's rapport.

Predictions of disagreement over AUKUS and defence spending were misplaced.

Even the travel entitlements scandal that dominated headlines in the week leading up to Bondi was still in its infancy when Insiders host David Speers asked the prime minister what his priority for the start of 2026 would be.

"We know there's more to do," Albanese said.

"Inevitably," he added prophetically, "issues will arise that we can't foresee now." 

What an understatement.

The buck stops with him

Albanese's role has become that of the nation's lightning rod as it works through the aftermath, recriminations and inevitable changes that people are demanding.

As prime minister, the buck stops with him.

Recognising the failings of the past and doing what now must happen — while leading the country and maintaining its cherished social cohesion — is now the primary test of his prime ministership.

That must include restoring an Australia where Jewish children can live without needing the kind of security that its leaders do.

The past few days have seen devastation turn to anger.

In turn, that anger is now turning to action.

For many Jewish Australians, the measures now being flagged have come too late.

But there is a good chance some will eventuate, particularly once parliament returns early in the new year as now seems likely.

A chance to restore our exceptionalism 

The opposition, in the early hours of the aftermath, said it was ready to work with the government.

If that happens, the nation might restore some of its exceptionalism.

Unlike the US, where mass shootings come and go like the tide and an impotent and broken political system offers little more than "thoughts and prayers", Australia must surely still have a bipartisan capacity to react, respond and adapt.

While the prime minister will forever struggle to shed the perception that he was too slow to recognise the threat to the Jewish community in Australia, he is taking action.

On Friday he announced a gun buyback scheme — reprising one of John Howard's signature moves in the wake of the Port Arthur killings nearly 30 years ago.

There are a raft of new laws being drafted to toughen action against hate speech, vilification and hate preachers.

A reckoning

There is a poison that has been allowed to take hold. Removing it may end with a diminution of liberties and freedom of expression. That will need to be balanced against the values we cherish as an open society, which is not a simple thing.

Universities and schools are to be the subject of an inquiry led by David Gonski into antisemitism.

It is insane — as Israeli Ambassador Amir Maimon told mourners behind the Bondi Pavilion this week — that Australian students of Jewish faith need a secure space to study on nearly every campus in the country.

Finally, visa rules are being tightened to increase scrutiny of visitors for signs of antisemitism.

There will need to be an honest reckoning about the role of the security services. It is too soon — says former spy chief Dennis Richardson — to tell if intelligence failed.

"There may well have been a failure, or there may well have been a combination of failures. Equally, it is possible that ASIO made the right judgements at the right time. We simply don't know. We simply need to put a question mark over that."

If there was complacency or shortcomings in this realm, Australia will not have been alone.

Israel's defence and security establishment regards October 7 as a disaster partly caused by an over-reliance on remote surveillance and signals intelligence. And a failure to take seriously enough human intelligence before its eyes and ears of what Hamas was planning.

Many of its leaders have since resigned or been sacked.

No single answer or lever

The prime minister's loudest critics say most of the measures being adopted could and should have been done a long time ago given the warnings of ASIO chief Mike Burgess, most notably in February, that antisemitism represented the greatest threat to life in Australia.

But it's also reasonable — based on what we know — to question whether the individual changes afoot would have stopped the decisions of killers motivated by extreme Islamist ideology.

Yes, the prime minister must take a share of the blame — and he said as much on Thursday, for the first time admitting he should have done more.

But ultimate responsibility lies with those who did the killings, and anyone who supported, enabled and encouraged them.

It will pay to be wary of anyone pitching simplistic, sloganeering, singular answers.

Most serious terrorism and security experts say a version of the same thing; there is no singular answer or lever to be pulled.

The response, they say, must address underlying complexity. It requires buy-in from all of society and they say it needs to be multifaceted. It will require patience and resolve to ensure it lasts.

"We have all failed the Australian Jewish community," said Wentworth independent MP Allegra Spender on Friday. Her electorate includes Bondi.

"I have failed the Australian Jewish community.

"We have collectively allowed part of our community to be targeted in a way no-one in this country could want." 

She's right.

But also we know the very last part of Spender's words are not strictly correct.

There are those in this country who wanted what happened on Sunday.

Jacob Greber is political editor of ABC's 7.30 program.