Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has launched a fierce condemnation of current leader Anthony Albanese's handling of the nation's security and the rise of antisemitism, following the deadly terror attack at Bondi Beach.
A Scathing Critique of Leadership Failures
In an interview with Sky News Australia on Tuesday, Howard asserted that the Prime Minister and his senior ministers had fundamentally failed to properly confront the alarming surge in antisemitic sentiment across Australia. This rise, he argued, followed the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.
Howard pinpointed a critical moment of missed opportunity. He claimed that if Mr Albanese had called a major national press conference the day after the October 7 atrocities, the subsequent "obscene demonstration" at the Sydney Opera House might have been prevented. "At the beginning, people in the Jewish community would have felt there was someone on their side," Howard stated. "He didn't do that, he found some words from the word salad he gave at the time."
The former Liberal leader questioned the sincerity of the current Prime Minister's words, emphasising that Australians can detect insincerity. "You have to mean things. Australians can work out a phoney, they can work out when they are being treated to weasel words," he said. "I'm afraid on this issue, that's what the Prime Minister did. He let the Jewish community down."
Foreign Policy and Internal Pressures
Howard's criticism extended beyond domestic leadership to encompass the government's foreign policy decisions. He singled out the move to recognise Palestine at the United Nations earlier this year as "needlessly provocative."
"The premature recognition of a Palestinian state with no clearly defined borders or internationally accepted government was needlessly provocative," Howard argued. "In my view, it was done to placate internal domestic pressures."
He also criticised Foreign Minister Penny Wong for not visiting the sites of the October 7 attacks during her trip to Israel, describing the omission as stemming from "a misplaced desire to placate the Muslim community of Australia."
Gun Laws a 'Diversion' from Core Issue
In the wake of the Bondi Beach tragedy, where police allege Naveed Akram, 24, and his father Sajid Akram, 50, opened fire from a footbridge on Sunday night, killing fifteen people in a Jewish crowd celebrating Hanukkah, the government has proposed reforms to gun legislation.
Howard dismissed this focus as a "diversion" from the central problem. "The real issue is antisemitism, and the failure of the Federal Government, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to mount a determined, broad-based campaign against this evil over the past two years," he declared.
He reiterated that the primary duty of any government is the protection of its citizens, both at home and abroad. Howard concluded that given the leadership vacuum, it was entirely understandable that Jewish Australians felt abandoned by their government in a time of acute crisis and heightened fear.
