First of all, here's what we have for you this week:
- How Politics Took Over Our Response To Bondi — By Osman Faruqi
- ‘As Fast as a Semi-Auto’: How a Gun Used in the Bondi Attack is Still Legal — By Scott Mitchell
It has been a week of unspeakable violence, horror and sadness. The massacre at Bondi, targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah, has filled Australians with dread and despair. Many have spent the week in mourning.
There is an unmistakable sense of anxiety and tension throughout the country, unfortunately being turbocharged by sections of our politics and media. Most of us just want to process what has occurred and cherish the loved ones in our lives, especially at this time of year.
But sadly, politics does not wait for us to process our grief. Political point-scoring, followed by significant and substantive policy changes are being forced upon us.
Laws will be passed, Australia will change, and we all need to be engaged with the process and what that means.
At Lamestream, we have tried to approach this story first and foremost with compassion, and also with total honesty. We have wanted to help our audience grapple with events and be of some genuine use. It is has been difficult at times, but from the feedback we've received from listeners and subscribers it seems like it has resonated. Thank you for encouraging us to delve into this story the way we have.
Hopefully, over the coming days and weeks, everyone finds an opportunity to disconnect and to share love and care with family, friends and communities.
But at moments like these, it's also vitally important that we don't abdicate our role as citizens or turn away completely. Massively consequential debates are taking place, draconian laws are being proposed and the most regressive political forces are on the rise. We think that's important to cover, as well as encouraging empathy and care.
Today, we bring you two stories we believe continue our coverage in that spirit – one from Os, looking at the political response to the Bondi shooting and what's driven it, and one from Scott examining how Australia's gun laws have failed to keep pace with developments from gun manufacturers.
Our final regular podcast for the year dropped on Thursday, but we'll be back in your feeds next week with our first special summer episode. Next week will also be our final newsletter for the year, including a round-up of our favourite stories and some top 10 lists.
Best Grabs
"A minister went to the funerals in Sydney, crossing the Jerusalem-Sydney distance far faster than any minister crossed the distance from Jerusalem to Nir Oz, the representative of a government that attended no funeral of its citizens from the Gaza war.
'How come the Australian government didn't send representatives to the funerals of the Jews?' they grumbled in Israel. The chutzpah crossed every boundary." — Gideon Levy, columnist and editorial board member of Haaretz.
Gideon Levy has made no shortage of enemies in his native Israel for speaking out against the genocide in Gaza, but his column this week may make him some fresh enemies among Israel's staunchest supporters in Australia. In it, he mocked many of the Netanyahu government's rhetorical attacks on Anthony Albanese.
His piece concluded, "The massacre at Bondi Beach cannot cover all the massacres in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians can only watch with tearful eyes from their collapsing tents that do not protect their occupants from the whipping winds, as the world is shocked by Bondi, and forgets them at alarming haste."
" Certainly came as no surprise for everyone that it was a case of Islamic-inspired terrorism." — National Affairs columnist for the Australian Financial Review, Jennifer Hewitt.
The Fourth Estate Podcast by Sydney community radio station 2SER usually involves a convivial chat between journalists about topical issues, but this week things got heated when Hewitt, a multi-decade industry veteran, claimed it came as no surprise when it was revealed the Bondi gunmen were Muslim.
As was quickly pointed out to her on-air, there are white supremacists and neo-Nazis proudly marching on our streets. One was responsible for the most deadly attack on Jews in the West prior to Bondi, the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting in the United States. Hewitt did not take the point onboard and doubled-down. Listen and people will tell you who they are, as the old saying goes.
How Politics Took Over Our Response To Bondi
By Osman Faruqi
Four days is how long it took.
Four days of relentless pressure from an alliance made up of wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, self-serving right-wing politicians from Sussan Ley to Pauline Hanson, and the most senior journalists and editors in the mainstream media, is what drove Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to introduce a suite of policies he clearly never wanted to endorse, and probably knows himself will do little, if anything, to prevent events like the Bondi terror attack.
