Editorial | Restoring safety and unity key for Australia in Bondi shooting aftermath
Pledges to toughen laws against hate speech and on gun ownership are welcome as Australia reels from the horrifying violence
Our thoughts are with the families of the victims, scores of injured and those left with mental scars from the horror.
What set the Bondi atrocity apart and made it a bigger story was the scale of dead and injured, the involvement of two gunmen – a father and son – rather than one, and the target – a gathering of Jewish people for a celebration of the beginning of Hanukkah.
Despite warnings from Australian Jewish leaders and security forces that such an attack was probable amid rising antisemitism, many Australians believed it would not happen in their country.
It is too early to tell what could have motivated the shooters, immigrant and licensed gun owner Sajid Akram, 50, now dead, and his Australian-born son Naveed, 24, who was critically injured. Speculation including divisive racial and religious profiling can do nothing for the harmony of Australia’s multicultural society and values of tolerance. It is time for unity, not incitement to hatred.