Former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has claimed Anthony Albanese is personally responsible for the 15 deaths in the Bondi terror attack, as the prime minister lays the blame on “perverse ideology, a terrorist ideology”.
The comments were part of an extraordinary escalation of political rhetoric on Wednesday as the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said his government would consider new restrictions on protests that he said “would rip apart our community”.
Frydenberg accused the prime minister of having “failed” Australia’s Jewish community over the Bondi terror attack. His comments come amid fracturing bipartisanship on the response to the shooting, with his former Coalition colleagues demanding federal parliament be urgently recalled to toughen immigration rules.
While the federal Labor government has focused its immediate response to the terror shooting on potential gun reforms, leading Coalition figures have rejected calls to restrict firearms, claiming Albanese was seeking to “distract” from antisemitism.
“Our governments have failed every Australian when it comes to fighting hate and antisemitism. Our prime minister, our government, has allowed Australia to be radicalised on his watch,” Frydenberg said in an emotional address at the Bondi Pavilion site.
“It is time for him to accept personal responsibility for the death of 15 innocent people, including a 10-year-old child. It is time our prime minister accepted accountability for what has happened here.”
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Shortly after Frydenberg’s speech, Minns announced his government’s plan to further restrict protests after a terrorism designation, expanding grounds upon which police can reject applications for public demonstrations. State parliament will be recalled next week, with the laws expected to be rushed through.
Australia’s constitution includes an implied right to freedom of political communication, and Minns acknowledged potential constitutional issues in the proposal, saying the new law had to be “drafted in a particular way”. He could not confirm how long protest restrictions would stay in place after a terror designation.
Minns said that, after speaking with Jewish community members, large protests “would rip apart our community”, voicing concern about “a combustible situation and community harmony”.
But while raising particular alarm about “protests about international events”, Minns said the legislation would not be targeted at any one group.
Minns’ government had previously rejected a permit for Sydney’s Palestine Action Group to march across the Harbour Bridge in August, a decision later overturned by the supreme court.
“When you’ve got a terrible situation when people are killed, mowed down in great number just because of their religious faith, I think it would be a horrible situation to see a mass demonstration,” Minns said on Wednesday.
Federal parliament is not scheduled to sit until February, but while there are no current plans to urgently recall MPs, government sources did not rule out potentially returning to Canberra early if needed. The federal Coalition is demanding parliament sit before Christmas to legislate parts of antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal’s report; the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, specifically called for urgent action on a recommendation around increased screening for migrants for extremist or antisemitic views.
Frydenberg, who lost his Victorian seat of Kooyong at the 2022 election, demanded the government “ban hate preachers”, prosecute people chanting “from the river to the sea” and brandishing Hezbollah or Hamas flags at protests, and generally ban pro-Palestinian protests he claimed had become “incubators of hate”.
The former Liberal MP also demanded greater investment in antisemitism and Holocaust education, more stringent immigration checks for migrants, and a royal commission into antisemitism and the Bondi attack. He also criticised Labor for allowing migrant arrivals from Gaza.
There is no indication at this time of any link between pro-Palestine protests and the alleged Bondi terror shooters. Sajid Akram came to Australia from India in 1998, when John Howard was prime minister, while son Naveed was born in Australia. Guardian Australia has reported the processing time for arrivals from Gaza was much longer than Coalition members had claimed.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said he respected Frydenberg’s views, but said Labor had taken action on antisemitism, and would continue to do so.
“The government takes the evil of antisemitism seriously, and we’ve taken some significant steps already. But we’ve all acknowledged that more steps need to be taken and more steps will be taken. We will consider any reasonable suggestions for those additional steps,” he said.
“[Frydenberg], like a lot of Australians, is mourning and is grieving. And we will take suggestions from him or from other members of the community very seriously.”
Albanese on Wednesday condemned the alleged “terrorist ideology” behind the attack, criticising “this perversion of Islam that leads them to support Islamic State”.
“It is indeed, as you identify, hard to legislate against such massive hatred,” he told a press conference.
In an address to a multifaith memorial in Sydney on Wednesday night, Albanese repeated his description of the attack as “pure evil” but said it could “never overcome the courage, decency, compassion and kindness of Australians that is central to the character of who we are”.
Albanese again emphasised the need for gun reforms and moving faster to respond to Segal’s report. The government has not said which parts of her recommendations it would endorse or reject, but the Coalition is calling for its implementation in full.
Littleproud and other Coalition members have rejected or questioned the need for gun reform measures, urging instead a focus on antisemitism, while some in the opposition are also urging tighter rules on migration.
“Well, the current gun laws were not the problem. It was the people who were using the guns and using the bombs,” Littleproud told the ABC.
Michael McCormack, the former Nationals leader, told Sky News: “I don’t think the firearms laws need changing.”
However, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said the Coalition would examine any proposals, conceding there were “issues to be addressed” while downplaying national cabinet’s gun reform blueprint as a “plan for a plan”.
“We cannot let gun control be an excuse for the issue here … because if you have Jewish hatred in your heart, you will find an instrument of terror,” she said.
