What the Bondi attack means for New Zealand

A dark day in Australia, as two gunmen opened fire at a Bondi Beach Jewish event marking the first day of Hannukah.

Sixteen people are dead, including one of the assailants.

Police have confirmed there were two offenders and they aren’t looking for anyone else.

One of them, a 50-year-old man, is dead, and a second, a 24-year-old man, is in critical but stable condition. They were a father and son.

There were dozens of people in NSW hospitals overnight, from the ages of 10 to 87.

New South Wales premier Chris Minns has said “Antisemitism is toxic it is cancerous, and leads to devastating implications”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “We as a nation are stronger than the cowards who did this”.

Today on The Front Page, University of Waikato international law professor, Al Gillespie is with us to discuss this tragic attack and what it might mean for New Zealand.

Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.

Host: Chelsea Daniels
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Jane Yee

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Fyota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a bonus episode
of The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
New Zealand Herald. A dark day in Australia as two
gunmen open fire at a Bondai Beach Jewish event marking
the first day of Hunaker. Sixteen people are dead, including

(00:27):
one of the assailants. Police have confirmed there were two
offenders and they aren't looking for anyone else. One of them,
a fifty year old man, is dead and a second,
a twenty four year old man, is in a critical
but stable condition. They were father and son. There were
dozens of people in New South Wales hospitals overnight from

(00:48):
the ages of ten to eighty seven. New South Wales
Premier Chris Mens has said anti Semitism is toxic. It
is cancerous and leads to devastating implications. Prime Minister Anthony
Arberesi said we as a nation are stronger than the
cowards who did this. Today on the Front Page, University

(01:10):
of Waikato International law professor Al Gillespie is with us
to discuss this tragic attack and what it might mean
for New Zealand. Our major question here will be whether
the terrorists were already known by authorities. That's not unusual.
Apparently one was known to police, but under what circumstances

(01:33):
we don't really know yet. We do have that kind
of thing here. Don't we a terror watch.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
List, but we do, and both countries have quite good
security services. But we can expect that there will be
a review almost immediately about what was known and what
was missed. Inevitably, there's always the questions about whether they
should have been able to go deeper and had a
greater profile of the people involved in this attackchallenges that

(02:00):
often toroists are largely invisible, but they always leave fingerprints.
To question how deep you're willing to dig to find
those fingerprints before the attank.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
And I know that there will also be questions about
what types of firearms they used and where they got them.
Australia banned semi automatics in the nineties, of course, after
the country's worst mass shooting at Port Arthur. The fifty
year old man was apparently licensed, he had been for
at least ten years, and had six firearms in his possession.

(02:30):
They reckon. They've found all six at the scene, but
determining kind of what firearms they were will be a
major part of this investigation.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Hey, terroists, when they use firearms tend to go for
particular types, and the way it normally works is that
there will be a prohibition on the type of firearm
that was used in the at tank. The challenge for
Australia is that they have some of the strongest firearms
laws in the world. This shows you that even with

(03:01):
very strong laws, people can still get through the gaps.
I imagine they will be focusing not just on the
type of platform that was utilized, but also on the
licensing procedure of the alleged terrorist, because there will be
a series of interviews and intelligence gathering and they will

(03:23):
now be looking at whether that was adequate, whether any
mistakes were made. Importantly, there's often a connection with firearms
in Australia and whether they're a member of a club,
whether they've been to a range, whether there were warning
signs of something that should have just put up a
red flag, and all of that will be looked at
quite closely now.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
And I can imagine New Zealand authorities will be looking
quite closely as well what Australia discovers also well, given
that they are now rewriting our gun laws here.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Hey, well that's right, and obviously without terror attack and
christ Church there were mistakes over the licensing and there
was a gap through which the terrorists progressed to get
a firearms platform that was highly lethal. And so the
way it works is that you always wait for an
attack and then you revise your laws and policy afterwards.

(04:09):
But for Australia, which already has some of the best
laws in the world, it will be a hard point
to be too, because Australia has taken pride in its
very good record of very few terror attacks in recent
years or mass shootings because of its arms laws, but
now that will become questionable.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, anti Semitism has grown rampant in Australia over recent years.
We've actually spoken about it on this podcast before. What
do you make of this?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I think it Anti Semitism is a plague. It's a
terrible thing. But it should have been greater security at
this event. It was foreseeable that there was a place
where there was a high density of a particular population.
The date was foreseeable, like it was an event, and

(05:00):
often terrorists will be focused on holidays or points of
national significance for the community that they target, and so
I think that the anti Semitism with the hatred has
all come together at one particular point, and it should
have been more foreseeable than it has been. I think
the rise of anti Semitism is a global problem. It's

(05:24):
not just in Australia, it's also in New Zealand, and
it's also in Europe as well.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
And of course Benjamin Natanya who has come out pretty
quickly and said that Australia quote poured oil on the
flames of anti Semitism through its silence on anti Jewish sentiment.
That's not exactly the case, though, was it.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
I think that's unfair. I think in part this is
a relationship to the wider debate about the war and
Gaza and the recognition of Palestine. And there has been
assertions made that if you were not fully behind what
mister Nettni who was trying to do, you were further
in anti Semitism. But the to it are very distinct,

(06:05):
and people may still be concerned about the position of Israel,
but that doesn't necessarily make them anti Semitic. But there
are definitely a lot of anti Semitic feelings in the
terrorist community which have now been acted upon, and it
means that we've all got to double down with our
protection of all of these communities because they are vulnerable.

(06:25):
And from here you have a risk which is twofold.
One you have a risk of a copycat or two
you have a risk of a reprisal against opposing communities.
And so there's always a period attention after an attack
where you have to have extra vigilance and you will
see it on the streets of Australia and potentially in
New Zealand as well, because terrorists are often inspired by
the acts of others.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, there has been a report of an ISIS flag
being draped over the offender's car. We haven't got that
confirmed yet, but what we do know about those terror
groups is that they just feed off of this discontent,
whatever it might be. So we don't really need to
make a link between ISIS and anti Semitism, do we.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
You will often find when there is a terror attack
more than one terror group will actually try to claim
it for their own publicity purposes. But for some groups
they don't look for an active affiliation, but they do
look to encourage people to do acts individually. And try
to give them enthusiasm for that. What you may see
here at some point is a manifesto may become apparent

(07:24):
of why they did the acts in question, and often
the manifesto will give you the clear link that you
need for it to be terrorism. Although I think it's
a fairly safe bet that this is an active terrorism
that will tarketed a particular population, but the manifesto will
often flesh that out.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Do you think New Zealand should be on high alert
and perhaps change our alert level alongside Australia's.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I think we should be extra vigilant around the time
of the year that we're in and have an increased
awareness of the risk to both the Jewish community and
the Muslim community as well, because people tend to follow
these instances and they can see the notoriety that the
Kilns can do. So partly, it's not just about an awareness,

(08:07):
it's also about an awareness on the part of the
media not to glamorize or show the terror that these
acts can do because it can incentivize copycat performances.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Will New Zealand's sis be stepping up and monitoring in
light of what happened yesterday? I can imagine teams will
be working throughout the night to just see what kind
of reaction online this has gotten.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, I think it would be reactions online. And often
these terror communities are international as well, and even tho
they may not have actual formal linkages, they'll all be
on the darker side of the Internet communicating and so
I imagine that the New Zealand SIS and the police
and their associated security agencies will all be taking extra

(08:51):
effort over the coming weeks.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
And amongst those horrors, though, we saw images of a
hero Ahmed al Ahmed, a forty three year old root
shop owner. He confronted one of the attackers and wrestled
a gun from him. Apparently he has been shot a
couple of times, but it is in a stable condition.
What do you think that that means for the wider
community seeing those images as opposed to the ones of devastation.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
I think that's a remarkable act of heroism and I
think he will become the Australian of the year and
it's encouraging to see that the response against terrorism comes
from Australian citizens of all flavors, and that you can't
just paint a community as good or bad because of
the membership of that group.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Thanks so much for joining us OL.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
You're welcome, Chelsea.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
That's it for this bonus episode of the Front Page.
For more on this story, you can visit enzadherld dot
co dot nz