When the threat to Jewish Australians was being assessed as ‘likely’, according to authorities, Australia’s Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator wasn’t even a full-time position.
That should stop the entire political class in its tracks!
The man holding the role, Hamish Hansford, is no minor official. He started as Head of National Security mid last year, responsible for integrating the national security mission across Home Affairs.
He also holds the positions of Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator and National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator - both demanding roles.
The issue is that the federal budget is littered with wasteful spending, but the Albanese government couldn’t find someone else to help him out? So that the role responsible for coordinating our response to terrorism was a full time one, instead?
The interim report - at least in what was made public - points to a counter-terrorism system crowded with titles, committees, agencies, acronyms and protocols, but not enough coordination to make it all actually work.
The report identifies concerns about information sharing within the NSW Joint Counter-Terrorism Team. Neither the AFP nor NSW Police gave adequate support for the way that body is presently functioning. Unbelievable.
The Community Security Group assessed the threat to the Jewish community as high, and told NSW Police ‘a terrorist attack against the NSW Jewish Community is likely’.
Hamish Hansford, is no minor official. But being Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator is just one of his roles. The federal budget is littered with wasteful spending - but the Albanese government couldn’t find someone else to help him out?
The report also identifies concerns about information sharing within the NSW Joint Counter-Terrorism Team. Neither the AFP nor NSW Police gave adequate support for the way that body is presently functioning. Unbelievable
Yet the Chanukah by the Sea event in Bondi was assigned three general duties officers and a supervisor. The adequacy of that resourcing will now be examined further, as it should be.
But what this interim report doesn’t really address is the broader political failure: Anthony Albanese’s tacit do-nothing approach to rising antisemitism before Bondi is what upset so many Australians immediately after all those deaths.
It’s why he was booed on sight when he visited the scene in the aftermath.
The test was whether the machinery of government treated the threat to Jewish Australians as real, immediate and escalating. It didn’t, arguably because of a lack of leadership from the top.
On that measure, the revelation about the part-time coordinator is devastating.
No one should pretend that making Hansford’s role full-time would necessarily have stopped Bondi.
But when the threat was deemed likely, the coordination was only part-time.