Tony Burke says he has “full confidence” in Australia’s domestic intelligence agency as questions are raised about how the father and son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attack were able to travel to the Philippines last month without raising flags.
The home affairs minister said he had reviewed the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s (Asio) decisions and actions regarding 24-year-old Naveed Akram – who was charged with 59 offences including 15 counts of murder on Wednesday – since he first came to attention in October 2019 for alleged associations with individuals involved in a reported Islamic State cell.
“I’ve gone through the different decisions that have been taken in this respect, and I have confidence of the decisions that [were] made,” Burke told the ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday.
“Obviously, they are not all decisions that were made during the life of this particular government, but I’m not playing political games with any of this. And no matter who was in office at different times, I have confidence in the way decisions were taken.”
It comes as the Jewish community in Bondi is preparing for another day of funerals for the 15 people killed, including a service for 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest person killed in the attack. The first two funerals, for rabbis Eli Schlanger and Yaakov Levitan, were held on Wednesday.
Seventeen of the 38 people injured in the shooting remain in hospital, including one in a critical condition.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said overnight that he had spoken to Schlanger’s father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, and the chairman of the Israel-Australia Jewish Council, Arsen Ostrovsky, who was wounded in the attack. In a translated post on the social media site X, he said “these heinous acts are a direct result of rampant antisemitism, which is fuelled by a flaccid policy of authorities in the country and of the Australian government”.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Netanyahu said the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was to blame because his government’s decision to recognise the Palestinian state had encouraged Islamist extremism and attacks on Jewish targets in Australia, an accusation Albanese has rejected.
At a multi-faith memorial service at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on Wednesday night, Albanese said what happened at Bondi was “pure evil” and called for Australians to pull together.
“Our nation is stronger than the cowards who seek to divide us … we are braver than the people who try to make us afraid,” he said in an address to the crowd.
He called for all Australians to “wrap our arms around the Jewish community and, with our words and deeds, make it clear that you are Australian, and all Australians stand with you, no matter which faith we worship or whether we have no faith at all, we stand with Jewish Australians.
“You have every right to worship and study and work and live in peace and safety. You have every right to be proud of who you are and proud of the remarkable contribution that your community has made to Sydney and to modern Australia over generations.”
Meanwhile, authorities in the Philippines confirmed on Tuesday that Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, who was shot dead by police on Sunday, travelled to the south-east Asian country between 1 November and 28 November. They listed Davao, in the country’s south, as their final destination in the Philippines.
Davao is the capital of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The island’s more remote regions, west of Davao, have been a centre of resistance for the country’s pro-Islamic State and Islamist militant groups. Philippine police and hotel staff told the Guardian the pair spent their entire four-week visit in Davao city, rarely leaving the hotel for more than an hour at the time.
Burke said he could not publicly reveal whether Asio continued to monitor Akram after the six-month examination six years ago, or whether the duo’s trip to the Philippines in November triggered a movement alert list, saying the alert list was “very vast” and those who came to Asio attention “generally stay there for a very, very long time”.
He was also asked whether the Albanese government’s decision in 2022 to move Asio and the Australian federal police from the home affairs department to the attorney general’s department – a decision reversed this year – had hampered intelligence.
The minister said it was his decision to return the agencies to home affairs to assist with “seamless” information-sharing.
Burke added they both had enough resources to monitor politically motivated and religiously motivated extremism: “I’ve confirmed with the Australian federal police and with Asio again in the last 24 hours that they both have more resources than they have ever had, and believe they get a fair hearing whenever they put a resources case to government.”
Asio’s director general, Mike Burgess, drew comparisons between Islamist political group Hizb ut-Tahrir and the neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network, warning their “anti-Israel rhetoric is fuelling and normalising wider antisemitic narratives”.
“The organisation’s condemnation of Israel and Jews attracts media attention and aids recruitment but it deliberately stops short of promoting onshore acts of politically motivated violence,” Burgess said.
The UK banned Hizb ut-Tahrir from recruiting or holding protests and meetings in 2024, joining countries such as Germany and Indonesia.
Burke said he would list the group once it met the threshold, which he said it had yet to.
“My view for a very long time has been, and as soon as I came into home affairs, I asked again, I’ve continued to ask, ‘Do they meet the legal threshold?’ Because the moment they meet a legal threshold, I see them causing nothing but harm in the community,” he said.
– With Australian Associated Press
