Extraordinary speeches at Bondi as NSW Premier Chris Minns preaches from a Psalm, and Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane gives an eyewitness account of arriving in Bondi as the bullets were killing the innocent.
Chris Minns: ‘The Psalm does not end with solely government responsibility. It says seek peace and pursue it. And that is the task of every citizen.’
Thank you, friends. Thank you, friends. Thank you. Friends, Bondi is beautiful tonight and not because of its beaches, its sunset, its people, it’s fun. It’s beautiful because you, in your thousands, in your defiance, in your resistance and resolve, you have returned to these sands just seven days after a shocking crime and have said to the terrorists, “We are going nowhere.” This crime was an attempt to marginalise and scatter to intimidate and cause fear, but Jews have stood up to this intimidation for thousands of years. And so tonight, thanks to the Jewish community of Australia on this last night of Hanukkah, you have reclaimed Bondi Beach for us.
Firstly, let me say my heart is heavy for the lives that were taken here, for those who’ve been injured and for the families and loved ones whose worlds will never be the same again. I want to say this clearly and sincerely: we are deeply sorry. We grieve with you, and with humility, I acknowledge that the government’s highest duty is to protect its citizens, and we did not do that one week ago. That reality weighs on me heavily. We must accept that responsibility and use it to do everything and anything we possibly can to stop it from happening again.
Sometimes I think it’s trite when Australians say, and we say it about everything, that we’re with you. We say it from birthdays to work meetings to sporting heroes, that we stand with you, that we’re with you. We’re by your side. I think Aussies are better at showing it than saying it, and they’ve done just that in the closing days of this year.
The thousands who jumped on a surfboard last Friday and paddled past the breakers to show solidarity to this community. The hundreds of first responders, including the police, the paramedics, and surf lifesavers who ran straight into danger to protect our community.
The 40,000 people who’ve given blood as an act of public service, the flowers at the pavilion, the red and yellow, surf lifesaving army, the candles, the tears, all acts large and small, but they show Australia stands with our Jewish brothers and sisters at this time.
And I say “our,” because while the attack was undoubtedly targeted Jewish people peacefully celebrating a religious festival, for every other Australian, the shock and the pain we feel is as if a member of our own family has been taken. The sad truth is that this crime has tragically highlighted a deep vein of antisemitic hate in our community. To excuse it as an aberration or a tragic single event is wrong. It will not do justice to the killed and wounded and will not allow us to take steps to stop it from happening again.
History shows us that antisemitism builds, starting with the phrase or a chant, then migrating to the airwaves or, in modern times, onto the internet, then graffiti on Jewish buildings, then damage to property, then arson, and then murder.
In the book of Palms, sorry, in the book of Psalms, we read, “Who is the person who desires life, who loves days to see goodness? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. ” The Psalm teaches us a profound truth. Thoughts become words, words become actions. The danger we must confront is the deliberate incubation of hatred. This includes organisations and individuals who promote violence and division, sometimes cloaking it in ideology or even the perversion of religion. This must be confronted.
Of course, that’s by government, yes, by police, but also by communities committed to the idea that an injustice committed against any of us is committed against all of us. As the late Chief Rabbi Sacks once said, “Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone. The victim cannot cure the crime. The hated cannot cure the hate.” We cannot let the Jewish people carry this burden by themselves. It is Australia’s responsibility.
We must pay special mention to the Chabad community of Sydney, personified by Rabbi Ulman. Rabbi Ulman, no doubt this week you’ve been gripped by your own exceptional pain, having lost a friend, a fellow rabbi, your son-in-law, and yet you’ve been someone who’s been able to find wisdom in pain and strength in suffering. And it’s been an inspiration to all of us that even in this period of sadness and evil, there is work to do.
Tonight, we light the eighth and final candle of the Hanukkah Menorah, and it compels us to ask, what will we light tomorrow? How will we carry this light forward when the candles are no longer burning?
Civic and government leadership now has a heavy burden: security for this community, justice for the dead and the injured, and action to confront this hatred. But the Psalm does not end with solely government responsibility. It says seek peace and pursue it. And that is the task of every citizen. Peace doesn’t happen by accident. It must be actively pursued through compassion, through kindness, and moral courage. Government can encourage it and support it, but people must live it.
And that’s why tonight, after meeting with the rabbinical leadership of Sydney, who can I just say are incredibly persuasive. Rabbi Feldman, Rabbi Ellie, Rabbi Wolf, Rabbi Benny, they’re very persuasive people.
But after consultation with the rabbinical leadership of Sydney and hearing their strong views, in fact, demands for positive action, positive action. Following what happened on Sunday, we’re launching tonight a campaign in their honour and in the honour of the people who’ve been killed and those who are injured and all who are suffering. The initiative is called one mitzvah for Bondi. For those watching at home in the Jewish tradition, a mitzvah is a simple but powerful idea. It’s a concrete act of goodness, something that you do that makes the world just more just, more compassionate, more humane. The one Mitzvah for Bondi campaign is inspired by the spirit of Rabbi Eli Schlanger.
Eli was in the process of launching Project Noah, a reminder that every one of us is a child of Noah, charged with building a good world. It invites every citizen of our state, of any faith or no faith, to increase acts of goodness and kindness. The rabbis I’ve spoken to in the last days have been very insistent that this is the best way of healing our country. If hatred spreads through words and actions, then so does goodness.
We can’t cure hate with hate. And the lesson of Hanukkah is not that there is no darkness, it’s that darkness cannot extinguish the light. So be the light in the world, and may the memories of those who’ve been lost be a blessing to all of us. Goodnight.
Kellie Sloane: A surf lifesaver told me, ‘Grab bandages.’ I said, ‘What do I do?’ And he said, ‘Plug the holes.’
I had a speech prepared tonight, which spoke none of this detail, because my experience felt absolutely insignificant compared to that of so many others who are sitting here tonight. It felt raw, but I showed Rabbi Eli Feldman the words I had written, and he very politely told me to start again.
He said the words I had written were appropriate and they were beautiful, but that I had a bigger story to tell, that I’ve shared something with this community that must be retold.
Rabbi said to me that bearing witness and recounting that story might be hard and it might be confronting for people sitting here, but it is important, and he is right.
Because, through the ages, people had denied the pogroms, the massacre of Jews. Indeed, within hours of the attacks on Sunday, there was already that sick denialism, propaganda on social media, claims that Arsen Ostrovsky, the man that you would’ve seen in the media with blood down his face, who was sitting here in front of me tonight.
And Arsen, you’re looking so much better than last time I saw you.
They claimed it was part of some sort of theatre, that it was made up. And then they got fact-checkers to prove that it was real. The digital hallmarks, the AI, they didn’t quite align. So yeah, his story was real. But let me tell you my proof because I stood there amongst the destruction and the chaos, and I saw Arsen, and he was standing there alone in shock, looking like a statue, a bloody statue out of a movie. It was real. It was very real. And I went up to Arsen, and I took his arm, and I led him to brave beachgoers who’d come up from the surf to help and provide assistance. His story is one of many that I witnessed that day.
Earlier that evening, I’d been celebrating the first day of Hanukkah just up the road in Dover Heights, and people were laughing, and they were dancing, and it was such a joyous occasion.
And I was on a stage just like this, about to address the crowd, about to talk about the hope I had after a horror start to the year, a year that had started with our community facing consistent firebombings almost day after day, in vandalism. Helicopters flying over our houses at night while we slept to keep our Jewish neighbours safe. A year where the Jewish community had been doxed, they’d been abused, they’d been unable to attend university, they had been abandoned by old friends and colleagues in the most heartbreaking way and people. People were in fear and they were accused. They were accused of overreacting, and no one, very few at least, paid attention.
When community leaders said, they warned that history, history tells us that hate speech makes violence possible.
How could anyone who is a student of history deny that broken windows lead to violence? We’ll let there be no doubt now. Antisemitism has now led to the spilling of blood on our nation’s most iconic beach, a place that has for all of us been a symbol of freedom, of hope, and of the Australian spirit, of our inclusion, of our beautiful diversity.
But on that stage, last week, I didn’t get a chance to share my words of hope. Instead, while I stood there, I saw the crowd start to run and disperse. I saw CSG security guards start to lock down the event. And I jumped in and had a sola ambulance with medic rabbi, Mendi Litzman.
Mendy is here tonight, and he is still working. Raise your hand, Mendy. What a hero.
I ended up bundled into Mendy’s ambulance. I don’t know that he needed an extra passenger, but he was on the phone to his colleague, Yankee, who had been shot, and Yankee was in a bad state. And so we raced down here to Bondi, arriving within minutes and we parked under that bridge while the gunman was still on top.
And Mendy grabbed his kit, and he raced into the scene without any thought for his own safety, making impossible choices about who to deal with first and who to treat. And I helped a man and his 10-year-old boy, who were hiding under that bridge get into our ambulance because I thought they’d be safer there. And then I walked into the scene, and what I saw will haunt me forever, but I saw police running into the scene fast and unhesitatingly with guns drawn, headed into danger.
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And I heard, thank you to our police, the final pop, pop, pop of gunfire.
And I tried my best to help. A surf lifesaver told me, “Grab bandages.” I said, “What do I do? ” And he said, “Plug the holes.”
And I ended up sitting next to people and holding their hands, putting blankets over people who we couldn’t help anymore. And I confronted, I had people fall into my arms who were grief-stricken because they felt that they hadn’t done enough, and we all felt that way. But man, I saw them as heroes, and they were heroes, and there was nothing more any of us could do.
So what do we do now? How do we save our community? How do we honour the lives of those 15 people who passed away? It is an impossible task. And how do we say sorry? How do we say sorry for failing our community? How do we comprehend what has happened to our country?
Tomorrow in New South Wales Parliament, I will read the names of those who’ve lost their lives in a condolence motion in parliament with the Premier, and thank you, Premier, for your compassion this week. We will honour the first responders, the surf lifesavers, the regular citizens who came to help, including the brave Ahmed El Ahmed, who I visited in hospital, Superman, to the rabbis who were strong and brave and who have carried such a burden for the community this week. We will honour the police, and we will honour all the people who visited Bondi with bunches of flowers and who sent messages and that outpouring of love has given me hope.
It’s given me hope that we will mend together. But tonight I’m here with you, our community with you, steadfast, with our broader Bondi and Eastern suburbs community to say that I am in pieces with you, but I will be strong like you are strong and you inspire me. And together, together we will find the light together. Thank you.
Image: A standing ovation for Chris Minns as he starts his speech.