MP Michael McCormack wore an Israeli flag alongside an Australian flag badge, in support of the Australian Jewish community following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
An emotional Michael McCormack has called for a more in-depth analysis of who enters Australia following the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach.
At least 16 people were killed and more than 40 wounded when gunmen fired on a Jewish Hanukah celebration at the famed Sydney suburb on Sunday (14 December).
The Member for the Riverina labelled it as Australia’s “7 October 2023” moment, stating the government should have done more to screen those from Palestine and the Middle East following the Hamas attacks in Israel.
In a conference outside his Wagga office, a popular location for local pro-Palestine rallies, Mr McCormack called for harsher laws and vetting on processing immigrants from other countries.
“Unfortunately, we have imported radical Islam, we have, and there’s no beating around the bush about this,” he said.
“I don’t want to be racist about this – and multiculturalism and immigration have made this country what it is – but people who come here need to know that they live by the rules and the laws of our country, by the peace-loving nature of our country.
“We need to look at who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come and the vetting processes in which they come. And I’m not overreacting.”
Mr McCormack slammed the Federal Government’s handling of anti-semitic sentiment following the 7 October attack and said there had been warning signs that an event like Bondi had been brewing for some time.
“Australia is absolutely mourning, and Australia is hurting today,” he said.
“I don’t think that the government has been strong enough. If this isn’t a wake-up call to Tony Burke, to Penny Wong and to Anthony Albanese, I don’t know what is.
“Almost every night we’re seeing this anti-Jew behaviour. We’ve seen restaurants and synagogues under attack. The Prime Minister even had to close his own office because protesters were there every single day, harassing people who walked past.
“We’ve imported trouble. We’ve imported 3000 Gazans in recent times and I’m not quite sure that the vetting process and the security measures have been such that we know everything about those people. We rushed out to give Palestine statehood when there were many, many people, many nations said that this wasn’t such a great idea. ”
Mr McCormack also criticised the number of protests supporting pro-Palestinian sentiment and said they needed to end.
“We’ve now seen two incidents at Bondi. We’ve seen far too many incidents across Australia. As far as protests are concerned, they have to stop and it has to stop today,” he said.
“We’ve seen it here in Wagga Wagga. We’ve seen it in shopfront windows. We’ve seen it with protests on these laws and they have been anti-Jew. And I don’t care what anybody says – I’m not overreacting, I’m not over-politicising. This is the truth and it must stop.
“We don’t hate the Muslim people. We hate what those two people did yesterday. We hate that. We hate what they did and the protests that are going on.
“We can’t fix all the problems of the world and we certainly can’t fix them from the lawns here at Fitzmaurice Street. We can’t even do it from Canberra and we don’t want another Middle East here.”
