Columnist HUGH SELBY says this is an article about a lack of common decency, and about tacky opportunism.

Fifteen people who should be with their families and friends this weekend are not, dead at the hands of a deluded father-and-son team.

That they are gone, that their family and friends are grieving, and will be in the weeks and months ahead, engenders sympathy and compassion.

For most of us who lose parents, siblings, partners, friends and children, the aftermath is managed with little fanfare for this simple reason: we want, we need the time to be alone with valued survivors, to arrange the rites of death, to decide if our sorrow will be shared only with those close to us, or with a wider public at a time of our choosing. 

But too many in our media and among our politicians decided that here was a massacre spectacle to be exploited for selfish interests, be that an attention-grabbing headline, or to pretend to have some considered contribution to healing the pain and striving to keep us safe.

Here are some troubling headlines, each with a counterpoint: 

Frydenberg calls Bondi attack a ‘stain on this nation’ as funerals begin

A premeditated attack on the innocent by fanatics is no such stain. It will be a stain on their religion if their religious leaders fail to call it out. But those are not the only religious leaders whose silence on the genocide in Palestine has been noticeable these past two years. 

Sussan Ley says PM has ‘failed’ Jewish Australians

Although her party is imploding, she is the leader of the opposition. Her role after an horrific event is to join with the PM and other leaders to reassure the community, offer comfort to the survivors, and pledge to support efforts to reduce the odds of similar attacks in the future. Her contribution so far has not been leadership but rabble rousing.

‘Asleep at the wheel’

Former Prime Minister John Howard accused those in power of “being asleep at the wheel” since the Hamas atrocities in Israel in October 2023 for failing to deal with “antisemitism”. 

My appreciation of Mr Howard begins and ends with his commitment to gun control legislation after the Port Arthur massacre. For that he should always be applauded. He should also be remembered for his decision in August 2001 to not allow the Norwegian cargo ship MV Tampa to put ashore the 400 plus asylum refugees they had plucked from a sinking boat. 

To be blunt, the former prime minister lacks the cred to criticise anyone about human rights issues, especially those around life and death.

NSW premier under fire for police response to the Bondi massacre

Seriously wounded police officers are in hospital, but there are “look-at-me” media wanting to create insecurity and fear among the community by demanding that the police expect the worst at public gatherings.

How would those same media react if the police decided, in the interests of public safety, to confiscate all audio visual recording equipment at public events because a terrorist might have inserted a remotely detonated explosive device in one such piece of equipment? We all know the answer: those media would scream about the infringement of freedom of the press.

Which brings us to Albo, the prime minister who has no intention of repeating the publicity disaster that former PM Scomo brought upon himself when he went down to the bushfire ravaged town of Cobargo in NSW in early January 2020. Remember the incident where the weary local declines to shake Scomo’s hand. It was raw. It was powerful.

Hero Ahmed Al Ahmed released a video from his hospital bed. It’s inspiring. That he had the energy and the help to make it is wonderful. As a counterpoint to the views of the fanatics it is perfect. He risked his life but said: “Through Allah, I went through a very difficult phase, only Allah know it”. His Allah brings hope, not death.

You can find the translation of his words in the ABC report here. 

In the same report you can find Albo’s photo op with the patient, proudly presented on Elon Musk’s X .

Call me old fashioned, call me out of touch, but this was Scomo tacky.

If the patient expressed a wish to chat privately with Albo that’s not a problem. 

If the patient was post operative, and in rehab, and gave informed consent to being filmed then that, too, would not be a problem. 

But this patient is between surgeries. He is in pain, presumably on medication. Albo stands over him. The notion of informed consent to the invasion of his privacy is ridiculous.

The prime minister demeaned his position by allowing the filming: tacky, shameful, a new low in seeking the photo op.