Public safety can be strengthened without turning fear into a political performance. When protection becomes theatre, institutions weaken and social division deepens.

A government can do two things at once: protect a community facing real threats, and refuse to let that fear be weaponised into a partisan battering ram.

On antisemitism and communal safety, the Albanese government’s core obligation has been quite practical: resources, coordination, enforcement, prevention – each delivered without turning citizenship into a loyalty test or letting any one faction monopolise the moral microphone. That basic posture matters, because the moment public safety becomes a theatre for factional point-scoring, the state loses its capacity to govern (setting policy, coordinating agencies, allocating resources, enforcing law, preventing harm), and is compelled instead to start the performative rituals of popular auditioning (media cycles, lobby groups, opposition attacks, social platforms).

The loudest critics keep trying to smuggle in a different standard: that “seriousness” is measured by how quickly the Prime Minister echoes their framing, adopts their preferred narrative of blame, and elevates their chosen spokespeople into quasi-official arbiters of national virtue.

This is where outfits like........

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