博客

Nearly six months after the deadly December 14 terror attack at Bondi Beach that claimed 15 lives, most of them Jewish, the Albanese government has formally detailed a $604.2 million multi-year funding package in its 2026-27 federal budget, released on Tuesday, to boost Jewish community security, expand national counter-terrorism capacity, and combat rising anti-Semitism across Australia. The five-year allocation, which includes $8.1 million in permanent annual funding after the initial period, will be distributed across dozens of key stakeholders, from peak Jewish representative bodies and educational institutions to counter-terrorism police units and regulatory agencies. More than $120 million of the total package will be allocated over four years to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to upgrade community-wide security infrastructure, with $22 million of that sum drawn from the Confiscated Assets Account established under the Proceeds of Crime Act over three years. An additional $46.7 million over the same four-year period will go toward upgrades for major Jewish communal and cultural sites, including the Hakoah Club and the National Jewish Memorial Centre, as well as a targeted non-competitive grant program for local projects led by Chabad of Bondi. Roughly $5 million in targeted support is earmarked for affected stakeholders including Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a Jewish business that was firebombed in a separate earlier attack, Jewish youth camps across the state of Victoria, and directly impacted survivors and families of victims of the Bondi Beach attack. A further $42.9 million allocated over two years will fund immediate and accessible mental health support services for community members affected by the attack and rising hate violence. Ahead of the federal budget announcement, the government already revealed an $80 million two-year investment to establish a new national counter-terrorism center dedicated to addressing the growing crisis of online radicalization among young Australians. When combined with new allocations in the 2026-27 budget, total spending targeting anti-Semitism and violent extremism in this fiscal cycle tops $207 million. This allocation includes almost $70 million for the Australian Federal Police’s National Security Investigations teams, as well as sustained funding for cross-agency initiatives: a teacher resource hub managed by the Department of Education, and a hate group monitoring framework developed by the Department of Home Affairs. Another $32.6 million in 2026-27 will fund national public awareness campaigns designed to strengthen national security and reinforce social cohesion across diverse Australian communities. The long-running Together for Humanity interfaith education program will also receive a $20 million four-year investment to extend and expand its reach, while public broadcaster SBS will get $3 million over three years to continue its *SBS Examines* podcast series focused on hate and extremism. The newly launched Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, which held its first public hearings last week, will also receive sustained resourcing, with more than $131 million allocated to the Attorney-General’s Department from the 2025-26 fiscal cycle to support the commission’s work. The budget also confirms continued funding for national firearms licensing reforms, though the government has declined to disclose the specific total amount, stating that public release would prejudice ongoing negotiations with state and territory jurisdictions over funding levels. In addition, the budget sets aside a contingency reserve for the stalled National Gun Buyback Scheme, which has faced significant delays and pushback from multiple state and territory governments since it was proposed. The scheme has already received partial funding, and the new contingency allocation aims to support its implementation moving forward.

In a controversial policy shift that has drawn sharp criticism from climate campaigners, New Zealand’s center-right government confirmed plans Tuesday to amend national legislation to block courts from holding private companies legally liable for climate change damage connected to their greenhouse gas emissions.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced the change, pointing specifically to an ongoing high-profile lawsuit filed by Indigenous Māori climate activist Michael Smith, which targets six major New Zealand firms, including dairy industry giant Fonterra, over their contribution to climate-related environmental harm. Goldsmith argued that civil tort law—the legal framework under which such compensation claims are filed—is ill-equipped to address a systemic issue like climate change, which intersects with complex environmental, economic, and social priorities. He added that allowing such lawsuits to proceed would create crippling uncertainty that undermines business confidence across the country.

“The courts are not the right venue to resolve claims of climate harm,” Goldsmith said, confirming the amendment will explicitly bar courts from issuing findings of liability for climate damage tied to greenhouse gas emissions.

Smith, the activist leading the pending case, condemned the government’s move as a direct attack on democratic principles. Speaking to Radio New Zealand, he warned that if parliament can intervene to cancel an active court case simply because it has become politically inconvenient, no individual’s legal claims can ever be considered secure. The proposed law change is widely expected to pass parliament, as the ruling national coalition holds a clear majority of legislative seats.

The announcement is the latest in a series of rollbacks of climate-friendly policies by the current administration, which took office in 2023. Since assuming power, the government has scrapped a popular clean car discount designed to boost electric vehicle adoption, reversed a nationwide ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, and implemented a streamlined fast-track approval process for new mining permits.

The government’s 2025 emissions target has also faced separate legal pushback. In January, officials announced a goal to cut carbon emissions 51% below 2005 levels by 2035—an almost negligible adjustment from the previous administration’s target of a 50% cut by 2030. In March, two major environmental legal groups, Lawyers for Climate Action and the Environmental Law Initiative, sued Climate Change Minister Simon Watts, arguing the weak, delayed target fails to meet the government’s legal obligations to cut emissions. New Zealand’s long-term legally binding target remains net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, excluding agricultural and waste methane.

Globally, climate litigation has emerged as a key tactic for activists and affected communities to push for greater accountability from major emitters and governments. From South Korea to Germany, courts around the world have increasingly accepted climate liability cases, pushing both public and private actors to strengthen their climate action. New Zealand’s proposed law change marks one of the most explicit efforts by a national government to block this growing trend of climate accountability.

A 17-year-old Canberra resident, already in custody on earlier firearm and terrorism-related charges, has been hit with two new, historic charges in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in connection to an alleged far-right extremist plot to carry out a deadly terror attack against random civilians. This development marks the first time any individual has been charged with terrorist act planning in the ACT’s history.

The teenager was first taken into custody by law enforcement in November 2023, when authorities executed a search warrant at his residential property. During that operation, investigators seized a cache of prohibited items: explosive precursor chemicals, gas masks, military-style tactical clothing, a replica imitation firearm, printed extremist ideological material, and the teen’s personal mobile phone. He has remained in detention ever since his initial arrest.

On Tuesday, the teen made a brief first appearance at the ACT Children’s Court to face the newly filed charges: one count of preparation and planning for a terrorist act, and a second count of transmitting violent extremist material. In a joint official statement, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), ACT Policing, and Australia’s national security agency ASIO confirmed that additional evidence uncovered during the ongoing investigation justified the expanded charges.

Authorities allege the planned attack was targeted at people unknown to the teenager, and was driven by ideological views aligned with violent nationalist and racist extremism. AFP Assistant Commissioner Peter Crozier, who leads the force’s counter-terrorism division, described the radicalization of young Australians by online extremist propaganda as a deeply alarming trend for the country.

“Violent extremist material is circulated deliberately by terrorist networks to sow violence, hate, and deep division within Australian society,” Crozier explained in his statement. He emphasized that the AFP and its national security and law enforcement partner agencies remain unwavering in their work to protect Australian communities. “It is our core mandate to defend and protect the Australian public, and we will relentlessly pursue any actor that seeks to undermine our democracy or fracture our social cohesion,” he added.

Crozier also highlighted the shared responsibility of non-law enforcement stakeholders in countering youth radicalization, saying: “We strongly emphasise the important role that parents, schools, social services and technology companies have in preventing access to violent extremist material by our youth.”

ACT Policing Deputy Chief Police Officer Richard Chin echoed this focus on prevention and early intervention, noting that community safety remains the top priority for the local Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT). “We are focused on limiting the accessibility of violent extremist material and promoting education and awareness for those in frontline protective roles, including parents, educators and health care providers in the ACT, to maximise prevention and early intervention options,” Chin said.

Chin pointed out that parents and teachers are often the first adults to notice warning signs of radicalization in young people. Strengthening awareness and building confidence within trusted, supportive community networks, he explained, is a core strategy to stop young people from being exposed to harmful extremist influences and stop radicalization before it leads to violence.