On Monday it was reported that under-funding of counter-terrorism by the Albanese Government led to the Australian Federal Police to shut down its national surveillance team – a team of specialists set up to monitor High Risk Terrorist Offenders. In this extraordinary revelation, it was reported that the team was disbanded just weeks before the Bondi Massacre, yet the Prime Minister maintains Australia’s counter-terrorism agencies have had all the resources they need. This is just the latest in a series of damning revelations from whistleblowers from within the counter-terrorism system. It is now clear that Australia has a counter-terrorism crisis brought on by under-resourcing and de-prioritisation of the terror threat by the Albanese Government.
The Coalition is therefore calling on the Government to back our proposals for additional resourcing to the AFP’s Counter-Terrorism Command and Home Affairs’ Counter-Terrorism Coordination Centre, to bring forward Parliament’s review of expiring counter-terrorism powers, to pass a new Electronic Surveillance Act and initiate a proper Commonwealth Royal Commission on counter-terrorism, violent extremism and antisemitism.
Numerous failures have now been substantiated by disclosures from within the national security and law-enforcement community which reveal a pattern of ignored advice and delayed action that whistleblowers believe contributed to the circumstances surrounding the Bondi Massacre on 14 December 2025.
Extensive leaks and whistleblower revelations to the media from within the national security community reveal chronic under-resourcing of Australia’s counter-terrorism agencies. This includes a recent report of the axing of a dedicated counter-terrorism unit within the AFP, as well as examples of understaffing at the AFP’s Counter Terrorism Command. Officers were reportedly required to monitor up to 20 to 30 high-risk individuals simultaneously, leading to burnout, attrition and diminished surveillance capability at a time of heightened threat.
These revelations illustrate that the Federal Government ignored intelligence warnings about how antisemitism was driving up the terror threat. Reporting suggests ASIO and the AFP raised concerns about escalating extremist activity, intelligence-sharing breakdowns and expanding radical networks. Furthermore, despite being urged by multiple independent reviews the Labor Government continues to delay its promise to establish the Coalition-initiated Electronic Surveillance Act, leaving agencies constrained by outdated laws ill-suited to modern digital communications.
In the wake of the Bondi Massacre, the Federal Government’s response has continued to ignore the warnings from our counter-terrorism professionals. Instead of urgently strengthening counter-terrorism capabilities and powers, as the Coalition has called on the Government to do, the Prime Minister proposes vague hate-speech offences and gun law reforms. Three weeks since the incident, the Federal Government has failed to establish early Parliamentary sitting days to debate or pass legislation, in sharp contrast to the NSW Labor Government which met before Christmas to pass emergency laws to keep its citizens safe
Instead, the Prime Minister has chosen to pursue a closed-door internal review over an independent Commonwealth Royal Commission with the powers to properly examine the Bondi Massacre and the crisis of antisemitism in Australia. Meanwhile, it has also failed to strengthen Federal-State counter-terrorism coordination following the Dural caravan incident, including improving information-sharing between the AFP and NSW Police.
Despite the obvious threat posed to Australians by violent radical Islam, Labor is continuing with its reckless policy of allowing the ISIS Bride cohort to undertake so-called ‘self-managed returns’: travelling back to Australia with the support of unofficial third parties. Under this policy, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is doing nothing to stop a group of Islamic State affiliates and supporters from re-entering Australia at any time of their choosing.
The Bondi Massacre occurred less than a month ago, yet extraordinarily within 24 hours of the attack we began to hear disclosures from counter-terrorism officials of the repeated failures of the Albanese Government to act on advice.
On 15 December, 24 hours after the Bondi Massacre, we had the extraordinary revelation from The Australian newspaper that way back in May 2024 the Government had been warned about chronic staff shortages and workforce strain in the AFP’s Counter-Terrorism Command. An anonymous AFP whistleblower revealed to journalists that so poor was the resourcing of CT Command that staff were forced to monitor between 20-30 suspects terrorists each. We learnt that these concerns were ignored by the Albanese Government and that there were no changes to the AFP’s counter-terrorism resourcing after the 7 October Attacks nor after ASIO lifted the National Terror Threat Level to Probable in August 2024.
On 15 December we found out that Naveed Akram had been a person of interest to ASIO and that he had temporarily been put on an ASIO watchlist in October 2019, but taken off six months later. We found this out, not from the Government, but from the ABC reporting from a senior source in the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team, forced to speak on condition of anonymity.
On 16 December we found out that Naveed Akram had extensive associations with Sydney’s notorious hate preachers and convicted terrorists. We discovered this not through transparency from this Government, but from an ASIO official speaking on condition of anonymity to the ABC. This was despite the Prime Minister telling us agencies had no prior evidence of his radicalisation.
Again through the ABC on 16 December, we learnt a vital detail that the Akrams had travelled to the Philippines the month before the attack to seek training with Islamic State affiliates. Again we learnt a vital detail that raises key questions about the counter-terrorism response, not from the Government being candid, but from counter-terrorism officials risking their careers to speak to the press.
On Christmas Eve, a high-ranking AFP Officer told us that the Government had exercised wilful blindness in ignoring the deficiencies in counter-terrorism resourcing and wilful blindness in ignoring how antisemitism was accelerating the terror threat to Australians. The Albanese Government did not allow us to hear from this official in the open, instead this person was forced to put their career on the line and write in The Australian under a pseudonym to give Australians the truth.
On 2 January, once more the void of this Government’s silence was filled by concerned counter-terrorism officials who told The Australian of dangerous intelligence failures between Commonwealth and State agencies and a slowness of our counter-terrorism system to adapt to antisemitism as a driver of terrorism.
Now this week on 5 January The Nightly reports of that under-funding by this government led to the Australian Federal Police to shut down its national surveillance team – a team of specialists set up to monitor High Risk Terrorist Offenders. The team was disbanded just weeks before the Bondi Massacre.
Under the Albanese Government, chronic under-resourcing and a pathological failure to take seriously how antisemitism was inflaming the terror threat, has left Australia’s counter-terrorism system in crisis. None of these details came to light from the Government being open with the Australian people – the truth was given to us by professionals inside the system who have dedicated their lives to keeping us safe, but who now have felt it necessary to risk their careers-of-service in order to tell us important truths – truths this Government seeks to keep hidden to this very day through its continued refusal to allow a Commonwealth Royal Commission.