- by C Bartholomew
- The Guardian
- Issue #2178
Invasion Day Boorloo (Perth) 2026.
The attempted terror attack on the Invasion Day rally in Boorloo (Perth) has laid bare the racism at the heart of Australian media and politics. The blatant hypocrisy and cowardice from Australia’s leadership and talking heads expose a bitter truth: Indigenous lives do not matter.
The Invasion Day rally was ordered to disperse by police after a homemade bomb containing explosive liquid, nails, and ball bearings was thrown into the crowd of 2,500 people. Well-known and respected elders were speaking on stage at the time. Police have confirmed that, if the bomb had successfully detonated, the result would likely have been a mass casualty event.
One article from the Australian Financial Review spent as much time talking about how the “crowd barely noticed” the bomb as it did discussing community criticism of the response from police, media, and politicians. A handful of articles from other news sources have slowly come out, some finally coming around to using the word “terror.” It should not have taken public outcry for corporate media to finally talk seriously about the attack. Their coverage is still lacklustre. The white nationalist March for Australia crowds have had far more sympathy from media and politicians.
At time of writing, the alleged perpetrator has still not been charged with a terrorism offence, reportedly because police investigations have failed to identify a motive. The 31-year-old white man’s name has been suppressed by the court out of fear for his safety in detention.
Compare this response to that of the Bondi shooting. Every corporate news channel immediately began talking about the attack. Every detail of the alleged perpetrators were the subjects of analysis and speculation. Politicians and media labelled the attack an incident of antisemitism straight away. The Albanese and Minns governments, Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal, and the Coalition seized the chance to include the shooting in their campaigns against Palestine advocacy. A Royal Commission has been called for. Now the government has the power to label anyone a hate group without oversight, with an amendment proposed by senator Lidia Thorpe to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israel roundly rejected.
Police and politicians pretending to have no clue why a white man might be motivated to throw a bomb at protesting Indigenous people is an insult. Courts hiding the attacker’s identity out of safety concerns, while Indigenous people including children die in custody and are assaulted by police, is an insult. The fact that the two charges currently laid against the attacker carry maximum sentences of two years and three years imprisonment, while members of organisations arbitrarily labelled hate groups under new legislation can face up to 15 years, is an insult.
The handling of this attempted terror attack exposes the government’s new hate crime laws for what they are. Opposition leader Sussan Ley couldn’t be bothered to comment. PM Albanese stated that authorities “should throw the book” at the suspect, yet there are currently no hate crime charges of any sort laid against the attacker. These draconian new laws are not meant to protect communities such as Indigenous peoples. They are meant to give governments unchecked power to crack down on anti-Zionism and advocacy for Palestine. The response to this attack, like the response to the neo-Nazi raid on Camp Sovereignty, shows that Albanese has no interest in any hate crime he can’t spin into support for apartheid and genocide.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission’s National Anti-Racism Framework has not been implemented. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody have not been implemented. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has not been implemented. Annual Closing the Gap reports indicate year after year that next to no action is being taken to address discrimination and inequalities.
AI-generated content commodifying or attacking Indigenous people, sometimes supported by groups like Advance Australia (backed by Jillian Segal’s husband), has not prompted any government or legislative intervention.
Indigenous patients are still being turned away or denied care by public hospitals. Indigenous people are still dying by preventable diseases of poverty, like rheumatic heart disease. Indigenous children are still assaulted, raped, put in spit hoods, and killed in detention. Indigenous people are still being attacked by police on the streets, even when they themselves were the victims of the crime that was reported. Indigenous culture is still smeared by social and corporate media, insulted by One Nation and Coalition politicians, and used as a political prop by Labor.
Perhaps corporate media and politicians are not asking how this attack could have happened because they, better than anyone, know that this is the reality of Australia. Their complicity in the everyday brutalisation of Indigenous people is hidden behind a culture of institutional and public silence they help construct. Incidents like the attempted Invasion Day bombing show Australia for what it really is. Perhaps that’s why there’s so much silence.
