{"id":460895,"date":"2026-02-05T21:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T21:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/460895\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T21:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T21:46:16","slug":"albanese-ley-condemn-alleged-act-of-terror-targeting-indigenous-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/460895\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese, Ley condemn alleged act of terror targeting Indigenous protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The prime minister has condemned the alleged attempted bombing of a peaceful Invasion Day protest as driven by “hatred”, after police revealed the attack had been declared an act of terror.<\/p>\n

A 31-year-old man \u2014 whose identity has been suppressed by state courts \u2014 was charged with engaging in a terrorist act after police alleged he threw a homemade “fragment bomb” into a crowd at the rally in Perth.<\/p>\n

West Australian Premier Roger Cook on Thursday said the charge alleged that the man was motivated by “hateful, racist ideology”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The homemade explosive device did not detonate when it was thrown into the crowd of thousands, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament that it did not “change the fact that this attack was real”.<\/p>\n

Invasion Day rally attempted bombing declared terrorist act<\/a><\/p>\n

The attempted bombing of an Invasion Day rally in Perth’s CBD last week is declared a terrorist attack by authorities.<\/p>\n

“And the intended consequences would have, indeed, been horrific \u2014 death, injury, trauma beyond imagining,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I know that First Nations people around Australia are grappling with that \u2026 As a government, as a parliament, and as a nation, we see you, and we stand with you.”<\/p>\n

The prime minister was briefed on the investigation in Canberra by the Australian Federal Police and West Australian police commissioners on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He said the attack was alleged terrorism driven by “racism and hatred” and that the protest crowd was “allegedly targeted because they were Indigenous”.<\/p>\n

“Hate that should have been banished to the dark reaches of history yet still lives in the dark corners of the internet,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Sussan<\/p>\n

Sussan Ley called on Australians to “nurture peaceful civil debate” in the wake of the alleged attack.\u00a0 (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

His counterpart, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, called for “peaceful, civil debate” as she responded to the terror charge, which is a first in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

“These are fragile times for our society, and it is incumbent upon all of us in this place to nurture peaceful civil debate and guard our great democracy against hate and violence,” she told the parliament.<\/p>\n

“Australia is defined by tolerance and respect, and we can never accept a situation where we turn to violence to settle our political differences.”<\/p>\n

‘Hate and racism is real’: Thorpe<\/p>\n

The announcement of the terror charge came after First Nations leaders from across the country demanded a stronger response from political leaders and law enforcement authorities.<\/a><\/p>\n

When parliament returned for its first full sitting week of the year, independent senator and Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman Lidia Thorpe moved a motion in response to the attack, stating the government had a duty to protect all people equally from hate and violence.<\/p>\n

It was sponsored by First Nations Labor senators Malarndirri McCarthy, Jana Stewart and Dorinda Cox.<\/p>\n

\"Independent<\/p>\n

Lidia Thorpe has been calling for a stronger response to the alleged attack. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

“Everyone went into hiding, the media \u2026 the prime minister, tried to minimise the extreme, violent attack on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the 26 January,” Senator Thorpe said on Thursday following the announcement.<\/p>\n

“We know the hate and racism in this country is real. We know it needs to be taken seriously.”<\/p>\n

On Thursday, West Australian Police Commissioner Col Blanch acknowledged that it took time to determine whether the attack was an act of terror.<\/p>\n

‘Scared for our children’: Stronger response urged on alleged rally attack<\/a><\/p>\n

First Nations leaders have urged governments to take stronger action in response to the alleged attack at an Invasion Day rally in Perth on Monday.<\/p>\n

“All of us in this room, all of us in our community, would have seen a bomb being thrown into a crowd on Australia Day at an Invasion Day rally as an act of terror,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n

“But to charge someone with a terrorism offence, we need to have proof.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said the Western Australian Joint Counter Terrorism Team was engaged within 40 minutes of the attack.<\/p>\n

“This meant the right people, with the right experience, were engaged from the very start of the investigation,” the joint statement read.<\/p>\n

“First Nations people, like all Australians, have the right to gather peacefully without fearing for their safety.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The prime minister has condemned the alleged attempted bombing of a peaceful Invasion Day protest as driven by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[236816,69,4398,43,6830,228214,128181,17190,44,1158,84,120749,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-460895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-act-of-terror","tag-federal-government","tag-first-nations","tag-headlines","tag-indigenous-australians","tag-invasion-day","tag-lidia-thorpe","tag-malarndirri-mccarthy","tag-news","tag-police","tag-politics","tag-terror-attack","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}