Pauline Hanson has slammed the Albanese Government for orchestrating a cover-up over the Bondi terror attack after the Australian Federal Police blocked One Nation's bid to force the release of video footage showing accused gunman Naveed Akram and his father Sajid. According to police, the suppressed tape captures the duo posing with firearms in front of an Islamic State flag while reciting from the Qur'an and explicitly detailing their violent motives.
Recovered directly from Naveed Akram's phone, the full video remains locked away from the public, despite a court releasing a detailed written description in December that made headlines worldwide. One Nation has now dragged the AFP's refusal before the Information Commissioner to break Labor's secrecy.
"Labor hasn't been upfront with Australians about the Bondi attack," Senator Hanson said in a statement. "Labor is trying to hide the truth because they don't want to offend western Sydney electorates."
Inside the Suppressed Video Labor Doesn't Want You to See
On 22 December, when suppression orders were lifted, the court released documents detailing the chilling evidence against Naveed Akram, exposing the raw reality Labor is fighting so hard to keep hidden.
The documents outline a video recorded in October 2025, just two months before the massacre. It shows Naveed Akram, then 24, and his father Sajid, 50, clad in black T-shirts and seated in front of an Islamic State flag, flanked by firearms and ammunition. Naveed Akram is captured appearing to recite a passage from the Qur'an in Arabic before both men switch to English, explicitly setting out their motives for the impending Bondi attack and damning "Zionists." Police describe the recording as evidence of the pair's allegiance to ISIS and their ideological justification for the slaughter that followed.
Two months later, on 14 December, the pair allegedly executed that plan, opening fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. Fifteen innocent people were murdered and 40 more wounded in the single deadliest act of terrorism in Australian history. While Sajid Akram was shot dead by police at the scene, Naveed survived to face 59 charges, including committing a terrorist act and 15 counts of murder.
Labor’s convenient defence for keeping the footage gagged relies on standard FOI provisions regarding pending trials. But Senator Hanson says the public trial argument falls flat when the court itself has already placed the details on the public record.
"One Nation applied for the release of the video under freedom of information law. The AFP blocked that application," Hanson said. "Detailed descriptions of the video and other material have already been released by the court and reported on by the media. There's no reason to keep the actual video secret."
The Bondi timeline: what officials said and when
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 14 December 2025 | Gunmen open fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and wounding about 40. NSW Police declare it a terrorist incident that night. |
| 16 December | AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett says the alleged attackers "aligned themselves to a terrorist organisation, not a religion". Albanese cites "Islamic State ideology" for the first time. |
| 17 December | Naveed Akram is charged with 59 offences, including committing a terrorist act and 15 counts of murder. |
| 19 December | Albanese announces a national firearms buyback. |
| 22 December | A suppression order lifts and court documents describe the Islamic State flag video in detail. |
| 29 December | Former AFP chief Mick Keelty calls Barrett's "not a religion" line a conceptual error. |
| 20 January 2026 | Parliament passes the gun and hate speech package at a special sitting. |
| 10 June | Nineteen further charges are laid against Naveed Akram. |
| 20 August | Hanson reveals the AFP blocked One Nation's FOI bid for the video. The same day, Albanese demands a "far more transparent" explanation from Israel over Zomi Frankcom's death. |
Labor’s Denial Tactics Exposed: Sanitising Radical Ideology
Just two days after Australia's worst terrorist massacre, AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett stepped up to a national press conference and delivered a line that a former AFP chief would soon publicly tear apart. While acknowledging the slaughter was "inspired by Islamic State," Barrett claimed: "These are the alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves to a terrorist organisation, not a religion."
Former AFP Chief Mick Keelty ripped into that political spin, labelling Barrett’s rhetoric "deeply troubling" and calling it out as a "tortured distinction" built on a massive "conceptual error." Writing on 29 December, Keelty set the record straight: "ISIS is a Sunni Islamist extremist organisation that commits acts of terrorism in the name of a rigid and violent interpretation of Islam." Despite Keelty’s sharp intervention, authorities under Labor have spent months dragging out this desperate damage-control narrative, a topic now sparking heated clashes in Senate Estimates.
Senator Hanson says the government's refusal to unseal the phone footage has nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with political embarrassment.
"The AFP Commissioner tried to tell Australians the Bondi attack was not motivated by religion," Hanson said. "Releasing a video of the alleged attackers in front of an Islamic State flag and reciting from the Qur'an would be deeply embarrassing for the authorities who tried to downplay the threat."
Political Scapegoating: How Albanese Dodged Naming ISIS to Attack Gun Owners
In the critical hours following the Bondi massacre, Anthony Albanese engaged in deliberate verbal gymnastics. He routinely condemned an act of "evil," "antisemitism," and "terrorism", yet he conspicuously refused to say "Islam" or "Islamic State." It took nearly two days for the Prime Minister to finally admit the alleged shooters were driven by "Islamic State ideology," and another two days before he conceded the attack was fuelled by an extreme "perversion of Islam."
Senator Hanson says Labor's calculated reluctance to speak the truth exposed the Prime Minister’s true priorities.
"For almost two days after the attack, the Prime Minister refused to call it what it was: Islamic terrorism," Hanson said. "Instead, he scapegoated law-abiding firearms owners."
Just five days after the attack, Albanese pivoted from the violent radical ideology behind the assault to launch a massive national firearms buyback aimed at seizing hundreds of thousands of legally owned guns. Labor forced the sweep through Parliament alongside sweeping new hate speech legislation at a special sitting on 20 January, leaving state authorities to confiscate the property of law-abiding citizens. By aggressively disarming sports shooters and farmers, Labor deflected public attention from the radical Islamist threat, burying the footage that proves it.
The Gaza Hypocrisy: Albanese Demands Evidence from Israel While Gagging the AFP
On the very same day Pauline Hanson exposed Labor’s Bondi blackout, Anthony Albanese took to national media to lecture a foreign government on transparency. The Israeli military had just cleared its soldiers of criminal wrongdoing over the April 2024 drone strikes that killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six of her World Central Kitchen colleagues in Gaza, while acknowledging serious failures in how the convoy was identified.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Albanese's own Special Adviser, former Defence Force Chief Mark Binskin, already examined Israel's handling of the Gaza strike, and Albanese is still weaponising the tragedy to demand foreign accountability while actively running cover for police secrecy at home.
Binskin's public report, released in August 2024, found the strike was not knowingly or deliberately directed at the aid workers, and that Israel's investigation and response had been "timely, appropriate and, with some exceptions, sufficient". Two years on, and with that report sitting on his own department's website, the Prime Minister wants another review.
When a foreign country fighting a multi front war takes immediate public responsibility and sacks officers, Albanese calls it a "nothing to see here" report. But when his own Federal Police lock away a video of an accused ISIS pledged terrorist right here in Australia, a recording a court has already detailed, Albanese hides behind administrative red tape and refuses to lift a finger.
Hanson is demanding the exact same thing of Albanese that he demands of foreign leaders: total transparency. The Prime Minister expects full disclosure from international allies, yet allows his government to gag a tape police say shows radical Islamic terrorism was brought directly to Australian shores.
Endless Administrative Red Tape and Labor Stalling Tactics
For the suppressed Bondi tape, the battle now drags into the office of the Information Commissioner, a bureaucratic maze where Pauline Hanson warns the process could take years. The appeal forms a critical spearhead in Pauline Hanson's One Nation's wider national security push, which recently included direct moves to block returning ISIS fighters from ever setting foot on Australian soil.
"We have now appealed the decision to the Information Commissioner, but that process could take years," Hanson said. "Whether it is who we allow into Australia, how we deal with extremists already here, the return of the ISIS brides or what Australians are told after a terrorist attack, national security starts with telling the truth."
Labor is hiding behind slow moving government oversight processes to ensure the raw reality of the Bondi attack remains gagged long past the next election. While Anthony Albanese demands instant accountability from international governments, his administration forces Australians to endure years of bureaucratic delays just to see the evidence captured by their own police force.
"Australians should not have to wait years to learn the truth," Hanson declared. "The Albanese Government must release the video now and be upfront about the threat of radical Islamic terrorism."
