One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts again fails to rule out Bondi beach terror attack being ‘false flag’

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has caused further confusion in comments about the Bondi beach antisemitic terror attack, clarifying that he thought it was an “absurd proposition” to call the shooting a “false flag” but standing by his claim that he didn’t have “data” to rule it out.

Roberts, Pauline Hanson’s fellow senator from Queensland, was interviewed on a YouTube channel, with the clip posted earlier this month.At one point in the 23-minute clip, social media creator Lisa Jane Spencer asked “do you think that Bondi was a false flag?”

A “false flag” is a term for an event or attack which would later be blamed on someone other than the actual perpetrator. The term originated in military operations, but is also commonly used by conspiracy theorists to claim governments stage false events to create favourable circumstances for actions which would otherwise be unpopular.

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Roberts first responded “we haven’t had the royal commission”, before criticising prime minister Anthony Albanese’s initial opposition to holding such an inquiry, going on to claim Labor had tolerated antisemitism and “given fertile ground for Islamic terrorists”.

“So, what was the question? Oh that’s right, false flag. I haven’t got the evidence. I doubt whether it was a false flag,” Roberts said.

The interviewer responded: “it was a bit sus [suspicious] afterwards when the laws came out.”

Roberts replied: “I’m going to challenge you on that, because while what you said is correct, there are so many things in the last 30 years, but especially with Covid, that they seem to arrange something and then the laws would come. I can acknowledge that point, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the case here.”

“You asked me if I thought it was a false flag. If I make a statement, it’s got to be backed by fact. I don’t have the facts yet. I’m not ruling it out. You notice that?” Roberts said, before going on to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The 14 December shooting at a Chanukah festival at Bondi beach left 15 people dead. Within hours, police and investigators said they were treating the incident as an act of terrorism, allegedly inspired by Islamic State. One of the alleged shooters, Sajid Akram, was killed at the scene and his son, Naveed Akram, is before the courts, including 15 counts of murder. The federal government has convened a royal commission into the attack and broader issues of antisemitism in Australia.