Tom Venning, Liberal Member for Grey (and others)
83 Florence Street Port Pirie, SA, 5540
15 December 2025
Dear Mr. Venning,
I am writing on behalf of the Coober Pedy Shooters Club members and other law-abiding firearms license holders, requesting advocacy on this issue.
We are appalled that the Albanese Labor Government is exploiting the tragedy of the Bondi terrorist attack to shift blame onto firearms and pursue additional restrictions on responsible, law-abiding license holders.
Two gunmen carried out a horrific act of violence in Australia, leaving 16 people dead and 40 others injured. The scale and brutality of the attack demand serious and honest questions: How were individuals capable of such violence able to carry it out, and why were there warning signs not acted upon?
The focus must be on identifying and addressing these systemic failures, rather than deflecting blame onto law-abiding citizens who were not involved in this tragedy. Imposing further restrictions on law-abiding firearm owners will not address firearm crime.
The current Government has demonstrated a lack of effective governance. The Victorian Labor Government banned knives and machetes at a reported cost of $13 million for just 40 bins, yet knife and machete attacks have continued.
Where is the public outrage that the alleged shooter was known to authorities and had reportedly appeared on an ASIO list in 2019 for links to an Islamic terrorist group? This represents a serious failure by both the NSW and Federal Governments in their duty of care to the Jewish community and the broader Australian public.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a letter to the Australian Government three months ago, warning that the Australian policies were promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia.
He wrote, “Your call for a Palestinian State adds fuel to the antisemitic fire, it rewards HAMAS terrorism, it emboldens those who menace Australian Jew and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets. Antisemitism is a cancer, and it spreads when leaders stay silent, retreats when leaders act.”
“I called upon you to replace weakness with actions, appeasement with resolve.” President Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Instead, Prime Minister, you replaced weakness with weak weakness and appeasement with more appeasement”.
Your Government did NOTHING to stop antisemitism in Australia. You did NOTHING to curb the cancer cells growing inside your country. You took no action; you let the disease spread, and the result is the horrific attack on Jews we saw today.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/14/world/video/netanyahu-israel-australia-shooting-bondi-latam-intl
The Labor Government have BLOOD on their hands.
It’s time for the Governor-General to step up and dismiss Prime Minister ALBANESE.
Australia deserves better leadership.
Kind Regards,
John Di Donna
Secretary Coober Pedy Shooters Club.
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Categories: GENERAL News, LETTERS TO EDITOR, PUBLIC NOTICES
Coober Pedy Regional Times 
Australia has just experienced a terrible mass shooting, and as an American, I understand how you may feel. It’s complicated. In the US, we’ve heard many times from the pro-gun lobby that guns don’t kill people – people kill people. It’s a tough argument to make here where gun control regulations vary from state to state, from none at all (none at all!!) to strict in Massachusetts where I live. We need some national gun control in the US to protect our people, our children. We’ve had 400+ mass shootings (over 4 people killed) just this year alone, so gun regulation is a sensitive issue for us. I understand why the Albanese Gov’t is looking hard at gun regulations again. But in this situation, and in too many here as well, the inaction of Gov’t, after warnings and evidence have been received, is baffling. If you get a tip that someone is on a list of bad people, wouldn’t you watch them closely? Might not you pull them in for questioning at least? And how like Netanyahu to deflect blame from himself to the Australian Gov’t!! He’s made being against the policies of the Israeli Gov’t an act of anti-semitism. You don’t think the massacre of 70,000 Palestinians by the IDF has something to do with the rising antisemitism in the world?? It does. These shooters at Bondi were not acting in a vacuum. As I said, it’s complicated – several things can be true at the same time. I’m so very sorry for all the families who suffered loss – there’s no excuse for acts of this kind against innocent people anywhere in the world.