Why Not Even Tragedy Could ‘Rally’ Australians Around PM Albanese

(This piece will also be published across various Australian publications)

For political scientists, the “rally ’round the flag” effect is one of the most consistent and widely observed phenomena in democratic politics. In moments of national trauma – terror attacks, wars, or sudden external threats – citizens tend to suspend partisan judgment and coalesce behind their leaders. Approval ratings often rise, sometimes dramatically, as fear, grief, and uncertainty generate a psychological instinct for unity and authority. We saw this happen in Israel post Oct 7, 2023. Pre Oct 7, Netanyahu was facing constant protests demanding his resignation and was being investigated for an array of allegations. However, after Oct 7, he was transformed into a war time leader that we must rally around. This stems from the idea that in moments of crisis, change would only bring more uncertainty and fear.

This is not conjecture or folklore. It is a well-documented pattern that has appeared across political systems and decades, from the United States after September 11 to European governments facing sudden security shocks. The rally effect is not about admiration; it is about instinct. In moments of danger, societies look for something solid, and the office of national leadership becomes a focal point. That person is in charge and is the leader when we need a leader the most.

And yet, after the antisemitic Hanukkah massacre at Bondi – the largest terrorist attack ever to hit Australian shores – an attack that by every established measure should have produced exactly such a rally effect – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese experienced the opposite.

That failure is not merely unusual. It is politically and morally revealing.

As a journalist, what strikes me is not simply that the rally effect failed to appear, but that its absence has been so stark and sustained. For anyone familiar with the literature, this is not a marginal anomaly. It is a warning sign. When even tragedy cannot generate unity behind leadership, it suggests that the public is not reacting to the crisis alone, but to a longer story that the crisis has forced into view.

The rally effect did not fail because the theory is wrong.

It failed because the preconditions for trust were already gone.

Embed from Getty Images

What the rally effect is – and what it isn’t

The ‘rally ‘round the flag effect’ is often misunderstood as automatic sympathy for a leader at a time of mourning. In reality, it is far more conditional. Political science identifies three core ingredients: a dramatic and focused crisis, a perception of national vulnerability or threat, and – most critically – a belief that leadership is credible, competent, and acting decisively just as they were voted to do.

When these align, approval spikes are common. Even leaders with middling popularity can receive a short-term boost. But when credibility is weak, when warnings appear to have been ignored, or when responses feel delayed or procedural, the rally does not occur. In some cases, it reverses.

This distinction matters, because Bondi was not ambiguous. It was not diffuse. It was not slow-moving. It was violent, symbolic, and devastating. If ever there were a moment when the rally effect should have manifested, this was it.

Its absence therefore demands investigation and points directly at the top of the leadership structure in Australia.

Why Bondi should have produced a rally

The massacre occurred during a public religious celebration – Hanukkah – near one of Australia’s most recognisable public spaces. Fifteen people were murdered. The attack was devastating in scale and national in meaning. It shattered the illusion that Australia’s social tensions were rhetorical rather than lethal. It eroded a non written policy that i believe Australia had adopted. In my opinion Australia acted like the British in the 19th century – adopting a policy of “splendid isolation”. In many ways that idea held up. Whilst most of the Western world in the past two decades has seen numerous terrorist attacks – Australia by contrast – had seen maybe 1 or 2 relatively small and isolated ones. However, it was always just a matter of time before the illusion of Australia being in ‘Splendid isolation’ came crashing down. It did so – dramatically, tragically, publicly and at one of the nations most recognised spaces. And now what has plagued other western nations has finally reached our picturesque shores.

Political leaders offered condolences. Vigils were held. The country mourned.

From a purely analytical standpoint, this is textbook rally territory.

Australia also has historical memory of this phenomenon. After Port Arthur, Australians rallied behind leadership under PM Howard, that acted decisively and unapologetically. Unity followed clarity. Trust followed action.

But Bondi did not produce unity. It produced interrogation and anger.

And that difference matters and is incredibly telling.

Embed from Getty Images

The reverse rally: when tragedy sharpens blame

Polling in the weeks following Bondi showed sharp declining approval for the Prime Minister and growing dissatisfaction with the government’s response. Rather than granting indulgence, voters appeared to reassess leadership more critically. Even throwing up options such as One Nation that a mere decade ago would have been laughable.

This is what political scientists describe as a “reverse rally” – a situation in which a crisis intensifies judgment instead of suspending it.

From my perspective, this is where Bondi cannot be separated from what came before it. The attack did not land in a vacuum. It landed after more than two years in which Jewish Australians had repeatedly warned – publicly and privately- that antisemitism was escalating, normalising, and becoming more dangerous – and the outcome would be inevitable unless it was addressed with moral courage and true leadership.

Those warnings were often met with language about “social cohesion,” with hesitation about naming antisemitism directly, or with the suggestion that Jewish concerns were part of a broader abstract problem rather than a specific and accelerating threat.

By the time violence arrived, many people – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – did not experience shock alone. They experienced recognition. A moment where they said “if you couldn’t see that coming, you should have gone have gone to specsavers”.

That recognition is fatal to a rally effect.

Antisemitism as a long fuse, not a sudden spark

Data has confirmed what many Jewish communities had been saying for years. Antisemitic incidents in Australia surged dramatically after October 2023 and remained at historically high levels through 2024 and 2025. Harassment, vandalism, threats, and assaults became persistent rather than episodic.

From a political-science perspective, this matters because rally effects collapse when a crisis is perceived as preventable. When the public believes that warning signs were visible, plainly pointed out to leadership and unaddressed, unity turns into accountability.

Bondi was therefore not understood as a random eruption of hatred. It was understood as the violent end-point of an environment that had been allowed to deteriorate.

That interpretation determines political outcomes and the fate of leadership.

Process versus authority

After Bondi, the government announced reviews, frameworks, and legislative responses. Some of these measures may prove necessary – sure. But rally effects are not driven by administrative competence alone. They are driven by authority and actual leadership – by the sense that leadership understands the gravity of the moment and is prepared to act accordingly.

From my vantage point, one of the most damaging aspects of the response was the mismatch between the scale of the trauma and the scale of the political language used to address it. Where communities demanded something with the moral weight of a national reckoning, they were offered process.

It really spirals out of control when you take in the NSW Premier Chris Minns response to the tragedy. In his case, the rally effect has absolutely kicked in. Premier Minns is from the same party as the PM (Labour), yet the difference in the public’s perception of the two could not be more stark. The premier did, in my opinion, three key things that encapsulates the very essence of true leadership during tragedy. First, he took ownership and apologised – genuinely and solemnly. He attended each funeral, he met each survivor – and when he did he didn’t offer hollow words – he offered his time, his ear and his voice to them. Second, he named it – unmistakably and unashamedly – pure and utter antisemitism, perpetrated by Islamic extremism. Lastly, he asked the community to stick by him and watch what he does next. He did not wait for the public to put the onus on him – he put it on himself. That is the clearest example of why the rally effect has seen Premier Minns approval ratings skyrocket.

Political science tells us that in moments of trauma, citizens are not reassured by complexity. They are reassured by clarity.

The absence of that clarity made unity impossible on a national level.

Embed from Getty Images

Why trust matters more than grief

One of the more counter-intuitive findings in rally-effect research is that leaders with lower baseline approval can still experience rallies – if the crisis response is perceived as credible, strong and unifying.

Remove credibility, and tragedy does not save you. It exposes you Mr Albanese.

Bondi did not erase doubts about leadership. It crystallised them.

Bondi as a national mirror

Bondi forced Australians to confront three realities simultaneously: the fragility of public safety, the lethal consequences of unchecked antisemitism, and the possibility/probability that institutions had not adapted quickly enough to a changed social environment.

In such moments, people look to leadership not for comfort alone, but for command.

Many have simply concluded they did not see it and certainly don’t believe it’s coming.

Embed from Getty Images

Why this failure of ‘a rally’ is so damning

The rally effect is not guaranteed, but it is common enough that its absence is meaningful. It is the public’s instinct to hold onto something solid when the ground shakes.

When a leader cannot receive even that temporary indulgence, it suggests that the public no longer believes the leader is the stabilising force they need.

That is not a partisan judgment. It is a legitimacy problem.

Bondi was not only a test of security. It was a test of moral seriousness. And for many Australians, that test had been failed long before the attack occurred.

You cannot rally your way out of a credibility crisis

Political science is unambiguous on this point. Rally effects require trust. They require belief. They require a sense that leadership has been vigilant before the crisis, not merely visible after it.

When those conditions are absent, tragedy does not unite. It divides and judges.

Bondi was an atrocity. But it was also a mirror.

And what that mirror revealed was devastating: not even national trauma could rally the country behind its Prime Minister.

That is not a quirk of polling. It is a verdict.