Garbage have responded to the shooting at a Hanukkah party on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, saying we “simply can’t go on hurting one another like this”.
On Sunday (December 14), at least 12 people died, including one gunman, and 29 others were taken to hospital, in what has been declared a terror attack at the Australian resort.
More than 1000 people were attending an event celebrating the first day of the Jewish festival Hanukkah on the beach, and the incident has been described by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “an evil act of anti-Semitism”.
Garbage are currently on a tour around Australia, and they played at the iconic Sydney Opera House just hours after the attack on Sunday, where they paid tribute to victims of the tragedy during the introduction to ‘Queer’.
Singer Shirley Manson addressed the crowd: “This has become an astoundingly frightening, violent, hateful, intolerant world, and I think the only thing we can do really, as people who do not believe in all this separation and all this intolerance, all we can really do is really try and profess our love for one another,” she said, to rousing applause.
Watch her speech here:
“We have been a band that have always believed that we are one people under one sun,” she continued. “It doesn’t matter what god you worship, what colour of your skin, what your gender is, what your sexual orientation is, what food you like to eat, what clothes you like to wear, how you like to hang your junk, whether you like to wear a bra or not wear a bra.”
“You get my point, it’s all so fucking stupid, we have people in power telling us to really hate one another, to destroy one another.”
With that, someone from the crowd shouted, “Free Palestine”, to which Manson responded: “Of course. Free fucking Palestine too. Everybody deserves to live a life of love and have their children be safe. And so I’m sorry to bring things down, but I really thought it was important to mention what happened today.”
Garbage also took to Instagram on Sunday to decry the “vile” attack, sharing that “six of our own, beloved and close family members were at Bondi Beach just a few hours before this horrendous incident took place”.
The band’s Instagram post read: “What kind of world we’re living in right now? Innocent people were targeted while celebrating life and faith. This should never happen to anyone, anywhere. My heart is with the Jewish community in Bondi, with the victims, the injured, and the families whose lives are forever changed.”
“This is what we stand against,” they added. “Hatred. Racism. Division. Violence in all its forms. There is no place for hate or brutality in our society. We must not allow this horror to be used to divide us. Let it remind us to stand closer and tighter with each other, with love, shared feeling, shared humanity, and for each other.”
“If you are able to donate blood in Sydney, please do,” it concluded. “Lives depend on it.”
The post’s caption went further, stating: “Fuck all this vile antisemitism. Fuck Islamophobia. The killing has to stop. It is insane and wildly cruel. We have to find a way forward. We simply can’t go on hurting one another like this.”
The New South Wales premier Chris Minns said that individuals began firing on a “crowded group of families” at about 6:47pm, describing the attack as a “cowardly act of terrifying violence” that “represents some of our worst fears about terrorism in Sydney”.
In other news, Manson went on a rant about fans throwing beach balls in the crowd during their show at Melbourne’s Good Things Festival last week.
