There have been some notable no-shows at the Ashes this summer. In the wake of her travel allowances scandal, the high-flying Minister for Sport, Ms Anika Wells, missed the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the first time since she was handed the plum portfolio in 2022.

Ms Wells was also absent from the Prime Minister’s annual New Year’s Day function at Kirribilli House, ahead of the fifth and final Ashes Test in Sydney. She is usually the master of ceremonies, but she still appears to be in witness protection.

Mr Albanese took the opportunity to say that Australians had shown courage, commitment, and kindness to each other, and in a revealing moment of grammatical awkwardness, said ‘they’ve reached out and wrapped our arms around the Jewish community and wrapped our arms around each other as well.’

Sadly, it expressed more eloquently than words the way in which the Prime Minister has been incapable of wrapping his own arms around the Jewish community, even in their darkest hour.

Cricket was going to unite the nation, Mr Albanese said, and the Sydney Test will be the next example of that. But it was with no help from Mr Albanese, who failed to show his face on the first day of the Test when Cricket Australia and a sold-out crowd paid a stirring tribute to the heroes and victims of the Bondi massacre. An on-field salute transformed the hallowed grounds into a shrine of national remembrance and gratitude, honouring the slain victims and the ordinary people – have–a–go heroes – who did extraordinary things in the face of evil.

Some were members of the Jewish community, targeted by the terrorists, who died or survived while trying to disarm the gunman or shelter others from the bullets.

Some were first responders who raced towards danger when others fled to safety – paramedics, nurses, surf lifesavers, SES, and police, one of whom lost his sight in one eye.

At the heart of the tribute was 14-year-old Chaya Dadon, who was shot when she left her refuge to shield two small children with her body, and international hero Syrian-Australian Ahmed al-Ahmed, who leapt onto the older terrorist and wrestled his gun off him.

It is a telling comment on the antisemitism in Palestinian society that one of the few places where Mr Ahmed has not been celebrated is in Ramallah on the West Bank, where he has been condemned as a ‘traitor’ for saving Jewish lives.

The crowd at the cricket ground however stood in solidarity with the Jewish community that has felt so alone over the past two years as antisemitism has burned like a deadly bushfire that our Prime Minister hardly acknowledged, let alone tried to extinguish. After weeks of refusing to call a royal commission, Mr Albanese cuts a pathetic figure, hiding from public appearances because he is frightened of being booed and incapable of showing enough humility to admit his errors and  seek forgiveness.

Polls show that Australians think the Prime Minister’s handling of Islamic extremism and antisemitism is as bad as his woeful Voice to Parliament, with both being rejected by more than 60 per cent of the population. Both stem from the leftist ideology that so distances him and his faction from mainstream Australians. Sadly, it is the pain in the polls that is likely to shift the Prime Minister’s position on a royal commission rather than any insight into its necessity.

In his absence, others have stepped up to fill the vacuum. This week, it was 88-year-old swimming legend Dawn Fraser who had the courage to say that Australia doesn’t have a gun problem, it has an antisemitism problem that politicians are too frightened to address for fear of being called racist.

A national tragedy is a test of character for the people caught up in it, for our leaders and for the whole nation. It is a test that the Prime Minister has dismally failed, diminishing in stature each day. It is a test, however, that the nation has passed with flying colours, showing that the spirit of Anzac, so derided by our intellectual elite, is alive and well in the hearts of ordinary Australians.