A Sydney man who made death threats to Anthony Albanese the day after the Bondi Beach terrorist attack has avoided jail after apologising for his “unacceptable behaviour”.
Gregory William Tait, 44, from Greystanes in Sydney’s west, told Parramatta Local Court he was dealing with the death of his father, had been drinking and taking sleeping pills, and felt outraged by the attack on the Jewish community that left 15 people dead.
He told the court he personally knew one of the victims, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, and had been horrified by what happened to him when he decided to call the Prime Minister’s office and told a staffer who answered the phone: “I will come to your office … I’ll kill him … I’ll kill you both.”
Sydney man Gregory William Tait has apologised to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for making death threats to him after the Bondi terror attack and urged Australians to “maintain democracy”.
In a second phone call, he left a voice message that said in part, “You have turned our country into a third world war zone … and the blood is on your hands labour (sic) and I hope the blood finds you, and I hope that you pay the ultimate price for immigration.”
From the witness box, Tait told the court he was starting to get on top of his psychiatric issues and apologised to Mr Albanese and his staffers.
“I felt powerless and frustrated and outraged and I didn’t know how to deal with it without my father,” Tait explained.
He pleaded guilty to two charges of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.
In convicting and sentencing Tait to a two-year good behaviour bond, Acting Judge Timothy Keady said these offences could have devastating effects on the victims regardless of the actual intentions of those making the threats.
Judge Keady said they were an “offence against the body politic” and politicians should be able to do their jobs without being subjected to this kind of “cowardly” behaviour that could have a “sinister” effect by subverting democracy.
“Politicians and those that work for them should be able to go into the public domain without that kind of fear,” Mr Keady said.
Tait made two phone calls to Mr Albanese’s office on December 15 last year after the horrific terror attack on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. Fifteen people were killed and more than 40 were injured in the worst terrorist attack ever committed in Australia.
After entering into the two-year community corrections order, during which he cannot drink alcohol or take drugs and must participate in counselling, Mr Tait donned a pair of “smart glasses” and repeated his apology to Mr Albanese to reporters.
“I’d like to encourage all Australians that we do live in a democracy, even if it doesn’t feel like it, we do live in one,” he said.
“We must maintain this and behaving like myself will certain not maintain this democracy.”
Tait also addressed One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and her “statement about no good Muslims”, pointing to his two legal representatives as “two of the best Muslims we have in this country”.
“It proves that she might just be a little bit wrong,” he said.
He then added that he had a YouTube channel where he shared his thoughts.