Ian Hickie: Social cohesion at the heart of preventing attacks like Bondi ahead of Royal Commission

The Prime Minister’s decision to establish a royal commission into anti-Semitism and social cohesion following the horrific alleged attack at Bondi Beach recognises a hard truth: when social cohesion is weak, there is a negative effect on the health and safety of the entire community.

This is more than a matter of law enforcement or protection of a minority, it is a mental health issue that affects all Australians.

Two fundamentals underpin good mental health: strong social connection and personal autonomy.

Liberal democracies such as Australia make both possible because they rest on shared social and cultural values embedded in our political and legal systems.

Most of the time we take these foundations for granted, with their real value becoming clear only when they’re threatened.

While anti-Semitism must be confronted, the commission’s second mandate, social cohesion, deserves deep scrutiny.

From a mental health perspective, social cohesion is the equivalent of a clean water supply. You need it to be in place, and robust, long before disaster strikes.

It sustains health and wellbeing, underpins trust and supports economic and national security. When cohesion is weak, fear spreads, productivity declines and societies become more vulnerable to internal division and manipulation.

Australia has seen the benefits of cohesion in moments of crisis such as the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, the physical health threat of COVID-19, natural disasters such as the 2019-20 bushfires or 2022 eastern Australian floods.

It underpins a resilient community that can rapidly bounce back after disasters.

Social cohesion must be present and real. It doesn’t arise from slogans, symbolism or government-sponsored ad campaigns. It is built through everyday contact with those people who are different from us.

Those who express different views and live different lives. It thrives on interactions in childcare centres, schools, workplaces, sporting clubs, places of worship and neighbourhoods.

These shared spaces aren’t social luxuries, they are essential to ensuring our collective mental “wealth”.

Other shared experiences, like the use of volunteers as the key workforce for the 2000 Sydney Olympics can create real social value.

Supporting our national sporting teams, like that seen during the 2023 Matildas’ World Cup campaign draws many of us together in new ways.

On a more regular basis, getting out and supporting your own local sporting team along with others from many different cultural and economic backgrounds creates new bonds.

Joining other community groups, such as sporting or social clubs, charities or choirs promotes tolerance of other perspectives. It’s particularly important to the social development of children and young people.

Feeling safe in the presence of those who look, speak, believe and act differently is based on coming to trust those “others” we are most unfamiliar with. Fear and mistrust flourish when we all retreat and live our lives exclusively within our own kinship groups. It’s then easily inflamed by the public figures, and social media voices, that demonise the “outsiders”.

When social cohesion grows, our mental health improves quickly but when it declines we are headed to despair. It rests strongly on enduring trust in valued institutions, governments, the media and community leaders.

Just like clean water, the infrastructure to support social cohesion needs to be robust and in place long before any real threat materialises.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, do we really want to accept unreasonable blaming, rage, finger-pointing or opportunistic political point-scoring?

Or do we want to thrive in our multicultural community which is capable of high levels of social cohesion? We must not retreat to our tribes which encourage us to exclude outsiders. That is not what Australia is.

If we really desire to live in a more diverse and inclusive, but still cohesive community, how can we build that in a world that is now dominated by illiberal autocracies, increasingly polarised democratic states, misinformation, devalued media and active demonisation of the others? We can all play a role in promoting social cohesion and it must be an urgent priority not only for our leaders, but for all of us.

To feel safe, to trust those in our communities who aren’t like us is something we have capacity for. But we need to live it. And Australia will be a better community for it. We can clean up the water of public mental health, one small act of connection and trust at a time.

Professor Ian Hickie is the co-director of the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre