Police Waited Nine Days to Call Perth Bombing a Terror Attack

Western Australian police took nine days to classify a homemade bomb thrown at an Indigenous Invasion Day rally in Perth on January 26 as a terror attack. The device, packed with ball bearings and screws, landed near a crowd of roughly 2,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That delay has become central to a federal parliamentary inquiry examining racism and institutional failures in the response to threats against First Nations communities. Witnesses testified on July 13 that police failed to brief organisers in advance despite advance warnings of threats.