Albanese rejects royal commission into Hanukkah Bondi attack

Despite multiple calls from the victims’ families, Australian politicians, and Australian rabbis for a royal commission to be opened, Albanese said in a press conference in Canberra on Monday that it is “in the national interest to do the Richardson Review on national security” instead.

The Richardson review will be carried out by Dennis Richardson, a former secretary of defense, secretary of foreign affairs, head of intelligence agencies, and ambassador to the United States.

Richardson will assess whether Commonwealth agencies, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police, operated as effectively as possible prior to the attack.

A royal commission is an independent public inquiry. In Australia, royal commissions are the highest form of inquiry on matters of public importance. The review favored by Albanese is an internal one, without the transparency.

“What the Richardson review will do is decide facts,” said Albanese. “Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views and to enable, which is what it would do, a repetition of some of the worst elements.”

A journalist pointed out that antisemitism is a national issue in Australia and that the point of the royal commission is to take a broader review.

“The Richardson review will be able to look at any issues related to the events on December 14, the atrocity that was committed,” Albanese responded.

“[Richardson] is the most experienced person who can have a look quickly, sharply, go through with the experience that he has, to determine any further actions that are required by the Commonwealth government, Or, indeed, he will talk as well with not just New South Wales, but other state agencies, if required.”

Albanese also said that the royal commission would force people to relive the atrocities, which he said he did not want to do. However, a journalist noted that reliving atrocities is a “necessary part” of holding these types of inquiries and helps to provide a vehicle for victims to be able to “express their views, but also accountability on individuals and agencies responses.”

“We need this information quickly. It’s in the interest of everyone’s safety that we get it quickly,” he said.

“Now, if you were to make those issues subject to a royal commission, it is not simply the people who feel they have been harmed by things that have been said or slogans that have been used – who will be called? It will also be those who have made those statements. They will make submissions, they will, under a royal commission, be platformed, and all of that happens again. All of that happens again and gets re-lived. Now, no one can tell me that that is in the interest of unity, to re-platform some of the worst voices."

“But a royal commission, by definition, does that and does that publicly. Now, I understand why families and different people would call for it. But when you then look at [it], is it the right way to deal with national security? The answer is no. Is it the right way to deliver unity? The answer, again, is no,” Burke continued.

“Our children feel unsafe at school and university,” read the statement. “Our homes, workplaces, sporting fields, and public spaces no longer feel secure. It is an intolerable situation that no Australian should have to endure.

“You owe us answers. You owe us accountability. And you owe Australians the truth,” the statement said.

The Rabbinical Association of Australasia also sent a letter to Albanese making similar pleas, arguing that the Bondi Beach Massacre did not emerge in a vacuum. They also said that the government’s responses to the country’s atmosphere of antisemitism had not been sufficient to rebuild trust or assuage the Jewish community’s fears.

“A federal royal commission offers a process that is independent, transparent, and capable of confronting difficult truths authoritatively,” read the letter.

“It should be enough that the families of the murdered are demanding it,” said Executive Council of Australian Jewry CEO Alex Ryvchin on Monday. “We want a royal commission to get justice and accountability. We deserve to know how this was allowed to happen and how to prevent the next massacre.”

Ryvchin is not alone. Multiple other prominent figures have made the same request, including Peter Cosgrove (former chief of the defense force); Mike Warner (former ASIO chief); Robert French (former High Court justice); Peter Beattie (former Queensland Labor premier); and over 100 top silks and multiple Labor and opposition politicians.

The West Australian newspaper did not hold back its criticism of Albanese in its Monday editorial. “The government’s flimsy justifications for its refusal to hold a federal royal commission into the events of December 14 and the socio-political environment which preceded it are growing ever more incredulous and insulting to the victims of their Bondi massacre and their grieving families,” it wrote.

It added that Burke’s statements about not wanting to provide a platform for the worst voices was “a justification that we hadn’t heard before, likely because they’d just come up with it.”

“The real reason Anthony Albanese won’t call a royal commission into this catastrophe is that he knows that, in effect, it would be an inquiry into his government’s mishandling of the antisemitism crisis and his failure to protect Australians from religious zealots intent on murder,” it said.