What happened at Bondi Beach must be stated plainly before any discussion of policy or process.
Fifteen people were murdered at a public Hanukkah gathering in Sydney, among them a 10-year-old child. The attack targeted Jews celebrating a religious holiday in one of Australia’s most recognizable public spaces. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on Australian soil in modern history, and it shattered the long-held belief that mass antisemitic violence was something that happened elsewhere.
That alone demanded an extraordinary national response.
Instead, Australia received an internal departmental review.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the federal government would examine intelligence and law enforcement failures through a process run inside the same system that failed to prevent the massacre. The review will report months from now. Some findings may be made public. No public hearings are planned. No compulsory testimony. No subpoenas. No independent authority.
This was not leadership. It was retreat.
Opposition Senator Michaelia Cash said out loud what much of the country was already thinking. Responding to the prime minister’s announcement, Cash accused him of weakness and avoidance, arguing that after Bondi, Australians were being offered “process” instead of accountability. She asked why the government was afraid of a Commonwealth Royal Commission, and warned that an internal review would protect institutions rather than expose the truth.
Her language was sharp. Her argument was correct.
An internal review is what governments choose when they want to control damage, not confront failure. It is designed to manage conclusions, limit exposure, and preserve reputations. It is not designed to answer the questions that now dominate public consciousness.
Those questions are obvious. What warnings were received in the months and years leading up to the attack? What intelligence existed about radicalization and threats to Jewish targets? What information was not shared between agencies? What powers were available but not used? Who made the decisions to delay, soften, or avoid action, and on what basis?
A system cannot be trusted to answer those questions about itself.
Australian treats antisemitism as social problem
For years, antisemitism in Australia was treated as a social problem, a policing nuisance, or an online pathology, anything but a national security threat. Jewish schools added guards. Synagogues installed barriers. Police protection for Jewish holidays became routine. The burden of adaptation was placed almost entirely on the Jewish community, while the state reassured itself that things were “under control.
Bondi proved they were not.
The massacre was the result of a climate in which Jew hatred was allowed to grow in plain sight, excused as activism, normalized as protest, and tolerated until it turned lethal. When the inevitable happened, the same instinct that allowed the problem to fester kicked in again: minimize, manage, review internally.
Even the language since the attack has been revealing. Jewish Australians have been praised for their “resilience” and described as “unbreakable.” That is not comfort. It is abdication. No minority should be expected to demonstrate strength to compensate for state failure. Citizenship is not conditional on toughness.
A Commonwealth Royal Commission would be responsible. Royal commissions exist precisely for moments like this, moments of systemic failure with national consequences, when public trust is broken, and secrecy becomes dangerous. They compel evidence. They expose uncomfortable truths. They create a public record that cannot be quietly buried.
The government’s argument that a royal commission would take time or distract from operational work is disingenuous. Australia is capable of doing both. What Canberra is really avoiding is loss of control.
That avoidance is already eroding confidence. Jewish Australians are watching closely, and so is the broader public. If the state cannot summon the courage to examine its own failures openly after fifteen people are murdered in a terror attack, then when exactly will it?
Cash’s final question hangs heavily over Canberra: what is the government afraid a royal commission will uncover?
If the answer is nothing, then refusal is indefensible. If the answer is something, then refusal is unforgivable.
Bondi Beach was not just a tragedy. It was a test of seriousness and honesty. Australia failed the test on the night of the attack. It is now failing again in daylight. An internal review is not accountability. It is concealment dressed up as governance, and it tells Jewish Australians, and the nation as a whole, that the government still does not grasp the scale of its failure.