Tony Burke defends lack of royal commission into Bondi terror attack

As pressure mounts on Anthony Albanese to hold a royal commission into the Bondi terror attack, the Home Affairs Minister is holding firm on the Government’s stance that its actions are sufficient in examining the lead-up to the massacre.

Tony Burke said he “understands completely” the demands for a royal commission to take place but noted that Australians may have to wait years for answers if the government chose to go down that path.

In lieu of a royal commission, the Government has announced an independent review led by Dennis Richardson AC, who will examine the actions of Australia’s federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies leading up to the attack.

“We need answers, and we need them fast,” Mr Burke told the ABC.

“ … this report will happen by April. I wish it were sooner, but certainly a royal commission to be dealing with that would be a much longer timeline, and the person in charge of it would not have the expertise that we have with Dennis Richards.”

Mr Burke’s comments come one day after the families of 17 people who were injured or killed in the terror attack signed an open letter calling for a royal commission into the “failures” that led to the attack.

“We demand answers and solutions,” they wrote.

“We need to know why clear warning signs were ignored, how anti-Semitic hatred and Islamic extremism were allowed to dangerously grow unchecked, and what changes must be made to protect all Australians going forward.”

Mr Burke said Mr Richardson’s review would look into what factors were missed by authorities in the lead-up to the attack and what needed to change in the future to prevent another from occurring.

“In terms of his powers, he has been guaranteed full co-operation of our agencies, full co-operation,” Mr Burke said.

“The information that he needs, he will get. The conversations he needs to have, he will get, and he will then be able to report and report fast. Royal commissions can take years.”

Mr Burke also defended the steps the Government had already taken to prevent the spread of hate speech across the country and said they would go further in the coming months.

The Albanese Government is seeking to toughen hate speech laws and crack down on Islamic preachers spouting hatred on Australian soil, including developing a federal offence for those who seriously vilify based on race or advocate for racial supremacy.

“We’ve all seen videos of hate preachers who represent a tiny minority in this country but who have horrific views. And we look at them and we say, how on earth are they allowed to say that?” Mr Burke said.

“They’ve been just on the right side of law in Australia, so we are changing the law so that those forms of hate speech are illegal.”