Bondi royal commission live updates: Jewish Australians share harrowing lived experiences of anti-Semitism

AAL is testifying about his experience at the October 9 pro-Palestinian protests at the Opera House.

They say the family had planned to see a show at the Opera House.

They came outside at the interval and say they saw police “frogmarching” a man out of the area with an Israeli flag.

Police told them the man “could be inciting violence”.

AAL says they indicated toward the flag burning and said “the violence is over there”.

“The message conveyed to me on the evening was unmistakable,” they say.

“The person expressing solidarity with Jewish people was seen as the problem.”

He says the people inciting violent hatred were allowed to go unchecked.

AAL is the next witness to take the stand.

They are in the courtroom.

They say they are Jewish and came to Australia from South Africe in the 1970s with their young family.

AAK says they lost a relationship with a close friend because of a disagreement over how damaging pro-Palestinian protests.

AAK says they told the friend someone would die one day if the protests were left unchecked.

“It took three years but sadly after the events of the 14th of December my words did become devastatingly true,” they say.

“After that my friend texted to tell me she love me.

“I told her dead Jewish people don’t need love, alive Jewish people need people to listen to them when they feel like history is repeating itself.”

AAK says they left the office early on the day the pro-Palestinian protest started after the October 7 attacks in Israel.

They work near World Square in Sydney and walked past the town hall as the welcome to country was happening.

They stopped to observe but very quickly began to feel “incredibly uncomfortable”.

They said they felt it wasn’t a safe place to be a Jewish person.

“It was clear that this was going to be a passionate affair for the attendees and as a Jewish person we’ve had many generations of discrimination.

“There is a bit of a sixth sense when ... things are going to become dangerous for us.”

AAK says having a family of holocaust survivors means they are “fairly attuned” to know that things can turn quickly and they needed to be aware of what was happening around them.

Witness AAK has tendered a statement to the royal commission.

All four of their grandparents are holocaust survivors. They said their grandmother was in Auschwitz as a teenager. Their parents moved to Australia as a young couple in the 1950s.

They moved to Sydney and lived at Bondi beach.

The next witness is appearing under the psuedonym AAK.

They have requested their identity be suppressed and we will be hearing their audio only.

We will refer to AAK as “they”.

Sheina Gutnick, whose father died at the Bondi terrorist attack is speaking at the Bondi royal commission about her experience with anti-Semitism.

She says she was “genuinely terrified” when her daughter needed to enter the health system after two nurdses made anti-Semitic comments on a live stream.

She says she weighs up which suburbs she can pick up click and collect orders from due to the risk of anti-Semitism.

Shre also describes real-life cases where she has been confronted in public while wearing her Star of David pendant, once while carrying her young child.

Ebrahim Azizi has warned the United States’ proposed “Project Freedom” risks undermining the fragile ceasefire, cautioning that any move in the Strait of Hormuz could trigger renewed tensions.

“Any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire,” he wrote on X.

“The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump’s delusional posts! No one would believe Blame Game scenarios!”

With the mission expected to move ahead in the coming hours, concerns are growing the region could slip back into open conflict.

Geopolitical tensions driven by the Middle East crisis and high fuel prices have created a volatile macroeconomic environment, Australia’s biggest business bank says.

National Australia Bank, which is one of the big four, on Monday posted a 19.3 per cent fall in 2026 first-half statutory net profit to $2.75 billion, on revenue of $11.16 billion.

Its preferred cash net profit, which excludes large items, was flat at $3.59 billion from the same period last year, but 2.3 per cent higher from the end of its 2025 fiscal year.

NAB’s result was supported by strong growth of 5.4 per cent in its business and private banking arm and a higher net interest margin, which reflects its earnings on lending activity.

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Motorists looking for extended relief at the bowser will have to wait until June to see what the Government decides to do.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says while the $2.5 billion cost of the three-month halving of that fuel excise that’s in place now will be reflected in next week’s Budget papers, “people shouldn’t expect to see in the Budget on Tuesday night an extension of that, because we’ve made it really clear that it’s a temporary thing”.

However, he acknowledged that the global oil price “has been a real rollercoaster”, fluctuating between $80 and $120 a barrel, and that flowed through to the prices people paid and the pump.

The cut to the excise started on April 1 and is currently in place until June 30.

“If we get closer towards the end of that three month period, obviously, like all of these policies … we’ve got a range of contingencies, but people should expect that that petrol tax cut will be in the Budget until the end of June,” Dr Chalmers said.