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Well, now we know why Anthony Albanese was so determined to not have a royal commission into the Bondi massacre. Well, one more reason, anyway. As it turns out, it wasn’t just about pandering to Labor’s vital Muslim vote in Western Sydney.
It was also about keeping the public from learning too much about how grotesquely the Albanese government betrayed not just Jewish Australians, but all Australians.
The Albanese government sought to block the antisemitism royal commission from using documents revealing cabinet deliberations about counter-terror funding cuts because they were “current and controversial”.
Documents published by the royal commission reveal that the secretary of Anthony Albanese’s department, Steven Kennedy, also wanted to block royal commissioner Virginia Bell from considering discussions between the leaders of national security agencies and between ministers and agency heads.
Luckily, Bell is surprising us all by being made of sterner stuff. She overruled them. Three times. She ruled that the public interest in understanding why the proportion of counter-terrorism funding across national intelligence agencies had “significantly declined” from 2020 to 2025 outweighed any claim of cabinet confidentiality.
“I am satisfied public interest in that limited scope of disclosure of the following information outweighs the public interest in maintenance of its strict confidentiality as cabinet information.”
The documents show that while overall spending on the intelligence community rose, the share devoted to counter-terrorism was steadily cut. This happened during a period when the threat environment was clearly deteriorating, with rising antisemitic incidents and open celebrations of Hamas after October 7.
Is it any surprise the Albanese government tried to keep this evidence hidden, even as it repeatedly promised “full cooperation” with the royal commission?
The same government that now wrings its hands over Bondi had already decided that proper counter-terrorism assessment for the Chanukah by the Sea event was unnecessary. NSW Police treated it as just another community gathering rather than a high-risk public event, despite explicit warnings from Jewish groups. In retrospect, even the police admit a dedicated counter-terrorism assessment would have been wise. At the time, nobody in authority seems to have thought it worth the effort.
This is the pattern. Labor cut the funding share for counter-terrorism work. It downplayed the rising threat from Islamist extremism to protect its own political interests. Then, when the predictable atrocity happened, it tried to suppress the paper trail that would show how little priority it had given to stopping it.
Opposition Home Affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam called it “atrocious” that Labor kept trying to shield critical evidence. Jewish community leaders demanded the commissioner be given “the fullest access to government documents”. Both were right. A government that claims it wants to prevent another Bondi should not be fighting to keep the royal commission from seeing exactly how the last one was allowed to happen.
Albanese’s determination to avoid a royal commission now looks less like sensitivity to community feelings and more like a straightforward cover-up.
Meanwhile, Albanese’s reflexive power grab from atop a pile of Jewish Australian bodies – the attempt to demonise and punish law-abiding firearms owners – is falling apart quicker than his lie about falling off a stage.
Only one state, NSW, is participating in the buyback and there are concerns in Labor ranks that it will help One Nation in regional areas. With Labor governments in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, Mr Albanese has shown none of the resolve of John Howard 30 years ago on reforms in the wake of Port Arthur.
For once, we may be thankful for small mercies.
