The resignation of former ASIO spymaster Dennis Richardson as special adviser to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion risks compromising investigation of the efficacy of national security agencies and the Bondi Beach terrorist attack.
Richardson has unexpectedly walked away from the job just six weeks before commissioner Virginia Bell was due to deliver her interim report into the performance of the nation’s intelligence and police agencies in the lead up to the massacre on December 14.
In the days after the shootings, Richardson was appointed to lead an internal review into Australia’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
But as summer wore on and party politics overwhelmed the tragedy, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese bowed to public pressure and merged Richardson’s inquiry into the twin-pronged royal commission.
Subsequently, the whole process has been muddied by security agencies seeking legal advice on the release of information related to intelligence and security, as government plans to rush through whistleblower immunity laws have gone MIA in a parliamentary joint committee. Adding to the confusion, the commission’s need to avoid prejudicing the criminal trial into the massacre has only added to Bell’s labours.
Announcing his departure, Richardson said he was being overpaid at $5500 a day for essentially being employed as a research officer and, although praising Bell for her fine legal mind, doubted whether the pair had enough discussion at the beginning about the precise way things would work. “The interim report that will now be done by the royal commission will be a very different document to the one that I would have done when I was doing the review,” Richardson told the ABC on Wednesday.
Who knows what that means?
But what was clear from the outset was the Bondi Beach gunmen, despite being on alert lists, purchased guns and travelled to the Philippines with ASIO and NSW authorities apparently unable to join the dots amid the mounting furore over antisemitism.
Richardson’s expertise and experience made him the ideal choice to investigate security failures and Albanese built him up, saying he was the “most qualified person” to investigate intelligence issues. He was tasked with investigating whether key agencies, including ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, had done everything possible to prevent the attack, and also to understand what they knew about the gunmen.
Albanese argued Richardson’s review would be faster and more effective than a long-running royal commission.
But as victims’ families and the Jewish community demanded a wider inquiry, Albanese equivocated for 25 days, handing then opposition leader Sussan Ley her first political win, before changing horses and announcing a royal commission, although he was careful to keep spruiking Richardson’s pivotal contribution.
The old spy chief’s departure has left Albanese out in the cold with egg on his face once again.
Richardson’s final polite words were hardly a ringing endorsement of the royal commission. Regretfully, they’ve severely undermined the wider community’s confidence that the obvious intelligence failures at Bondi Beach will be adequately addressed.
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