Independent MP Allegra Spender, whose Wentworth electorate covers Bondi Beach, has described the contents of the interim report by the Royal Commission on anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion as “deeply unsettling” for her Jewish constituents.
Thursday’s report said the US and Israel’s war in Iran was “likely to have increased the risk of attacks directed at the Australian Jewish community”.
On Friday, Ms Spender told Channel 9 she recently visited a Jewish school in her electorate where it was clear the alleged Bondi terror attack “reverberates every single day with the kids”.
“This is not something that the community is over,” she said.
The report included 14 recommendations but five remained classified. Among the remaining nine recommendations included turning the federal government’s counter-terrorism co-ordinator into a full-time position, prioritising a national gun buyback scheme and nationally consistent gun laws, and reviewing joint counter-terrorism teams.
Ms Spender said the threat to Jewish communities identified by the report was “really stark”.
An example was the anti-Semitic stabbing in the UK this week, she said, where two Jewish men were attacked in north London.
It was subsequently declared a terror incident, with the UK government raising the terrorism threat level to “severe”.
“And you see that with the terrible news that came out of London but also with this continued anti-Semitism that you see in across the country,” Ms Spender said.
She added the questions raised by the royal commission were “absolutely vital”.
“ The community wanted the royal commission. It was something I thought was really important,” Ms Spender said.
“And so I think the questions that the royal commission raise is absolutely vital, and this next phase of the (royal commission) hearings is going to be critical to understand what happened and how we can do our best to try and prevent this in the future.”
The report revealed the Jewish Community Security Group (CSG) contacted NSW Police as early as November 28 about safety concerns. It asked for a permanent police presence at the December 14 Chanukah by the Sea event.
CSG classified the threat as “high” and warned that an attack against the Jewish community was “likely”. The request for more NSW Police officers at the event was ultimately not granted.
Labor’s response to Bondi probe “nonsense”: Taylor
Later, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor accused the government of being in “denial about what was going on in our national security agencies”, after Anthony Albanese defended the government against the royal commission’s findings of a drop in funding for counter-terrorism.
Despite an overall increase in budgets for intelligence agencies, the interim report found the proportion allocated for counter-terrorism efforts from 2020-25 fell “significantly”.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly pointed to his government’s increased funding for agencies including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Australian Signals Directorate, Australian Secret Intelligence Service, and the Australian Federal Police when grilled by reporters on the issue.
Mr Taylor rejected that argument.
“When it comes to the royal commission, it’s very clear the royal commission said money for counter-terrorism was de-prioritised, money was moved away from counter-terrorism focus, and clearly that was at exactly the wrong time,” Mr Taylor told Sky News.
“After what we saw in 2023 with the attack by Hamas on Israel, we needed the exact opposite.
“The alerts were there and the government did the exact opposite of what was necessary.”
He went as far as to describe Labor’s argument as “nonsense”.
“Seriously, it’s not ambiguous in the report. It has said that they took the priority away from counter-terrorism and that was at exactly the time where we needed more funding for it,” he said.
