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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christian Amiot.

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Speaker 1: It's Monday, December twenty two, twenty twenty five. An offer

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Speaker 1: by Prime Minister Anthony Alberanesi to speak at Sunday Nights

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Speaker 1: vigil for victims of the Bondai Beach massacre was rejected

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Speaker 1: by organizers. A Jewish leader told The Australian the PM

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Speaker 1: was only invited out of respect for the office, but

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Speaker 1: claimed any address given by Albanesi would be drowned out

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Speaker 1: by booze. It comes as the Prime Minister faces mounting

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Speaker 1: pressure to call a federal Royal commission into the Bondai

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Speaker 1: Beach terror attack, but he says his government needs to

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Speaker 1: act quickly and he's ordered a review of the nation's

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Speaker 1: intelligence capabilities. But as Australians real from our nation's worst

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Speaker 1: ever terror attack, is it enough. That's today's episode at

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Speaker 1: six forty seven On Sunday, exactly one week since two

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Speaker 1: gunmen allegedly opened fire on a Haneker event at Bondai Beach,

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Speaker 1: quiet descended over the iconic stretch of sand in Sydney's

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Speaker 1: Eastern suburbs and around the nation. Waves could be heard

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Speaker 1: crashing nearby, as residents, politicians, life savers, law enforcement officers

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Speaker 1: and members of the shattered Jewish community paused to remember

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Speaker 1: the fifteen innocent lives lost. Surrounded by a sea of

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Speaker 1: bouquets laid this week by mourners. They prayed for the

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Speaker 1: quick recovery of dozens injured in the chaos, and gave

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Speaker 1: thanks to those who ran towards the danger. All day,

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Speaker 1: flags around Australia had flown at half mast as a

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Speaker 1: sign of respect for the dead. Candles appeared in windows

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Speaker 1: of homes far from Bondai Beach, but where the devastation

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Speaker 1: has been keenly felt, and out of the silence came

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Speaker 1: a rallying cry.

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Speaker 2: So what the Prime Minister must do now? He must

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Speaker 2: call a royal commission. He must ban the preachers, he

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Speaker 2: must ban the protests. He must prosecute the incitement.

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Speaker 1: This is the former Treasurer Josh Fridenberg. In a fiery

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Speaker 1: impromptu speech given at the site of the massacre on Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: he told The Australian the extremism that allegedly motivated Sunday's

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Speaker 1: terror attack at Bondai Beach isn't contained to New South

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Speaker 1: Wales and that means it can't be meaningfully addressed by

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Speaker 1: a state based inquiry. Fridenburg is one in a chorus

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Speaker 1: of voices calling for a federal royal commission into the

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Speaker 1: incident in which fifty year old Sajid Akram and his

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Speaker 1: twenty four year old son Navid Akram allegedly fired dozens

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Speaker 1: of rounds of ammunition into the event celebrating the first

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Speaker 1: day of Harneka, the Jewish festival of Light. Sajid was

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Speaker 1: shot dead by police at the scene, while Navid is

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Speaker 1: under police guard in hospital. He was charged with fifty

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Speaker 1: nine offenses after waking from a coma on Wednesday afternoon,

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Speaker 1: including fifteen counts of murder, forty counts of wounding with

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Speaker 1: intent to murder, and one count of committing a terrorist act.

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Speaker 1: New South Wales Premier Chris Mins says his government will

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Speaker 1: urgently mount an inquiry into the incident on the weekend.

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Speaker 1: This is one of the most terrible events that have

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Speaker 1: hit in New South Wales in decades.

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Speaker 3: If we're not going to have a royal commission for

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Speaker 3: something like this, when would you have one.

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Speaker 1: Alex Rifchin, the co Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Council,

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Speaker 1: of Australian Jury says a federal Royal Commission is essential

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Speaker 1: in preventing another tragedy. These are the answers that we

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Speaker 1: need and the fact that we're need to engage in

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Speaker 1: an argument with the federal government about a World Commission.

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Speaker 1: It's insulting, frankly, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi won't budge.

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Speaker 3: I will support whatever actions in New South Wales.

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Speaker 2: God take.

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Speaker 3: We are working in lockstep. So when we see that

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Speaker 3: where where niss Ath Wales have made an announcement this morning,

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Speaker 3: they're working on that.

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Speaker 1: The PM instead ordered a review of Australia's intelligence capabilities,

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Speaker 1: led by former top diplomat Dennis Richardson. Dennis Shanahan is

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Speaker 1: The Australian's national editor. Dennis, do you think that's adequate?

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Speaker 3: Look, no, I don't now. The Bondai massacre has drawn

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Speaker 3: a whole new line under the strategic and domestic security atmosphere.

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Speaker 3: It has changed and I'm being told by senior intelligence

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Speaker 3: officers that there has been for too long an assumption,

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Speaker 3: almost a denial, that we are in this very bad position,

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Speaker 3: which we are clearly in and which has been absolutely

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Speaker 3: crystallized by the Bondai massacre. Now I think yes, the

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Speaker 3: intelligence agencies, to police, the cooperation all need to be investigated.

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Speaker 3: They need to be investigated quickly and with rigor. But

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Speaker 3: it also has to be wide enough for shortcomings, for mistakes,

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Speaker 3: and also for the question of resources. Are the agencies

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Speaker 3: and the federal police getting enough people? We saw initially

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Speaker 3: that one of these people, one of the shooters, was

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Speaker 3: a red flag under Asiel. How did it come that

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Speaker 3: he could go to the Philippines come back and there

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Speaker 3: was no further investigation apparently, So these are issues that

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Speaker 3: need to be fully investigated with a full whole of

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Speaker 3: government approach, looking at all the agencies. And already Anthony

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Speaker 3: Albanez has been accused of not doing enough. I think

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Speaker 3: he will face much more pressure to have a wider

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Speaker 3: security examination. But for the wider issues of the rise

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Speaker 3: of anti Semitism, the hate preachers, the spread of anti

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Speaker 3: Semitism through the institutions, particularly universities, educational institutions aren'ts the

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Speaker 3: creative field. This is where a Royal commission can be

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Speaker 3: conducted and also test the strength of our resistance and

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Speaker 3: our response to them. Now chris Min's is already committed

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Speaker 3: to one that's a New South Wales commission. Victoria is

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Speaker 3: indicated that they are interested in a royal commission as well.

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Speaker 3: Anthony Albernezi has said basically so far, no, we're not

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Speaker 3: interested in the federal royal commission. Well, I think that

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Speaker 3: at the very least the federal government the Commonwealth has

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Speaker 3: to agree to deal with the States on any royal commission.

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Speaker 3: But secondly, is clear radical terrorism is not restricted to

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Speaker 3: New South Wales. We've had synagogue burnings in Melbourne as

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Speaker 3: well as Sydney, and Anthony Alpernes he still has the time,

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Speaker 3: he can still turn around and say yes, I think

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Speaker 3: we should all join and have a national a national approach,

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Speaker 3: a national royal commission into all of these issues. And

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Speaker 3: I think that that the momentum for a royal commission

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Speaker 3: is so great now that he really should, in his

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Speaker 3: own interests, but in the national interests, agree to a

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Speaker 3: royal commission as well. And we have seen previous Row

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Speaker 3: commissions in New South Wales where the Commonwealth did not

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Speaker 3: cooperate fully. Separate issues admittedly, but it does hamper a

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Speaker 3: state led royal commission. I think the size of this

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Speaker 3: problem and the magnitude of the impact of the Bondai

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Speaker 3: massacre requires a led royal committit into all those other

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Speaker 3: institutional issues which won't be dealt with by the specific

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Speaker 3: security inquiry.

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Speaker 1: The message from the Albanese government in the aftermath of

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Speaker 1: last Sunday's terror attack has been that royal commissions are cumbersome,

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Speaker 1: they are slow, and that they need to act now.

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Speaker 1: How do they balance the immediate need to reassure the

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Speaker 1: community that they are acting on this issue and to

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Speaker 1: do the detailed work that so clearly needs to be

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Speaker 1: done here.

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Speaker 3: The reaction from the Alberanazi government has been piecemeal. It's

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Speaker 3: been slow and then immediately criticized for not doing enough,

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Speaker 3: and it seems to be being dragged into everything. And

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Speaker 3: this goes back to the point that I made earlier

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Speaker 3: that intelligence officers fear that we are completely unprepared for

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Speaker 3: the global and domestic terror threats we face, and that

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Speaker 3: we need to address them now. What we have to do,

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Speaker 3: and what the Prime Minister has to do is say

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Speaker 3: right the Bondai massacre is the moment that changes things.

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Speaker 3: We actually need to be reassured that there is a

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Speaker 3: strong inquiry into the operation of the intelligence and police services,

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Speaker 3: as well as a broader reassurance for the public that

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Speaker 3: these wider issues, which are at the bottom of so

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Speaker 3: much of what's happened in the last two years, that

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Speaker 3: they are properly examined and independently examined by royal.

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Speaker 1: Commission coming up. Why the Prime Minister might be balking

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Speaker 1: at the possibility of a royal commission. We've been talking

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Speaker 1: about the possibility of a federal royal commission, but maybe

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Speaker 1: the average Australian doesn't actually really know what a royal

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Speaker 1: commission does. So if indeed one does proceed in this instance,

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Speaker 1: what would it do, what would it be looking for?

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Speaker 3: Well, this is of course the old political saying about

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Speaker 3: a royal commission. You never call for a royal commission

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Speaker 3: unless you know what it's going to find. Because there

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Speaker 3: have been royal commissions called and all of a sudden

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Speaker 3: they start to unravel and uncover all sorts of things.

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Speaker 3: And so I think that one of the reasons the

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Speaker 3: Prime Minister will be balking at this at the moment

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Speaker 3: he will be delaying any decision is because he has

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Speaker 3: to decide what are the terms of investigation. The point

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Speaker 3: of a royal commission is that it's supposed to get

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Speaker 3: to the bottom without fear or favor and without obstruction

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Speaker 3: from government or politicians or anyone else. And that's why

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Speaker 3: a Commonwealth federal Royal Commission is necessary because it carries

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Speaker 3: with it the full weight of the federal government and

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Speaker 3: it turns into a national, whole of government, whole of

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Speaker 3: nation response. So whatever the Royal commission, if there is

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Speaker 3: a royal commission, then it has to be as wide

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Speaker 3: as possible because of the magnitude of the problem we

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Speaker 3: are now facing, which we've been facing now for decades,

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Speaker 3: and we need to front up and say the moment

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Speaker 3: has come in.

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Speaker 1: A terrible way.

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Speaker 3: The death that there's poor people in Bondi could be

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Speaker 3: a great answer for Australia to get across the huge

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Speaker 3: challenges it faces and the lack of preparation we've had

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Speaker 3: for ten years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think there is some fear there on

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Speaker 1: the part of the Albanese government that a royal commission

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Speaker 1: would actually confirm what critics have been saying that this

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Speaker 1: government has missed this moment, that it has been too

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Speaker 1: slow to act on anti semitism and to actually prevent

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Speaker 1: a tragedy like this from happening.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Anthony Albanesi is right in fearing criticism and he

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Speaker 3: has been reluctant to make public appearances at this stage.

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Speaker 3: And we can only remember what happened to Scott Morrison

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Speaker 3: when he'd been away for the bushfires in Hawaii, came back,

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Speaker 3: he went down to meet victims of the bushfires and

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Speaker 3: he was told off. It turned into a complete political

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Speaker 3: disaster for Scott Morrison. And if Anthony Albernazi is anything,

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Speaker 3: he's a politician and he knows how those things can

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Speaker 3: affect you. And so if it does agree to a

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Speaker 3: royal commission, it will be one which will be carefully handled.

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Speaker 3: The parameters will be strict, the terms of reference will

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Speaker 3: be quite narrow. But he will hope that that will

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Speaker 3: answer the critics if he does call raw commission.

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Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor. You can read

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Speaker 1: his commentary as well as the latest from Bondai Beach

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Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au