Calls mount for Royal Commission extension as hearings end

Former prime ministers, serving MPs, senior former defence and intelligence officials, Holocaust survivors and families of Bondi victims have all called for the Royal Commission to have more time, arguing the inquiry has not examined how antisemitism was allowed to grow or held anyone to account for it.

Thirty former national security, defence and policing leaders made the case in a statement issued on August 25, among them former governor-general David Hurley, former Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo, former AFP commissioner Michael Keelty and former ASIS directors-general Rex Stevenson and Paul Symon.

The commission represented Australia’s best hope to understand and counter modern antisemitism, they said. “If the Royal Commission is not allowed the time and scope needed to do its work, this will have been a lost opportunity to build social cohesion in Australia.”

Many of the signatories had called in January for the commission to be established. They said they were now concerned it had not called ministers, had not called members of Islamist organisations active in protests after October 7, and had not investigated the sources and growth of Islamist extremism in Australia.

Member for Berowra Julian Leeser moved unsuccessfully in parliament last week to suspend standing orders to debate a motion calling for the reporting date to be extended and for the Prime Minister and his ministers to appear. “It is a Royal Commission that finishes in a matter of days, and as it stands, it is a Royal Commission with unfinished business,” he said.