Pressure mounts as Albo said to reconsider

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was said to be softening on his opposition to a Royal Commission into the Bondi Beach terror attack, sources said on Tuesday.

A day earlier, former Labor MPs and the Labor Israel Action Committee (LIAC) joined the growing chorus for a Commonwealth Royal Commission into antisemitism and the events that led to the attack.

Their statement came a day after 69 of Australia’s most well-known sportspeople also signed an open letter calling for a Royal Commission, adding their voices to those of top businesspeople, legal minds, religious and civil society leaders, former governor-general Peter Cosgrove, former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty, the Coalition, Teal independents, at least two Labor backbenchers, the LGBTQI+ community, Jewish communal leaders and the families of 11 of the 15 victims.

Later on Tuesday night, a group of esteemed security and defence personnel joined them, releasing a statement calling for a Royal Commission into antisemitism “and Islamist extremism”.

In the LIAC statement, its president, Mike Kelly, a former Labor government minister, said the health of democracy and national security was at stake.