Prominent former Labor figures join call for Royal Commission

Former Labor MPs and the Labor Israel Action Committee (LIAC) have called for a Commonwealth Royal Commission into antisemitism and the events that led to the Bondi Beach terror attack, as former WA Labor senator Mark Bishop warned he fears a second attack without such an inquiry.

In a statement released on Monday, former defence materiel minister Mike Kelly, who is president of LIAC, said the health of democracy and national security was at stake.

“This was the worst terrorist attack in Australia’s history on our soil. Fifteen Australians are dead and multiple wounded, some still battling for their lives,” Kelly said.

“The Australian Jewish community has called on us to ‘shine a light against the darkness’. We can do no less.”

The statement was signed by Kelly, LIAC secretary Byron Danby, former federal Labor senator for NSW Michael Forshaw, former Labor MP for Lowe Mary Easson, former federal Labor senator for Western Australia Mark Bishop, former NSW deputy opposition leader Walt Secord, former Victorian Labor Party vice-president Henry Pinskier, former ACTU president and MP for Throsby Jennie George, former Victorian state MPs Tony Lupton and Danielle Green, former MPs Kim Wilkie, Mike Symon and Michael Danby, former NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal, former Victorian MP Evan Thornley, former Labor senator Nova Peris, former NSW treasurer Michael Costa, former minister for social security Peter Baldwin, Wentworth Labor candidate Savanna Peake and former MP Bernie Ripoll.

“We commend NSW Premier Chris Minns for calling a NSW Royal Commission but such a commission cannot compel institutions and individuals beyond its jurisdiction to give evidence or provide Commonwealth officers with the necessary legal protection to speak frankly,” the statement read.

“Only a Commonwealth Royal Commission can unpack the dynamics of Jew hatred including aspects such as the social media threat, how hate and incitement is weaponised in Australia and how we can come together across the nation to defeat it.”

Bishop told The Nightly that a Royal Commission was “the appropriate solution and the only way to go forward”.

“I’ve been living in Melbourne for the last seven or eight years – we shifted over here from Perth – and I’ve seen the degree of antisemitism grow in the community. It’s a common discussion point,” Bishop said.

“And now with this business up in New South Wales, it appears to be out of control. And I think unless the Australian community as a whole discusses it, works out an appropriate solution and addresses it, it won’t be covered in the future.”

Bishop said he feared another attack. “I don’t suggest there’s any grand conspiracy theory on the part of particular Islamic groups or Muslim groups in Sydney or Melbourne. The press indicates that it’s a one-off event by a couple of people who have become deranged, but if it can happen once, it can happen twice,” he said.

He told The Nightly that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s refusal to hold an inquiry was driven by politics and Muslim votes.

“It is inextricably linked to the future of particular Labor Party members and cabinet ministers in the federal government who have Islamic communities,” Bishop said.

“I mean the obvious candidates (Home Affairs Minister Tony) Burke, (Climate Change Minister Chris) Bowen, (Education Minister Jason) Clare and to a lesser extent (Attorney-General) Michelle Rowland and a couple of others, but principally, those three who have significant and growing Islamic groups within their own electorates. They are fearful of losing their support for a whole range of different reasons, not necessarily related to the mere politics of this whole discussion. I think that is the primary driving factor on the part of the Prime Minister.”

He added that he believed Labor MPs were maintaining their silence out of fear of revenge from the prime minister.

“So if you openly have a different view publicly to the government and you express it, then your career is done. And people don’t go into politics to spend 10 years in nowhere land.”

The call from former Labor figures came as 69 of Australia’s most well-known sportspeople signed an open letter calling for a Royal Commission.

Signatories included Olympians Jess Fox, Steve Solomon, Jemima Montag, Nova Peris, Ian Thorpe, Dawn Fraser, Grant Hackett, Cam McEvoy, Michael Klim and Sally Pearson, tennis legends Lleyton Hewitt, Pat Rafter and John Alexander, NRL superstars Brad Fittler and Anthony Minichiello, AFL heavyweights Anthony Koutoufides and Wayne Carey, former Wallabies captains John Eales and Phil Kearns, surfer Mick Fanning and former Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said the athletes’ intervention should not have been necessary.

“It should have been enough for the government to see the need for a Royal Commission when 15 of our people were slaughtered within metres from here, for the crime of being Jewish,” Ryvchin said.

“I ask again, to the prime minister and to this government, do not put the families through even greater trauma and suffering. Do what needs to be done and call this Royal Commission, so we can have answers as to how these horrors transpired, and how we can prevent them from ever happening again.”

Opposition leader Sussan Ley said politicians could return to Canberra weeks ahead of schedule amid sustained pressure to establish a Royal Commission.

“I just want to make it clear that if we do come back early, it’s actually not early. We should have come back to Parliament in the days before Christmas to deal with this terror event, this worst ever terrorist event on Australian soil,” Ley said on the Today show on Tuesday.

“The Prime Minister does need to yield to the calls. Now, earlier on, he called for unity. He now has unity across this country. Every day, more and more decent Australians are stepping up. We’ve had sporting legends, business leaders, former governors-general, defence and intelligence chiefs former, and many, many millions of ordinary Australians.”

Those calling for a federal Royal Commission include 17 families representing 11 Bondi victims, over 130 business leaders, 69 sporting champions, over 100 legal figures, Australian Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay, Jewish community leadership organisations across Australia, former governor-general Peter Cosgrove, former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty and numerous former senior public servants and politicians.

Albanese has repeatedly rejected calls for a Royal Commission, instead commissioning a review by former ASIO chief Dennis Richardson.

The Bondi Beach terror attack on December 14 killed 15 people during a Chanukah celebration.