The report lands on December 18. Then the real work starts

Following the closing of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism (RC) hearings, we now await its findings and recommendations. There has been concern about whether it had sufficient time to investigate all dimensions of the Bondi atrocity, as well as speculation about what will happen next. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the process, it will deliver a report on December 18. The key focus must then be on the investigations and actions undertaken by government agencies, the Government, civil society and our institutions.

We should recall the issues already identified in the RC’s interim report, such as the question of domestic counter-terrorism funding and the inadequate national information-sharing regime among agencies. One glaring weakness it detailed is the National Firearms Register (NFR), initiated in 2022 but not scheduled for completion until 2028. The report described this timetable as “unduly leisurely”. Some jurisdictions, including the ACT, still rely on paper-based records. This represents a national security failure: key data relevant to public safety has not been digitised or effectively networked. Analysts and operators should be able to rely on systems that automatically generate immediate alerts on this and other key information points.

A central question is how the father of a known ISIS sympathiser was able to purchase six high-powered firearms without attracting attention. Despite the interim report’s reference to this issue, there appears to be no sign of urgent funding or a serious effort to accelerate the NFR’s completion. This raises the question of whether expenditure on a gun buyback scheme is the best use of resources when a digital, networked firearms register, supported by stronger background checks, could deliver a more directly effective security benefit.

The technical capabilities of our agencies must also be improved to establish a more rigorous and effective vetting regime within the immigration system. One Nation’s rise has been based, in part, on conflating fears of Islamist extremism with immigration, an association reinforced by episodes such as the return of the so-called “ISIS brides”. Any perception that temporary-to-permanent visa assessments are being conducted without sufficient rigour must also be addressed. Public confidence in the immigration system must be restored.

We may never know the content of the RC’s classified recommendations or the extent to which they are implemented. It is therefore essential that the Government issue a comprehensive response to the final report. This statement should reassure the public that the lessons have been learned and explain what further analysis and investigation will follow the Commission’s work.

In particular, the Government should acknowledge that the precursor material to antisemitism and the violence that follows are interconnected. It must also examine the extent to which this is being driven by an intentional, well-funded and extensive information-warfare operation involving Iran and its proxy network, with support from other authoritarian states, including Russia and China.

Are we examining, for example, investigations by the United States and the United Kingdom into alleged Chinese funding channelled through the far-left organisation Code Pink to support anti-Israel protests? The book Les Nouveaux Antisemites by French investigative journalist Nora Bussigny illustrates the nature and methods of these operations, particularly activities directed at influencing young people and progressive elements of society. This context will help to understand the social media threat. The question is whether the RC will join these dots and recommend further concerted effort to surface the threat.

Beyond funding reportedly flowing from Iran and Qatar into influence campaigns affecting young people and tertiary institutions, the RC should examine the broader ecosystem of terrorism and the evolution of jihadist radicalisation. It is inadequate to describe the Bondi perpetrators simply as “lone actors”. That fails to recognise the disaggregated nature of Islamist terrorist operations in the West and the conditioning and radicalisation networks that support them.

This conditioning and its normalisation dimension are also evident in public figures chanting catch phrases such as “globalise the intifada”, and in claims that antisemitism was “nowhere” at Bondi, showing complete ignorance of the antisemitism ecosystem that lay behind that event. They are evident when broadcasters provide a persistently imbalanced platform to commentators who regularly perpetuate the legally and factually false allegation of “genocide”, which in turn is a key factor in legitimising violence against Jews.

The long-term strategic struggle against antisemitism must be fought not only in public discourse and the enhancing of our security posture but also throughout the education system. The RC should reference the report by Dr Helena Ivanov for the UK-based Henry Jackson Society, which details the growing threat posed by artificial intelligence in the information-warfare environment. The recommendations she has distilled for education systems and security agencies are critically important and must be adopted here.

This information warfare threat should be understood as not just a battle to defeat antisemitism but a fight to secure the future of liberal democracy. The reality is that this is a fight that we are not winning at present.

Mike Kelly AM is a former ADF soldier, Labor government minister and the co-convenor of Labor Friends of Israel.