Updated ,first published
Police should deploy the same security measures for “high-risk” Jewish festivals and events as are used for Jewish High Days such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, an interim report from the royal commission on hate has recommended.
The commission’s first report since established earlier this year was released on Thursday in consideration of NSW Police, security agencies and the failure it may have caused Bondi Beach terror attackwhere 15 mostly Jews were killed on the first night of Hanukkah on December 14.
The report contains 14 recommendations, including five in a confidential section that has not been made public.
The focus of the report was communications between the Community Security Group (CSG) – a volunteer-led Jewish organization that organizes security for synagogues, religious schools and community events – and NSW Police in the run-up to the Bondi Hanukkah event.
The report said that CSG NSW sent an email to NSW Police in late November with a “Jewish Festival Calendar Notice – Chanukah, 2025”, with the communication beginning with a request for assistance with “any police action the command may deem appropriate”.
The CSG email said the security level alert for the NSW Jewish community is “HIGH”. “A terrorist attack against the NSW Jewish community is possible and there is a high level of anti-Semitic slander,” the email, cited in the Bell report, said.
The report said the command’s response was to send “a car or two” to “make sure the community feels safe” and provide a highly visible police presence, but noted “that there was no need to stay the whole time” of the incident.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the national security committee of the cabinet met on Thursday morning and agreed to implement all the recommendations of Commissioner Virginia Bell.
“I can assure the Australian public that the government will do everything necessary to protect the community from the Bondi attack,” he said.
When asked how long it will take for the initial recommendations to be implemented, Albanese said, “we are not sitting back and just reading this document, we are working on it”.
Bell has urged the Commonwealth, states and territories to prioritize proposals for a national program to buy gunshe announced in the wake of the terrorist attack, but also said no “immediate or immediate action has been identified” regarding limiting agencies’ ability to prevent or respond to the Bondi attack.
“None of the material or advice from any agency identified any gaps in existing legal and regulatory frameworks that impeded the ability of law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to prevent, or respond to, an attack of the type that occurred in Bondi on 14 December 2025,” the report says.
Bell found that, while funding for intelligence agencies increased from 2020 to 2025, investment in counterterrorism fell sharply over that period. Bell said he would now examine whether funding for ASIO and other intelligence agencies should have been increased further given the level of the terror threat in the country. increased to 2024 amid an increase in antisemitic attacks.
In 2022, ASIO director general Mike Burgess said espionage and foreign intervention had trumped terrorism as a major national security issue, reflecting changing priorities in the intelligence community.
Bell said he would investigate whether adequate action was taken in response to ASIO’s decision to raise the terror threat level to 2024.
“It will be important to examine whether and how ASIO and other Commonwealth intelligence agencies and government and law enforcement agencies understood and acted on those assessments of a possible attack, and consider the adequacy of what was said to be ASIO’s ‘full use of our capabilities and powers’ in the context of ongoing antisemitic attacks,” he wrote.
“These are matters that will be examined in the hearings.”
Bell also noted that neither the Australian Federal Police nor the NSW Police had provided unqualified support to the state’s joint counter-terrorism team while calling for a review of current arrangements. “It is clear that the organizations involved consider that there may be room for improvement, especially in relation to management and information sharing,” he said.
The release of the report comes six weeks after the former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson he left his job as a special adviser to Bell, saying he felt redundant.
The former intelligence boss and US ambassador had finished interviewing intelligence chiefs in mid-January and aimed to make several recommendations about intelligence and police failures in the commission’s interim report.
But sources with knowledge of the commission’s operations said Richardson felt his role was unacceptable when Bell decided that the interim report would not contain any significant recommendations or findings.
However, Bell previously insisted that the commission “must do its job without risking any prejudice” to criminal cases involving an alleged gun owner. Naveed Akram, who was charged with 15 counts of murder and 40 counts of attempted murder after the mass shooting.
The Albanians had given Richardson the task by investigating whether key agencies, including ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, had done everything possible to prevent the December 14 attack, and also to understand what they knew about the gunmen.
Announcing his departure, Richardson said he was getting paid more than $5500 a day for he was primarily employed as a research officer, and although he praised Bell for his good legal sense, he made it clear that there was a conflict in approach.
“The interim report that will now be made by the royal commission will be a very different document to the one I would have made when I was doing the audit,” Richardson. he told ABC after resigning.
Key recommendations of the interim report include:
- The procedures adopted by the NSW Police in relation to Operation High Holy Days should be applied to Jewish festivals and other high-risk events, particularly those that have a public face-to-face element.
- The Commonwealth and states and territories should prioritize efforts to finalize and implement an updated and nationally consistent National Firearms Agreement and National Firearms Buyback Program.
- The Australian Government should consider whether National Security Committee ministers, including the prime minister, should participate in a counter-terrorism exercise, along with all members of the national cabinet, within nine months of each federal election.
- Consideration should be given to making the role of counter-terrorism coordinator full-time.
- The Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee should provide direct advice in writing and/or oral communication, at least annually, to the national cabinet.
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Alexandra Smith is a senior writer and former government politics editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect through X or email address.
Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect through X, Facebook or email address.
