Bondi royal commission: what more could have been done?
5/3/202618 min
The interim report of the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion has handed down its first 14 recommendations. It says there is no gap in current laws that could have prevented the shooting. But the 155-page report calls for better policing of Jewish festivals after a ‘high’ terror risk was flagged for the Hanukkah event where 15 people were killed. Reged Ahmad and Ben Doherty discuss why the inquiry’s first findings raise more questions than answers
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 0· Soundbite0:00
[gentle music] This is The Guardian.
Reged Ahmed· Host0:02
Regit Ahmed here on Gadigal Land with the full story.
Speaker 2· Soundbite0:12
Ultimately, the proof in the failure is in the fact that we buried 15 of our dead at Bondi. That's the critical thing, and we need to get out of that place. We need to get to a point where Jewish Australians at Hanukkah this year, at the end of the year, feel safe, that we can gather again, that we won't be targeted. Um, it's gonna be a long process to get us to that point. There's a deep sense of trauma.
Reged Ahmed· Host0:35
In the wake of December's Bondi Beach terror attack at a Hanukkah event, Jewish community leaders say they still have burning questions about how the massacre could have happened. The Royal Commission, set up to answer those questions, is now well underway and will hold its first hearings this week. But ahead of that, Commissioner Virginia Bell has delivered her first recommendations in a highly anticipated interim report. In amongst it are new revelations, including whether more could have been done by police that day.
Speaker 0· Soundbite1:11
Well, I mean, look, in retrospect, if we'd known what was gonna happen, we would've put an army down there. Um, that, that's the truth, and it didn't happen, and- The commissioner has also taken aim at the slow implementation of gun reform.
Ben Doherty· Guest1:26
This is an urgent issue, and the fact that