A coalition of Labor party affiliates have backed calls for the prime minister to establish a federal royal commission into antisemitism and events that “led to and enabled” the Bondi terrorist attack.
In an open letter seen by Guardian Australia on Monday, 21 associates of the Labor party, including former MPs and members of the Labor Israel Action Committee (LIAC), said the “health of our democracy and our national security” was at stake if the government did not call a commonwealth royal commission.
Among signatories were former federal MPs Mike Kelly, Bernie Ripoll, Mary Easson, Mike Symon and Michael Danby, and former NSW upper house members Eric Roozendaal, Walt Secord and Michael Costa.
Nova Peris, a former Labor federal senator and Olympian, also signed the letter. She previously signed an open letter supporting a royal commission alongside around 60 Australian athletes. Peris is a patron of the LIAC.
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“The government must call a royal commission into the causes of the Bondi beach massacre, the broader ecosystem of terror and hate and the capacity of the agencies to monitor terrorist threats,” Monday’s letter read.
“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.
“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.”
Kelly has been a strong backer of a royal commission for weeks. He told ABC Radio in late December that an inquiry “has to be done at the commonwealth level”.
“It’s not possible for a NSW commission to compel commonwealth officers and do the deeper dive on the classified materials that those agencies may not be prepared to reveal entirely to a NSW process,” he said.
Eleven families of Jewish Australians killed in the Bondi shooting have also demanded that Anthony Albanese call a royal commission into antisemitism, as well as whether law enforcement could have prevented the attack that claimed 15 lives.
They joined the federal Coalition opposition, who have made the issue a rallying cry.
Albanese has so far resisted such calls, saying federal authorities would cooperate with a royal commission ordered by the NSW state government and instead calling an inquiry, led by the former Asio chief Dennis Richardson, into the national intelligence and law enforcement community.
The prime minister has said that a federal royal commission would take too long and that he wanted quicker answers about changes needed to intelligence or policing agencies.
Asked previously if calls for a national royal commission were wrong, Albanese said: “My heart breaks for the families of the victims of the Bondi terrorist atrocity.”
“My job as the Australian prime minister is to act in the national interest,” he said last week. “It is in the national interest for us to do the Richardson review on national security.”
It comes as the federal parliament will be recalled early for Labor to rush through laws to crack down on “hate preachers” and fund a national gun buyback scheme in the wake of the alleged terrorist attack.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said while the calls for a royal commission “come overwhelmingly from a good place” they would not shift the government’s position.
“The government is taking a number of steps,” He said. “We know that the world is watching, because what happened at Bondi last month was such a horrifying event, and the urgent and the immediate actions that we are taking are really important when it comes to us learning from and responding to this attack.”
