Commissioner Virginia Bell Resists Push to Extend Antisemitism Inquiry Noting Need for Timely Recommendations in Australia

Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates. Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast. Commissioner Virginia Bell says she will delay – by four days – handing down her final report into antisemitism and social cohesion, in order not to distract from commemorations of the Bondi terror attack.

On Wednesday, the last day of public hearings of the royal commission, Bell resisted a public push to extend the commission’s work. free app or daily news podcast. Bell said the letters patent for the royal commission stated her final report should be handed to government no later than 14 December 2027, the first anniversary of the Bondi terror attack.

She said she had noted the push, including from Jewish community leaders and parliamentarians, to extend the timeframe of her commission by some months in order to hear from more witnesses. However she said the commission had worked hard to address all of its terms of reference “in accordance with that timetable, and I do not seek any meaningful extension of it”. “Among other considerations, I note the evidence that has been given by senior public officials that the implementation of important policy proposals is awaiting the recommendations of this Commission.

The commissioner added that she did not want the release of the report to distract from commemorations of the Bondi terror attack. The 14th of December is the anniversary of the massacre. It will be a solemn occasion marked by memorials.

I’m aware of concern within the Jewish community that delivery of the report on the anniversary would be a distraction. I fully understand that concern and to avoid that distraction I have asked for a short extension of the term with a view to the submission of my final report on Friday the 18th of December. There has been significant pressure to extend the commission’s hearings.

Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, put an unsuccessful motion to parliament on 18 August for the reporting date to be extended to allow the commission to hear and test evidence from key witnesses and properly investigate the individuals and institutions responsible”. Many significant Australian voices will have been left unheard and critical players not put on the stand, he said. Australians are entitled to know how antisemitism spiralled so badly, who was responsible and what must change to ensure that it can never happen again.

A royal commission cannot fully answer those questions if key people are never required to account for their actions. Senior security leaders, including a former governor general and retired heads of Australia’s military, signed an open letter, published on Wednesday, calling for the commission to be extended. The speed with which the royal commission has been forced to conduct its hearings has not allowed detailed review of the rise of antisemitism, Islamist and other forms of extremism in Australia, the letter said.