Dennis Richardson resigns as special advisor weeks before report
Updated ,first published
Former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson has quit his role as special adviser to the royal commission into antisemitism, just weeks before commissioner Virginia Bell is due to deliver her interim report into the performance of the country’s intelligence and police services.
Bell announced Richardson’s shocking resignation in a statement Wednesday night; Leading groups in the Jewish community were racing to find out why he suddenly resigned.
Richardson’s resignation represents a difficult start for the royal commission, which has struggled to meet strict deadlines set by the government for itself and identified key areas of inquiry to avoid undermining the criminal case over the massacre.
“As I noted at the commission’s first hearing, Mr. Richardson was in a unique position to advise on materials to be requested from our intelligence and security agencies to assess their effectiveness in preparing for and responding to a terrorist attack,” Bell said.
“Thanks to Mr Richardson and senior members of his team, former Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator and ASIO Deputy Director-General Tony Sheehan and former Under-Secretary of Defense and AusAID Director-General Peter Baxter, work on the Interim Report is well advanced.”
“Mr Sheehan and Mr Baxter will remain with the Commission to support the preparation of the Interim Report, which I am confident will be delivered in accordance with the Letters Patent.”
Jewish community sources said they were stunned by the resignation, seeing that Richardson had held many meetings with top groups and that the process was going well.
Following the Bondi Beach massacre, which killed 15 innocent people during a Hanukkah celebration on December 14 last year, the Albanian government announced that Richardson would lead an investigation into possible failures of intelligence and law enforcement.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisted for several weeks that Richardson was the foremost authority on the country’s intelligence agencies and that there was no need for a royal commission.
His review was later submitted to the royal commission after Albanese bowed to pressure for a wide-ranging federal investigation.
Bell is scheduled to submit his interim report covering possible intelligence and law enforcement failures by the end of April.
Bell, a former Supreme Court judge, said she was “grateful to Mr. Richardson for his valuable contributions to the Commission.”
Richardson previously ran domestic spy agency ASIO, the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Office and served as Australia’s ambassador to Washington.
Richardson has been contacted for comment.
Attorney General Michelle Rowland said she had been notified of Richardson’s decision.
“The government thanks Mr. Richardson for his efforts to date,” he said.
“The Government will continue to support the Royal Commission to carry out its important work, including delivering the interim report by 30 April.
“The royal commission, which is independent of the government, will provide further updates in due course.”
Richardson’s role was to conduct interviews and make recommendations to Bell, who was tasked with writing the royal commission’s interim report and its final version.
Bell announced on the opening day of the royal commission that the decision to wrap Richardson’s investigation into a royal commission had complicated the process.
“Perhaps inevitably, the transfer of the administrative inquiry to this royal commission has caused some delay,” Bell said.
Bell said delays in obtaining the material made it unlikely his interim report would reach a definitive conclusion on the adequacy of security arrangements at the Bondi Hanukkah event and the effectiveness of information sharing between ASIO and the police.
That will have to wait until his final report.
There are also delays in whistle-blowing immunity laws, which the government wanted to pass in parliament earlier this month so that former and current intelligence officers can testify before the commission without violating security provisions. After the coalition and senators insisted that national security laws could not be approved without review, the law was referred to the parliament’s joint intelligence and security committee for review.
