Five Bondi shooting recommendations stay secret as Jewish security, national gun buyback remains in focus
Updated ,first published
The royal commission’s interim report into antisemitism recommended that police apply security procedures for “high-risk” Jewish festivals and events that are used for Jewish Holy days such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The commission’s first report since its establishment starting earlier this year It was released on Thursday, focusing on the work of NSW Police, security agencies and potential failures that may have led to the Bondi Beach terror attack in which 15 people, mostly Jews, were killed on the first night of Hanukkah on December 14.
The report includes 14 recommendations, five of which are in a confidential section that has not been made public.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the cabinet’s national security committee met on Thursday morning and decided to implement all of Commissioner Virginia Bell’s recommendations.
“I can reassure the Australian public that the government will do everything necessary to protect our community following the Bondi attack,” he said.
Asked how long it would take to implement the initial recommendations, Albanese said: “We’re not sitting back and just reading this document, we’re acting on it.”
Bell called on the Commonwealth, states and territories to prioritize the proposed national arms buyback plan announced in the wake of the terror attack, but also said no “immediate or immediate action has been identified” that would impede agencies’ ability to prevent or respond to the Bondi attack.
“We have not identified any material or advice from any agency within existing legal and regulatory frameworks that would impede 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 said.
Bell found that funding for intelligence agencies increased from 2020 to 2025, but investments in counterterrorism fell sharply during this period. Bell said he would investigate whether funding to ASIO and other intelligence agencies should be increased further after the country’s terrorism threat level was raised to a probable level in 2024 due to a rise in antisemitic attacks.
ASIO director general Mike Burgess said espionage and foreign interference had overtaken terrorism as the country’s top security concern in 2022, reflecting changing priorities within the spy agency.
Bell said he would review whether adequate action had been taken in response to ASIO’s decision to raise the terrorism threat level to probable in 2024.
“It will be necessary to investigate whether ASIO and other Commonwealth and state intelligence and law enforcement agencies understood and acted on their assessment of a possible attack, and to assess 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 issues that will arise at the hearings.”
Bell also called for a review of current arrangements, while noting that neither the Australian Federal Police nor NSW Police had provided unqualified support to the operation of the state’s joint counter-terrorism team. “It is clear that the participating institutions felt there could be room for improvement, particularly in information management and sharing,” he said.
One focus of the report was communication between the Community Safety Group (CSG), the volunteer-led Jewish organization that regulates security at synagogues, religious schools and community events, and NSW Police ahead of the Bondi Hanukkah event.
The report said CSG NSW emailed NSW Police in late November with a “Jewish Festival Calendar Notification – Hanukkah, 2025” and that the correspondence began with a request for assistance with “any police action the command deems appropriate”.
CSG’s email said the security level alert for the NSW Jewish community was “HIGH”. “A terrorist attack on the NSW Jewish community is likely and there is a high level of anti-Semitic slurs,” the email cited in Bell’s report said.
The report said the command’s response was to dispatch a “vehicle team or two” to “make the community feel safe” and provide a high-visibility police presence, but noted there was “no need to remain there throughout the event.”
The release of the report comes six weeks after former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson left his role as special adviser to Bell, saying he felt the requirements were excessive.
The former spy boss and US ambassador had finished his meetings with the heads of intelligence agencies in mid-January and was focused on offering concrete recommendations on intelligence and policing failures in the commission’s interim report.
But sources familiar with the commission’s work said Richardson felt his role had become untenable after Bell decided the interim report would not contain substantive recommendations or findings.
But Bell had previously stressed that the commission “must do its job without any risk of bias” regarding criminal proceedings against the alleged gunman. Naveed Ekrem, He was charged with 15 counts of murder and 40 counts of attempted murder following the mass shooting.
Albanese tasked Richardson with investigating whether key agencies, including ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, did everything possible to prevent the December 14 attack, as well as understanding what they knew about the gunmen.
Announcing his departure, Richardson said he was actually overpaid by $5,500 a day for working as an investigator, and although he praised Bell for his good legal acumen, he made clear there was a conflict in approach.
“The interim report that will now be produced by the royal commission will be a very different document than the one I would produce when I carried out the review,” Richardson said. he told ABC after his resignation.
Key recommendations in the interim report include:
- The procedures adopted by NSW Police in relation to Operation Jewish High Holy Days should also apply to other high-risk Jewish festivals and events, particularly those that have a public element.
- The Commonwealth and the states and territories should prioritize efforts to finalize and implement an updated and nationally consistent National Firearms Treaty and National Gun Buyback Plan.
- The Australian government must consider, within nine months after each federal election, whether National Security Committee ministers, including the prime minister, should participate in a counter-terrorism exercise with all members of the national cabinet.
- Consideration of making the role of the counterterrorism coordinator full-time.
- The Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee should make direct recommendations to national cabinet in the form of written and/or oral briefings, at least annually.
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