Antisemitism Interim Report Finds No Legislative or Systems Gaps, But the Stickler Is Still to Come

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion interim report outlines that there could have been a heavier police presence on Gadigal land at the Jewish event at Bondi Beach, when the 14 December 2025 mass murder took place, and it’s too found that there were no gaps in federal or state “legal and regulatory” or “legislative and authorising” frameworks that contributed to it.

As former NSW Magistrate David Heilpern suggested in his piece on the report, he considered its first recommendation, to have heightened operational procedures and more police onsite at such “public facing” events, as “positive and reassuring”. And the current Southern Cross University dean of law also points out there are no recommendations for laws to ban protest marches or political slogans.

“We have to do everything possible about tomorrow to bring about the kind of change to the law and the culture in our community to stop hate from spilling into violence,” said NSW premier Chris Minns in relation to the report release.

As the pollie who first spruiked protest marching and political slogan bans, Minns added that there are “learnings” to be gained from the report, in terms of “processes and procedures” and “changes to the law”.

Palestine Action Group (PAG) warned on Monday, 5 May 2026, that the community ought to brace itself for the next part of the Royal Commission, as this will be investigating the rise in racism towards Jewish people over the last couple of years, since October 2023. And PAG’s well-founded fear is that there will be an attempt to conflate criticism of Israeli state mass atrocities with antisemitism.

Commissioner Virgina Bell has delivered an interim report that, as Heilpern described, asserts overall that it’s “nearly impossible to predict, prevent and respond effectively when there are those determined to do the unthinkable”. But Bell, a former High Court justice, has too explained that the inquiry will be using the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and that’s where it all gets murkier.

The wheel doesn’t need reinvention, report finds

The report explains that it was established due to the Bondi Beach massacre, which involved two ISIS-inspired terrorists targeting a Chanukah event last mid-December. This occurred within a context of rising antisemitism since the 7 October 2023 “terrorist attacks on Israel carried out by Hamas”, and it further notes that ASIO raised the National Terrorism Threat Level to probable in August 2024.

Materials relating to and viewpoints from federal and state intelligence, law enforcement and government departments were sought and obtained. Each agency was asked whether their powers or abilities prevented them from taking prohibitive action prior to the incident, and none of the agencies identified any gap in existing legal or regulatory frameworks that impeded them.

The report did, however, find that improvements could be made to counterterrorism measures at both federal and state-level. But in terms of “whether there was any failure to identify and act upon intelligence in the lead up to” what has been declared an act of terrorism, is going to be a subject for the inquiry’s public hearings, which commenced on Monday, 4 May.

The report also notes that three NSW police general duties officers and a supervisor were at the Chanukah event, while the head of the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command periodically attended. There had been a request for police presence at the event, but it was supplementary to its own security, and the NSW police user pays policy for increased or visible presence hadn’t been invoked.

The Community Security Group NSW provided security at the event. CSG is a private, primarily volunteer, Jewish security organisation that protects the Jewish community. Licensed CSG staff can carry pistols at certain events at schools and synagogues. And following Bondi, Minns made a hoo-ha about arming CSG at all public Jewish events. But the Herald has just revealed this is unlikely.

By the rivers of Babylon

In the wake of the Bondi massacre, PM Anthony Albanese called for an inquiry into the adequacy of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to be conducted by former Defence secretary Dennis Richardson.

But immense Israel lobby pressure to hold a Royal Commission into racism against Jewish people saw the PM cave, even though, as one alleged Bondi killer is awaiting trial, this means the incident cannot be covered by the official inquiry.

As Albanese announced the Royal Commission on 8 January 2026, he was flanked by unelected Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal, who is a key local Israel lobby player. The PM appointed her to this previously unknown position in July 2024, citing rising racism towards Jews, but he failed to mention there is a growing network of antisemitism envoys across the western world.

Amongst the general community there has been concerns that the inquiry into racism against Jewish Australians might be a ruse, involving a broader Israel lobby agenda that seeks to shutdown expressions of criticism of Israeli human rights abuses via the equating of it with antisemitism, and when commissioner Bell revealed the inquiry would use the IHRA definition, this fear was realised.

The IHRA working definition is a straightforward two-line explanation of antisemitism, or prejudice or racism towards Jewish people. The controversy around it stems from the eleven examples of antisemitism it includes, as seven involve criticism of Israel. The general idea is that employing this definition shuts down all criticism of the apartheid nation of Israel, in conflating it with antisemitism.

To clear up any confusion, Segal released her Understanding Antisemitism in Australia primer in early April. And according to it, the “new antisemitism” focuses on “Jews as a nation”, so if one is to make statements, like Israel is an apartheid state and has committed a 31-month-long genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, this might lead to accusations of acting racist towards Jewish people as a whole.

The primer also explains “modern political Zionism” for the unacquainted, which it states is “built on the historical and religious connection to the land of Israel, leading to the establishment of the state of Israel”. As for the historical context, Zion is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 157 times, the “longing for return” to the region of Israel commenced in 586 BCE and it became more prominent in 70 CE.

“The Jewish people’s connection to their indigenous homeland, the land of Israel, is the basis for Zionism – the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination within their ancestral homeland,” the report further sets out. “Jewish self-determination does not exclude Palestinian self-determination or sovereignty.”

Lord, hear our prayer

The Palestine Action Group further set out that the part of the Royal Commission now underway “will deliberately and systematically conflate real and deplorable instances of antisemitism, which we completely oppose and condemn, with the outpouring of legitimate and much-needed opposition to the state of Israel, which is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and endless war in the region.”

“It is precisely this systematic conflation, which we have always opposed, which is a key cause of antisemitism today,” added the social justice group that has shown extraordinary determination and persistence in organising antigenocide protests over the last 31 months. “And it is carried out deliberately by politicians, media and the pro-Israel lobby to try to silence opposition to genocide.”

The reasons the ingraining of the IHRA definition, and in turn, the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel, has become such an important issue on the Australian scene over the last two years is precisely because the state of Israel has been committing a genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, which in the interconnected globe of the present cannot be hidden, even via conflation.

The Bondi massacre was a hideous crime carried out by ISIS extremists. ISIS is a group that opposes the Palestinian cause.

And as ex-magistrate Heilpern made certain, the overall implications of the interim report are that whilst security could have been beefed up at the Jewish event, the state is not some omnipresent being that can prevent all crimes or acts of terrorism.

Indeed, that’s why we have criminal offences on the law books.