‘Incubated in hatred’: Warnings, risks laid bare as Bondi royal commission zeroes in on security flaws

The nation’s top spy agency and police forces will be probed on whether they understood and acted on repeated warnings of a likely antisemitism terror attack as it emerged that NSW officers were told to send a “car crew or two” to the December 14 Bondi Hannukah celebration but did not need to stay for the whole event.

Former High Court judge Virginia Bell on Thursday delivered the Interim Report of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, with a focus on NSW Police, security agencies and possible failures that may have led to the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, in which 15 mostly Jewish people were killed on the first night of Hanukkah.

The report contained 14 recommendations, including five in a confidential section, and was released ahead of the first round of public hearings, which starts on Monday.

A focus of Bell’s report was the communications between the Community Security Group (CSG) – the volunteer-led Jewish organisation that arranges security for synagogues, religious schools and community events – and NSW Police in the lead-up to the Bondi event.

The report also raised whether ASIO and other Commonwealth and state intelligence and law enforcement agencies understood and acted on assessments, detailed several times by ASIO director-general Mike Burgess, of a probable terror attack.

“It can be seen from the course of the director-general of security’s public statements from 5 August 2024 until late 2025 that ASIO publicly and repeatedly drew attention to the heightened risk of a terrorist attack and to an environment of ‘disturbing escalation’ of antisemitic incidents,” the report said. “These are matters that will be explored in hearings.”

The report also looked at NSW law enforcement and security measures, and noted that CSG emailed the state’s police in late November with a “Jewish Festival Calendar Notification – Chanukah, 2025”, with the correspondence starting with a request for assistance with “any policing measures that the command may deem appropriate”.

CSG’s email stated that the security level alert for the NSW Jewish community is “HIGH”. “A terrorist attack against the NSW Jewish community is likely and there is a high level of antisemitic vilification,” the email, cited in Bell’s report, said.

The report said the eastern suburbs command’s response was to send a “car crew or two” to “ensure the community feel safe” and provide a high-visibility policing presence, but noted “that there was no need to stay the entire duration” of the event.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon on Thursday defended his officers, saying there “was a policing response [and] NSW Police had worked with CSG” in the lead up to the Bondi event.

“There were police present on that occasion, there had been a risk assessment, and there were certainly roving police throughout the area,” Lanyon said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said the interim report was “sobering reading” and highlighted that the terror attack was “incubated in hatred”.

“The reality is, for a state government, is that its highest responsibility is to protect its people. And on December the 14th last year, we didn’t do that,” Minns said.

Minns said all recommendations would be adopted, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the national security committee of cabinet met on Thursday morning and also agreed to implement all Bell’s recommendations.

“I can assure the Australian public that the government will do everything necessary to protect the community in the wake of the Bondi attack,” Albanese said.

Asked how long it would take for the initial recommendations to be implemented, Albanese said, “we’re not sitting back and just reading this document, we’re acting on it”.

Among the recommendations were calls for NSW Police to deploy stricter security procedures for “high-risk” Jewish festivals. Bell also urged the Commonwealth, states and territories to prioritise the proposed national gun buyback scheme, announced following the terrorist attack, but also said no “urgent or immediate action has been identified” regarding hindering agencies’ ability to prevent or respond to the Bondi attack.

“No material or advice from any agency identified any gap in the existing legal and regulatory frameworks that impeded the ability for law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to prevent, or respond to, an attack of the kind that occurred at Bondi on 14 December 2025,” the report says.

Bell found that, while funding for intelligence agencies increased from 2020 to 2025, investment in counter-terror fell sharply over that period. Bell said she would probe whether funding for ASIO and other intelligence agencies should have been increased further after the nation’s terror threat level was raised to “probable” in 2024 amid a surge in antisemitic attacks.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said he had spoken to several survivors and their families “who still feel the fundamental questions that emerged that day have not been answered”.

“Critical questions remain about the level of police protection on the day, how the shooters evaded the authorities and how they were radicalised,” Ryvchin said.

Ryvchin, who will be the first witness to give evidence at public hearings next week, said Bell’s recommendations were largely “technical” and there was much work still to be done. On the number of NSW Police present at the event, Ryvchin said: “It is not controversial to say that was not adequate.”

Dvir Abramovich, chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, said implementation of the report’s recommendations must be “immediate, national, ruthless and measurable”.

“Every Jewish festival, every synagogue, every school, every public Jewish gathering must now be treated as a potential target until this country proves otherwise,” he said.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said the report’s recommendations appeared “patently obvious” as he accused the government of not doing enough to respond to rising antisemitism since the October 7 attacks.

“This interim report does highlight some alarming developments in the national security space within some of the agencies,” he said, including the fact the national counter-terrorism co-ordinator role was left as a part-time position despite rising security threats.

Interim report key recommendations include:

• The procedures adopted by NSW Police in respect to Operation Jewish High Holy Days should apply to other high-risk Jewish festivals and events, particularly those that have a public-facing element.
• The Commonwealth and states and territories should prioritise efforts to finalise and implement an updated and nationally consistent National Firearms Agreement and National Gun Buyback Scheme.
• The Australian government should consider whether National Security Committee ministers, including the prime minister, should participate in a counter-terrorism exercise, along with all national cabinet members, within nine months of each federal election.
• Consideration given to making the counter-terrorism co-ordinator’s role full-time.
• The Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee should provide direct advice in the form of a written and/or oral briefing, at least annually, to national cabinet.

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