Improvements in public safety and intelligence following the Bondi terror attack “cannot wait until December”, former spy chief Dennis Richardson said just days after he sensationally resigned from the antisemitism royal commission.
“You can’t leave public safety issues until the end of the year, especially when there is a small sector of the community living in so much fear,” Richardson said on an ABC podcast.
Richardson, the former CEO of Asio and ambassador to the United States, has resigned from the royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion, headed by former high court judge Virginia Bell. This was apparently due to a disagreement over when recommendations would be made on possible failures in security arrangements and the work of intelligence agencies.
The investigation was established in the wake of the Bondi massacre in December, in which two gunmen shot and killed 15 people while they attended a Hanukah beach event for the Jewish community.
Bell said last month that delays in obtaining and assessing material made it unlikely the inquiry would be able to hear evidence about the adequacy of the event’s security arrangements, and about the work of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, before an interim report was due next month.
But Richardson said it was too late.
“The government’s first responsibility is the safety of the community,” he told the Insiders on Background podcast.
“Anything that emerges from the royal commission relating to intelligence and law enforcement will, by definition, have implications for public safety.
“There is a responsibility to get all recommendations related to law enforcement and intelligence to the government as soon as possible.
“It can’t wait until December.”
Richardson said the inquiry’s hearings related to intelligence and law enforcement would only begin around the scheduled date for the commission’s interim report, April 30.
He disagreed with Bell over the timeline and whether a second interim report should be issued.
“The key is that you can’t leave matters related to public safety until the end of the year, especially when there is a small sector of the community that lives in so much fear,” he said.
Richardson was initially tasked with conducting an independent review into possible intelligence failures, before political and community pressure pushed the Albanian government to establish a royal commission. Richardson magazine joined the royal commission.
Richardson had said he resigned from the royal commission because he decided he was “surplus to needs” and that the work he could contribute could not justify the $5,500 a day he was paid.
“There wasn’t enough discussion from the beginning about the precise way things would work. And in the end… I was over-qualified,” he told ABC National Radio.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra, Richardson was eager to praise the work of Bell, with whom he said he had a strong working relationship.
“It’s just that now we’ve reached a point where I think my added value is quite limited,” he said.
“I have no problem with the royal commission continuing to do what it is doing, but let’s put it this way: I didn’t necessarily think my last job of this type was more that of a well-paid investigator.
Some families of those killed in Bondi said they feared the royal commission would become a farce after Richardson’s resignation.
Jenny Rotyur, niece of Boris Tetleroyd, who was shot dead, said the families were worried that “everything would fall apart.”
“We wanted to look very closely at intelligence agencies and their failures,” he said.
“We need the truth to be found and without a law enforcement expert, I find it hard to believe they can do it.”
– with AAP
