Human Rights Commissioner backs Royal Commission into antisemitism

Australia’s human rights commissioner has endorsed growing calls for a federal royal commission into the Bondi terror attack and antisemitism, becoming the first government-appointed official to publicly back demands from the Jewish community and more than 200 former judges and barristers.

In a statement posted on LinkedIn on New Year’s Eve, Lorraine Finlay said existing reviews were insufficient to grapple with the underlying causes of the violence.

“The Richardson Review will examine our national security framework. But understanding the deeper causes of violence is critical. The Bondi terrorist attack was driven by antisemitism,” she wrote.

“Confronting that directly must be a national priority. A federal Royal Commission is essential to fully understand what has happened and ensure it never happens again.”

Finlay’s intervention adds pressure on the federal government, which has so far resisted calls for a national royal commission, pointing instead to a series of existing inquiries and criminal proceedings.

The Islamic State-inspired Bondi attack on a Hanukkah celebration, which left 15 dead and more than 40 hospitalised, has prompted renewed debate about antisemitism and national security, with Jewish community leaders arguing that only a federal royal commission can fully examine ideological drivers, institutional failures and the broader social conditions that enabled the violence.

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Finlay, appointed by the Morrison government in November 2021 for a five-year term, was previously a law lecturer at Murdoch University, who had also worked as a senior human trafficking specialist with the Australian Mission to ASEAN and as a state prosecutor at the WA Director of Public Prosecutions.

Her appointment drew some criticism at the time because she was previously a Liberal Party candidate for West Australian parliament and president of the state’s Liberal Women’s Council.