Pressure mounts as major business groups join growing Bondi royal commission calls

Major business groups have joined calls for a national royal commission into anti-Semitism and the terror attack at Bondi Beach, following on the heels of more than 130 eminent Australians from business, sports administration and education.

The NSW Government is poised to launch a state-based royal commission into the deadly attack and Anthony Albanese has commissioned Dennis Richardson to do a four-month examination of how security agencies missed what was coming.

But the Prime Minister is holding fast against growing calls for a Commonwealth royal commission to examine anti-Semitism in Australia and the motives underpinning the Islamic State-inspired shooting.

Nine groups representing large and small businesses, banks, retailers, the resources and construction sectors, and manufacturers warned in a joint statement on Friday that the nation needed to learn and understand what had happened.

“As we return to work after the New Year break, we must ensure that shock and grief do not turn into ongoing anger and division, particularly in our workplaces,” they said.

“Workplaces are perhaps the greatest melting pots we have as a country, where people from truly diverse backgrounds come together to work for their common success. Our workplaces are therefore deeply representative of the communities found across our nation, and it follows that we must strive for them to be inclusive.

“Australia is not alone in having faced growth in anti-Semitism. Ultimately, we hope a federal royal commission would send a signal to the world that Australia is committed to providing safe and inclusive communities and intends to lead in overcoming anti-Semitism.

“In turn, this signal would help ensure Australia remains a beacon for capital and talent from around the globe, and the best country in which to live, work and raise a family.”

They said a federal inquiry would avoid the limitations of a state-based approach and could incorporate and build on the work by Mr Richardson.

However, former Labor cabinet minister Craig Emerson cautioned that multiple inquiries running simultaneously risked turning the whole process into a shambles.

“If Albanese acquiesced to critics demanding a federal royal commission, they and others claiming that the whole inquiry process in response to the Bondi shootings had become a dog’s breakfast would have a pretty strong case,” he wrote in an opinion piece for The New Daily.

He said swift action, not a federal royal commission, was needed to toughen hate speech laws, ban terrorist symbols, and tackle anti-Semitism in line with Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s recommendations.

Business leaders including James Packer, John Hancock, leading private equity figure Ben Gray, former union heavyweight Paul Howes and former Victorian Labor deputy premier James Merlino were among more than 130 individuals who signed a separate statement saying the national crisis required a national response.

Betashares founder and chief executive Alex Vynokur, who helped coordinate that statement, said on Friday that Australia was at a critical moment.

“Anti-Semitism, division and hatred are not issues of state significance, they’re issues of national significance and, in my opinion, they need to be treated as such,” he told the ABC.

“This is not a political issue … We need to unite the country. The royal commission is really the highest form of independent public inquiry that is available.”

Separately, Australian Hotels Association WA chief executive Bradley Woods said the scale of the tragedy from the nation’s worst terrorist attack demanded a federal royal commission.

He used a passionate post on social media to recall living in Hobart at the time of the Port Arthur massacre, saying he could still feel the shock of the event and “the grief that settled like fog” across Tasmania.

“The Bondi massacre has stirred those memories. I understand, in a way that only proximity to such horror can teach, that these events do not simply fade. They demand answers. They demand accountability. And they demand that we do everything possible to ensure they never happen again,” he wrote.

Nearly 140 lawyers and former judges have also made a joint call for a federal royal commission, as have several prominent national security figures, including former AFP boss Mick Keelty, former Army chief Peter Leahy and RSL national president Peter Tinley, crossbench and Coalition MPs, the Hindu Council of Australia, and the families of 17 people killed and wounded in the shooting.

Archbishop of Perth Timothy Costelloe, speaking in his capacity as the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, also issued a statement on Thursday saying that the Richardson review was an important step but there must also be a probe of deeper issues.

“It is only by shining a light into the dark corners of our society — including its political, business, academic, media, religious and cultural institutions — that we can hope to unmask the anti-Semitism which might otherwise go unseen, unacknowledged and unaddressed,” he said.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman said he knew people calling for a royal commission were “coming from a good place”.

He urged the university leaders who had signed the joint letter — including Notre Dame chancellor Paul McClintock — to work with David Gonski on his year-long examination of what needs to change in Australia’s education system to better educate about and tackle anti-Semitism.

“I think we all have known for a long period of time is there is very broad support in the Australian community, whether it be government, business, education or the community sector, for stamping out anti-Semitism, and that’s obviously what everyone who’s signed that letter wants to do. It’s what I want to do. It’s what the Australian Government wants to do,” he said.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the joining of business leaders appeared to be just the type of unity Mr Albanese had been calling for in the wake of the shooting.