Rabbi Yehoram Ulman delivered devastating testimony as the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion officially closed its public hearings this week. The senior rabbi and father-in-law of Bondi terror victim Rabbi Eli Schlanger said the commission was asking questions of all Australians about what kind of country we want this to be.
"This is not only a question for Jewish Australians," he said. "A society in which hatred and extremism are allowed to grow is ultimately a threat to the character of the country itself."
Rabbi Schlanger's youngest son, Rabbi Ulman's grandson, was just two months old when his father was shot dead beside Bondi Beach: "One day he will be old enough to understand what happened," Rabbi Ulman said, "... and I wonder what Australia he will know by then."
These poignant reflections contrast sharply with the restrictive framework of the inquiry itself. After the horror of December 14, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was dragged kicking and screaming to establish the commission. His government initially opposed the inquiry, instead prioritising gun control measures as if inanimate weapons, rather than radicalised Islamic extremists, were the root cause of the massacre.
Commissioner Virginia Bell has presided over four months of hearings, spanning 62 hearing days and featuring 346 witnesses. The inquiry received more than 20,000 public submissions, including the voices of about 14,000 Jewish Australians. Yet, as the hearings conclude, a question lingers: has this process been too short and swift to deliver anything meaningful and truly lasting for the nation, or for a baby boy who will never know his father?
Calls for the inquiry to be extended have come from families of the victims, Holocaust survivors and national security experts. They say more time is needed to properly interrogate government shortfalls and the alarming rise of extremist Islam. Instead, the tight deadline ensured the Prime Minister, relevant cabinet ministers, police chiefs, and heads of security agencies were not required to give evidence.
Interested and influential figures, including former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who first championed the royal commission, were sidelined. And, of most concern, the inquiry failed to publicly call the Islamic hate preachers who have stoked anti-Semitism, sometimes even endorsing violence, alongside the organisers of disruptive pro-Palestinian protests.
Senior counsel assisting the commission dismissed these concerns, claiming critics failed to appreciate the full scope of confidential evidence gathered behind closed doors. The remarkably short time frame suggests a degree of deliberate political calculation. By rushing the proceedings, the government has in effect limited the ability of the commission to wander into uncomfortable political territory, including the severe criticism it has faced for ignoring the rising tide of anti-Semitism across the country.
The decision to hear key evidence behind closed doors, purportedly to avoid prejudicing criminal trials, has only compounded the frustration of grieving families who expected - or at least hoped for - an unsparing examination of the toxic climate that enabled the Bondi atrocity.
Australia faced a choice after December 14. It could confront unchecked hatred directly, or allow the underlying ideological causes to fester in the shadows. By wrapping up public hearings without demanding accountability from those who enable hate speech and those who failed to stop it, the inquiry risks being a lost opportunity. Despite this, it is to be hoped Commissioner Bell can craft a final report that respects the victims by delivering findings of lasting substance.
