Bondi’s Royal Commission: A pathway to transformative justice or another executive power expansion?

In a notable change of heart, Albanese’s government has reversed its stance in response to the Bondi attack, ultimately agreeing to a Royal Commission inquiry. This shift comes after initially insisting for a review of the nation’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies instead.

While the steps have been framed as necessary to maintain public safety, both approaches raise deeper constitutional queries about the limits of executive power, the erosion of accountability, and the need to protect Australia’s democratic institutions.

The proposed Commission must not suffer the same fate as previous inquiries whose many findings were ultimately left unimplemented. Royal Commissions or an internal review cannot be treated as symbolic exercises; they must lead to concrete action that addresses the underlying causes of harm. 

As Australia navigates this pivotal moment, will it uphold its commitment to the rule of law, or will the crisis once again be used as a pretext to expand state power without meaningful scrutiny?

READ: Indiscriminate suppression: Attacking pro-Palestinian protests after the Bondi killings 

Executive power and the absence of constitutional safeguards

Australia is unique among liberal democracies for lacking a federal Bills of Rights and Human Rights Act. Instead, civil liberties are protected indirectly through a combination of constitutional structure, statutory & common law safeguards, as well as political convention. For years, civil society has been pushing for a federal Bills of Rights that aligns with international obligations. Despite strong recommendations, such as those made in the 2024 Parliamentary Committee Report, this essential reform remains pending. In the face of this legislative gap, it is incumbent upon the Parliament, the courts, and independent oversight bodies to apply check and balance preventing the executive branch from overstepping its authority.

In practice, Australia’s national security and counterterrorism have become areas where executive discretion is at its widest and least accountable. Over the past two decades, successive governments have expanded preventative detention powers, lowered thresholds for surveillance, and curtailed protest rights, often with bipartisan support.

Law enforcement arrested seven men in Sydney amid fears of a planned “violent act,” though no direct links to the Bondi shooters have been confirmed —photos: supplied.

The Bondi response seems to follow this pattern. Preventative actions have been taken in the absence of publicly tested evidence, while the political narrative has emphasised urgency over scrutiny. This happens despite of constitutional orthodoxy that clearly states how necessity does not displace legality. The High Court has consistently held that executive power must remain proportionate, justified, and subject to review, particularly where an individual or a group of people’s liberty is at stake.

The danger is not that government is acting to protect public safety; but it is that such actions are at high risk occurring with minimal transparency, limited justification, and without the institutional safeguards (checks and balances) that are essential to distinguish lawful governance from arbitrary executive decisions. The case of Randa Abdel-Fateh at Sydney Macquarie University serves as a prime example. She was ultimately cleared of “anti-Semitic” allegations after a year-long ordeal that saw her research grant suspended and her reputation tarnished by mainstream media, lobbyists, politicians, and parliamentary inquiries. This case highlights the alarming trend of equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

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No justice no peace: The problem with internal reviews & the Royal Commissions

Internal reviews operate within the very institutions they are meant to assess; therefore it could be lacking the independence and public transparency that define effective accountability mechanisms. Similarly, while Royal Commissions have served as Australia’s primary tool for examining systemic failure and justifiable for accountability measures; the real test lies in its execution and the subsequent implementation of its recommendations. 

Their implementation records reveal a persistent gap between diagnosis and structural change. For example, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody produced 339 recommendations, but decades later the structural drivers of deaths in custody have continued while police powers have expanded. Analogously, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse  delivered historic truth-telling and exposed profound wrongdoing, but many of its systemic accountability and redress mechanisms remain only partially implemented. These precedents reveal a pattern in which Royal Commissions diagnose harm without dismantling the power structures that produce it. 

In the context of Bondi, the risk is especially acute. The emphasis on policing, protest restrictions and surveillance risks repeating this cycle. When the Royal Commission inquiries are narrow in scope, lack enforcement mechanisms, or operate without constitutional commitment, they become exercises in public reassurance rather than the engines of transformative justice. And without external oversight and proper structural reform, such a process risks legitimising further executive power expansion under the banner of “lessons learned security.”

Policing, protest, and the constitutional right to dissent 

One of the most troubling aspects of the post-Bondi response has been the restriction of protest in and the treatment of political expression as a security risk. While Australia does not have an explicit constitutional right to protest, the High Court has recognised an implied freedom of political communication to protect this essential democratic participation.

Measures that deter protest or political expression must meet a high threshold of justification. They must be proportionate, necessary, and clearly connected to a legitimate objective. Blanket restrictions or pre-emptive enforcement based on association or ideology risk failing this test.

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In this context, the targeting of Muslim and pro-Palestinian communities raises serious equality concerns. Laws that are neutral on their face can still operate in a discriminatory manner if applied selectively or informed by racialised assumptions about risk.

The rule of law requires more than formal equality. It demands that power be exercised without bias, that enforcement be evidence-based, and that communities are not treated as proxies for geopolitical conflicts beyond their control.

Foreign policy, security alignment, and domestic law

Another underexamined dimension of the Bondi response is the influence of foreign security frameworks on domestic policing. Australia maintains exceptionally close intelligence and defence ties with Israel and other security partners, especially after the 2019 cyber and defence industry cooperation and the 2021 AUKUS memorandum. While cooperation itself is not improper, the intricacy of these relationships raises legitimate concerns when domestic policy begins to mirror foreign counterterrorism paradigms.

In the days following the attack, public debate was shaped by figures closely aligned with pro-Israel advocacy, many of whom framed criticism of Israeli state conduct as a security threat rather than political expression. This conflation risks collapsing legitimate criticism into suspicion, narrowing democratic space and justifying expanded surveillance.

From a constitutional perspective, this is deeply problematic. Australian law does not permit the outsourcing of domestic legal standards to foreign security doctrines. Nor does it allow political speech to be curtailed on the basis of international or foreign alliances.

If counterterrorism policy becomes a vehicle for importing external political priorities into domestic law enforcement, parliamentary sovereignty and democratic accountability are undermined. When this framing dominates, it becomes easier for governments to justify expanded policing and surveillance while avoiding scrutiny of their own failures.

Notwithstanding, the rapid politicising of Jewish fear to insulate Israel from criticism is not only counterproductive but harmful. By inextricably linking Jewish safety to Israel’s policy agenda, it forecloses opportunities for careful and fact-based discussion. This approach not only hinders efforts to effectively address antisemitism but also contributes to security measures that disproportionately impact pro-Palestinian right groups and Muslim communities.

The Royal Commission’s challenge: Understanding constitutional accountability

Australia does not suffer from a lack of inquiries. It suffers from the absence of genuine commitment from our politicians to dismantle and curtail  racialised and class power that perpetuate injustice in our country. For a Royal Commission or an internal review of Australian law enforcement to be genuinely effective and not merely performative, it would need to meet conditions rarely satisfied in practice. 

READ: Indiscriminate suppression: Attacking pro-Palestinian protests after the Bondi killings 

 First, any inquiry must be genuinely independent. Commissioners should have no institutional ties to law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or foreign policy bodies whose conduct may be examined.

Second, the terms of reference must extend beyond the immediate incident to include the broader architecture of policing: surveillance powers, intelligence sharing, protest restrictions, and racialised enforcement patterns.

Third, findings must carry enforceable consequences. Recommendations without implementation mechanisms serve only symbolic functions and risk entrenching public cynicism.

And fourth, the communities most affected by securitisation; especially Muslim, Arab Australians and Palestinian right groups must be meaningfully included in the process, as active participants and stakeholders in public safety rather than merely subjects of investigation.

Equally essential is sustained investment in community-led prevention, not securitisation. Evidence consistently shows that social safety is built through housing stability, mental health services, education, and locally embedded community organisations; not through suspicion, coercion, or collective punishment. 

This moment demands intellectual humility from political leaders to reflect basic principles of administrative law, procedural fairness, and democratic accountability. The response to assert control, expand surveillance, and centralise power often emerges from a refusal to admit institutional failure. 

A path forward: Security cannot substitute for justice 

To truly uphold its values of fairness, social cohesion, and democratic integrity, law enforcement and protest laws must be rebalanced to protect the fundamental right to peaceful protest. Rather than deploying broad, pre-emptive powers that limit lawful expression, policymakers should adopt standards that safeguard both community safety and civil liberties, including review processes for police powers and clearer limits on preventative detention and surveillance.

Genuine solidarity that honours victims demands confronting hate in all its forms without conflating legitimate criticism with bigotry or, conversely, securitising the presence of entire communities. Antisemitism and Islamophobia both thrive when fear is politically useful, deployed to silence truth and entrench division while enriching the machinery of surveillance and enforcement domestically, as well as internationally (read: imperialism).

The victims of the Bondi attack must be honoured through a response grounded in law, accountability, and a commitment to the principles that define a democratic society, not through performative action. Because security without fairness and justice, is merely an illusion of safety. And a democracy that relies on fear to govern risks degenerating into a fascist regime, sacrificing the very freedoms that are essential to its raison d’être.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.