TRANSCRIPT - ABC TV NEWS BREAKFAST INTERVIEW WITH OLIVIA CAISLEY - TUESDAY 30 DECEMBER 2025
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS BREAKFAST – OLIVIA CAISLEY
TUESDAY 30 DECEMBER 2025
SUBJECTS: Calls for Royal Commission, Richardson Review, terror threat level
OLIVIA CAISLEY: Back home now, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has resisted pleas from the families of the victims of the Bondi Beach Terror Attack to set up a Federal Royal Commission. For more we're joined by the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke. Thanks so much for speaking with us today.
TONY BURKE: Good morning.
CAISLEY: Look, Minister, 15 people are dead. Two weeks on, we are seeing the Commonwealth reject calls for a Royal Commission, and those calls are coming from the Jewish community, 136 legal barristers as well as members of your own party.
A Royal Commission can compel evidence, but the Richardson Inquiry cannot. Why choose this option?
BURKE: Well, first of all, I understand exactly why people start at a Royal Commission; I understand completely. We've just dealt with a truly horrific antisemitic terrorist attack, and people look at the worst incident, the worst crime and go straight to, well, we should go to what we would normally do as the biggest response. And so I understand completely why people start there.
There are two challenges that the Government sees in having a Royal Commission. The first is about national security and the second's about social cohesion. On the first about national security, we need answers and we need them fast. A Royal Commission doesn't work in that sort of timeline, a Royal Commission is normally chaired by a former judge.
We need to make sure that we have the right national security expert who can do the work and do it quickly, and Dennis Richardson is exactly that person. Across the entire national security community in Australia you will not find anyone more respected than Dennis Richardson, and in terms of his powers he has been guaranteed full cooperation of our agencies, full cooperation. The information that he needs, he will get, the conversations he needs to have, he will get. And he will then be able to report and report fast.
Royal Commissions can take years. We need ‑‑
CAISLEY: All right, Minister, sorry to interrupt you. Let's unpack then that national security side of things, then or that argument. Given this sort of need for speed, is this a concession then that, I guess, factors in the lead‑up to the Bondi attack were missed?
BURKE: Oh, it's a response to what everybody says, which is, "We need to know the answer to that question"; we need to know the answer to that question, and we need somebody independent to be able to find the answer to that question.
So there's looking back whether there's anything that should have been done that wasn't, to be able to do that, which Dennis Richardson is perfectly placed to be able to do, and then there's the looking forward; what do we need to be able to do to keep people safe? Are there changes that we need to make; are there different forms of communication between our agencies that we currently don't have that we need; are there challenges in their legislation that we need to unlock? All of those questions are questions that are about keeping people safe now.
This report will happen by April. I wish it was sooner. But certainly a Royal Commission to be dealing with that would be a much longer timeline, and the person in charge of it would not have the expertise that we have with Dennis Richardson.
CAISLEY: All right. So on the Richardson Review, it doesn't explicitly examine antisemitism, for example, and that's a key concern for the Jewish community in Australia. Critics argue that the reason a Royal Commission has been rejected is concern about what it would expose, so things such as, for example, the Commonwealth's response to an increase in antisemitic incidents that we've seen over the past couple of years. Just a few days ago we saw a Rabbi's car fire bombed here in Melbourne. How do you respond to those charges?
BURKE: Well, first of all, there's a lot to unpack in what you've just put there. Let me just start with the absolute statement which you would expect me to make, that antisemitism is an evil which has no place, it has an ancient history as a form of bigotry, should have no place anywhere in the world and needs to have no place in Australia at all.
In terms of actions that we had already taken, we had already been taking a series of actions from establishing the Antisemitism Envoy, the Student Ombudsman, to be able to - establishing Operation Avalite, expelling an Ambassador, changing our listing regime, changing our laws on hate crimes, changing our laws on hate symbols, deporting people who'd been involved in anti‑Jewish protests. Those things had already ‑-
CAISLEY: Sure. And yet we've seen the biggest terrorist attack -‑
BURKE: That's right.
CAISLEY: In -‑ so could more have been done?
BURKE: That's right. And that's - since that time we're announced further action. We're announced further action to give me increased powers to be able to cancel visas even beyond what we've already been doing, to be able to have new powers against hate speech.
We have all seen videos, we've all seen videos of hate preachers who represent a tiny minority in this country, but who have horrific views, and we look at them and we say, "How on earth are they allowed to say that?" They've been just on the right side of law in Australia, so we are changing the law -‑
CAISLEY: Sure, but -
BURKE: So that those forms of hate speech are illegal. You're asking me what we're doing. There are organisations, Hizb ut‑Tahrir and the Neo‑Nazis who have been able to foster hate -‑
CAISLEY: But the Richardson Review doesn't go to those specific issues, for example, the rise of hate preachers.
BURKE: That's right. And those issues are issues where we are already developing the legislation, we've announced the legislation. I'm meeting daily with the Department of Home Affairs, getting updates on that legislation and the drafting of it, meeting daily with ASIO and the Australian Federal Police as well.
In terms of those actions, they're not even waiting for the Richardson Review. They're happening, they're being drafted now, they need to occur.
We cannot have a situation where people are able to engage in this form of hate and fostering of hate, and just because they don't specifically call for violence, manage to avoid criminal consequences, or organisations that are fostering the sort of language that terrorists might rely on, but because they don't themselves call for violence have never been able to be listed as terrorist organisations.
CAISLEY: Sorry to cut you -‑‑
BURKE: These organisations should have no place in Australia, and we are not waiting for the Richardson Review or any review to be legislating to deal with that.
CAISLEY: Okay. So what assurances can you give Australians that the findings of the Richardson Review won't be withheld on national security grounds? Who is going to determine exactly what is made public?
BURKE: It's already been made clear that there will be a public report of the Richardson Review. With national security, with national security, as you'd respect -
CAISLEY: Yeah.
BURKE: There are always some times with national security where there is some information that isn't made public, 'cause when you make it public, you're not just making it public to people of goodwill -
CAISLEY: Yeah.
BURKE: You're also making it public to people who want to cause you harm. So that line is always there. But that is the only line. Other than that, it's been clear from the start that ‑ and Dennis Richardson will release a public report.
CAISLEY: Okay. So for viewers at home who are concerned about the fact that this incident has taken place, does current intelligence indicate that there is an Islamic State cell operating in Australia at this time? What is the risk level right now?
BURKE: Look, the terror alert level in Australia is at probable, and we all wish that were not the case, but it is at probable; that's where it is at, and there are things that we can do to have an impact there, and a whole lot of counterterrorism work is part of that.
But also the direct work against bigotry, against hate speech, against hate organisations, making sure that we increase our capacity to deport people who want to hate Australia and fellow Australians. All of that is part of dealing with this, and none of that can wait.
CAISLEY: Minister Burke, thank you very much for your time this morning.
BURKE: Thanks for the chance to talk.
ENDS