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Updated 8 hours ago
The consequences are serious for Bell, for Albanese and for Australia’s security arrangements after the Bondi massacre. The government is now stranded – hostage to a royal commission that has lost its security maestro, facing an inadequate interim report on April 30, and leaving the impression of a commission too slow and too inflexible to meet the nation’s urgent security and cohesion challenges.
But Richardson’s resignation will create shockwaves inside Bell’s royal commission. Presumably, it will move faster and inject more substance into its interim report. Bell has been put on notice. She and Richardson respected each other but there was a chasm between them on how to tackle the intelligence and law enforcement issues.
Richardson raised the prospect of resignation with Bell a fortnight ago, but nothing eventuated in the interim for him to change his mind. Indeed, he was struggling to ensure he had a seat at the table when decisions were being finalised on intelligence and law enforcement.
The situation is beyond belief: Albanese started with a Richardson review and no royal commission and ends up with a royal commission and no Richardson review.
The government’s decision in early January to create a royal commission and fold Richardson into the commission was always likely to be flawed. It was taken in haste and under huge pressures. It meant, from that time, there was no Richardson-controlled and authorised security review.
The ultimate irony is that Albanese probably now feels his initial resistance to a royal commission is shown to have had more substance than people recognised at the time.
The price for Albanese’s retreat to accept the royal commission was having Bell fill the role. He was insistent about that. Bell has judicial credentials. But is Bell the right fit for the job? The Richardson fiasco raises these doubts. Relegating Richardson to what he calls “surplus to requirements” diminishes Bell’s capacity and reflects badly on her judgment.
The lawyers in the royal commission, fixated on their procedures, never recognised Richardson’s authority and expertise. There is only one boss in a royal commission and that was Bell, the former judge Albanese had hand-picked.
Richardson’s resignation is ominous when its full significance is grasped. Obviously, he felt the folding of his brief into the royal commission wasn’t working. He didn’t have the authority he expected or needed, given Albanese’s earlier claim he was the best person to conduct the security review. But Richardson was alarmed about the direction Bell was setting.
The initial Richardson inquiry, created by Albanese as an alternative to a royal commission, had advanced beyond interviews and was focused on findings. Richardson had got to the stage of chapter headings and recommendations. But that’s gone. Bell, as royal commissioner, was heading towards a far more limited interim report largely without recommendations in relation to intelligence and law enforcement and didn’t want an extension to give it more weight.
Richardson publicly said he felt the interim report would be a “very different animal” from his own intention. The point of the initial Richardson review was to deliver a fast response relating to the powers and processes of the intelligence and law enforcements agencies after Bondi.
Richardson was also concerned that substantial recommendations on intelligence and law enforcement would be delayed until the royal commission’s December 2026 final report. He saw this as a mistake and an unjustified delay given the gravity of the Bondi attack and the security risk to the Jewish community.
He advised the royal commission that such recommendations must be sent to the executive government when finalised. Richardson also wanted a scheme to fast-track financial support for Jewish and other schools under threat – a proposal that was delayed.
The notion that Albanese had made a successful pivot from his post-Bondi leadership failures to strike a sound arrangement that incorporated both Bell and Richardson is now in ruins. Albanese had no role in Richardson’s departure. The royal commission is independent of government and Richardson did not speak to Albanese before he resigned. But this week’s drama will only put Bell under more pressure and that, in turn, will intensify the pressure for Albanese.
The opposition, unsurprisingly, calls Richardson’s resignation a “disaster”. Richardson downplayed this comment and has tried to be supportive of Bell in his public comments. The Jewish community faces a dilemma – it wants to support Albanese and the royal commission yet its worries about the commission and Bell will only intensify.
Read related topics:Anthony Albanese
Paul KellyEditor-At-Large