It was inevitable that a royal commission the government didn’t want — and only called to appease an impassioned few — would have a solid chance of being set up to fail.
No shade on the antisemitism royal commissioner, Virginia Bell, who will undoubtedly do the best job possible within the unwieldy constraints she’s been handed. However, if anyone was still thinking this exercise was going to run in regular shape, Dennis Richardson’s bombshell departure should dispel that delusion.
To recap: post-Bondi, prime minister Anthony Albanese was refusing all entreaties to call an immediate royal commission.