Prime Minister Anthony Albanese again pushes back on royal commission into Bondi terror attack as Ley slams PM

Anthony Albanese has renewed his vow to take “more guns off our streets”, and pushed back against calls for a royal commission, saying there were none for previous terror attacks.

Speaking after a meeting of the national security committee, convened in response to the Bondi massacre which killed 15 people, the Prime Minister outlined the scale of the government’s security response and the coordination between key agencies.

“At all of these meetings, we receive updates from the Australian Federal Police Commissioner from the heads of our security agencies, ASIO and ASIS, as well as from departments as well. Today also we received updates from (Attorney General Michelle) Rowland and (Home Affairs Minister Tony) Burke about the work that’s progressing on law reform, including the discussion with the States about progressing gun reform,” he said.

“The terrible events at Bondi show that we do need more guns off our streets. The fact there are more guns in Australia today than there were at the time of the Port Arthur massacre is of real concern to Australians and it needs to change,” he said.

With 10 meetings of the committee now complete, the Prime Minister said the focus was shifting from assessment to legislative reform and implementation.

When asked about the forthcoming Dennis Richardson report, investigating ASIO and law enforcement actions before the Bondi attacks, Mr Albanese said transparency would be upheld, but with limits.

“(Mr Richardson) will make whatever is appropriate, can be made public, will be made public. Obviously, as you’ve seen as well, yesterday, I note that a range of the police documentation was made public as well, about the work that has been done to not just identify the perpetrators, of course, but to go through the detail of the time line. All of that is public.”

He also urged media outlets to balance public interest with responsibility in their reporting.

“I would suggest as well that media organisations. I just caution about some common sense being applied here as well about the way that things are published, including pictures. What we don’t want is to see motivations, that are not appropriate, encouraged either.”

Mr Albanese also continued to push back against Opposition calls for a federal royal commission into the Bondi attacks, saying there was already an extensive investigation underway and warned against doubling-up efforts.

He noted that previous governments had not resorted to royal commissions after major terror incidents, citing both the Port Arthur and the Lindt Café siege as examples.

“I just note that there was no royal commission called by the Howard government after Port Arthur. There was no royal commission called by the Abbott government after the Lindt siege,” he said.

“We provided on both those occasions as the Opposition, and I was a part of that Opposition, we provided support for national unity at that time and we have now New South Wales has said that they’re going to have a royal commission. We’ve said we’ll cooperate with that, and we certainly will, and the Richardson review will be completed by April.”

Mr Albanese said the Coalition’s proposal for a federal inquiry was overly broad and risked dragging on for years.

“I note the clauses, the 25 clauses with sub-clauses add up to more than 100, more than 100 areas of investigation have been called for in a royal commission by the Coalition. If you go through them all, that would report in many years to come. And there hasn’t been a royal Commission held recently that has not had an extension of time,” he said.

The Prime Minister emphasised that key facts were already known.

“One of the (alleged perpetrators) is dead and one of them has now been transferred to Long Bay jail.”

Mr Albanese said an alleged motivation of the “evil ideology of ISIS and a perversion of Islam” had been identified.

“We are continuing to investigate whether any other connections can be made, and the amount of work that has been done by police and security agencies in a relatively short period of time is quite extraordinary.”

Bondi gunman Naveed Akram is facing 59 charges over the mass shooting on December 14. Those charges include 15 of murder, committing a terrorist act and 40 counts of causing grievous bodily harm to person with intent to murder. He is yet to enter a plea.

Asked about Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s suggestion that he and senior ministers, including Foreign Minister Penny Wong, had failed to show enough grief in the aftermath of the attack, Mr Albanese said he regretted attempts to politicise the tragedy.

“I certainly do regret the politicisation of this issue. This is a time where the nation needs to come together in unity and with that sense of purpose, this is not a time for people to look for political product differentiation for the sake of it,” he said.

“And I’ll continue to argue for unity. I’ll continue to conduct myself in a way that’s consistent with that call for national unity, with being focused on making a difference, with providing support for the agencies who are conducting their investigations. I would hope that other people do that too.

“That is what happens at a time of national crisis and mourning. That is what national leaders do. That is what has happened in the past.

“And I must say, I thank those people from across the world, but across here as well. I’ve had leaders from across the political spectrum, former leaders reach out saying that that is what we should be seeing in Australia right now.”