MEDIA STATEMENT 24 December 2025
The family of Katrina Dawson, a victim of the 2014 Lindt Café siege, has joined the growing chorus of calls for Prime Minister Albanese to establish a Commonwealth Royal Commission into antisemitism and the Bondi terrorist attack, as reported by the Australian Financial Review today.
Katrina Dawson’s parents and brother said they were appalled by Prime Minister Albanese’s claim that we don’t need a Commonwealth Royal Commission because there wasn’t one into the Lindt siege.
The Dawson family joins a groundswell of Australians from across the political divide, professions and all walks of life – including Jewish community leaders, current and former Labor MPs, former Chief Justice Robert French, more than 170 of the nation’s most respected silks and judges, former Prime Ministers, former Governor-General Peter Cosgrove, and many others. This is not a partisan demand. It is a widespread, national one.
Man Haron Monis, the terrorist behind the Lindt Café siege, was a radical Islamic extremist who claimed to be acting on behalf of Islamic State. The persistence of the same ideological threat more than a decade later exposes the entrenched nature of radicalisation in Australia and underscores why a Royal Commission of this scale is urgently needed.
Like the antisemitic violence Australia has witnessed over the past two years, the Lindt café siege was not an isolated incident. It was part of an ongoing threat of radical extremism that demands the serious national scrutiny only a Commonwealth Royal Commission can provide.
The Dawson family said they knew from their painful personal experience the limits of a state-based inquiry when Commonwealth agencies are involved, and how federal agencies can use it to avoid scrutiny. Only a Commonwealth Royal Commission has the authority to compel witnesses and evidence across jurisdictions and agencies. A state inquiry is simply not good enough.
As the Dawson family said, “A federal royal commission can cut through these sort of constraints and consider the very wide range of issues that need to be examined”.
The Albanese Government would like Australians to believe a state inquiry is sufficient. It is not. The threat of antisemitism – and the extremist ideologies that fuel it – is national in scale and complexity. Only a Commonwealth Royal Commission can match the interjurisdictional, interdisciplinary nature of the problem. A state inquiry, or any other inquiry, cannot.
The case for a Commonwealth Royal Commission is overwhelming. The Coalition has released comprehensive Terms of Reference capable of addressing all these issues in full and is ready to work with the Albanese Government to act immediately.
Australians across the political spectrum are demanding action. Why is Prime Minister Albanese refusing to listen? What does he have to hide?
This is no time for delay or deflection. It is time for moral courage and clarity from the Albanese Government. Listen to Australians and call a Commonwealth Royal Commission now.
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Media Contact: Brendan West -0402 556 646 – Brendan.west@aph.gov.au
