Our submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion
The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is inquiring into antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia, including the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025.
In May 2026 the Libertarian Party of Western Australia made this submission to the Royal Commission in response to its Interim Report of April 2026. It was submitted by WA President Jordan Woodhams.
Key points
- We condemn the Bondi attack. The submission condemns "in the strongest possible terms, the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025" and calls for "practical measures that keep people safe while safeguarding the individual freedoms and national character that make Australia worth defending."
- A Bill of Rights. Australia "urgently needs a Bill of Rights, or equivalent constitutional entrenchment, that safeguards fundamental liberties such as freedom of speech, the right to self-defence, property rights, and equality before the law."
- Firearms. We oppose Recommendations 13 and 14 (an updated National Firearms Agreement and a National Gun Buyback Scheme) "in the strongest terms". The submission says: "The correct response is ruthless enforcement against illegal firearms trafficking, border control, and harsh penalties for criminal possession, not another round of punishing law-abiding owners."
- Free speech and privacy. "Free speech remains the most powerful tool against hateful ideas". Any information-sharing or surveillance enhancements must "contain iron-clad protections for the privacy and rights of innocent citizens."
Full submission
Submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion
On behalf of the Libertarian Party of Western Australia
May 2026
The Libertarian Party of Western Australia welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to the Royal Commission. We do so in response to the Interim Report of April 2026 and in full engagement with all four limbs of the Terms of Reference established by the Letters Patent.
We begin by condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025. The murder of fifteen innocent people and the wounding of forty more, carried out in cold blood against a community celebrating Chanukah, was an act of pure evil. Every Australian has the right to live free from such violence. Protecting that right is a fundamental duty of government. Our comments that follow are offered in that spirit: we want practical measures that keep people safe while safeguarding the individual freedoms and national character that make Australia worth defending.
The Scope and Framing of the Terms of Reference
Before turning to the Interim Report itself, we must address a threshold concern. The Terms of Reference focus heavily on the nature and prevalence of antisemitism, the circumstances of the Bondi attack, agency performance, legislative frameworks, and “strengthening social cohesion.” The framing risks confining the inquiry to symptoms rather than root causes.
Australia is, and should remain, a multi-ethnic nation. People from every corner of the world have built successful lives here by embracing a single Australian culture grounded in individual liberty, equality before the law, freedom of speech, democratic governance, and loyalty to this country above all others. What has failed is not ethnic diversity itself, but the official policy of multiculturalism that has encouraged parallel societies, group rights over individual rights, and the retention of cultural practices incompatible with our core values. That said, these core values are not adequately protected in our constitutional and legal framework. For them to endure against both imported extremism and domestic government overreach, Australia urgently needs a Bill of Rights, or equivalent constitutional entrenchment, that safeguards fundamental liberties such as freedom of speech, the right to self-defence, property rights, and equality before the law. Without such protections, even the best-intentioned policies can erode the very foundations that hold the nation together.
The Terms of Reference do not appear to require a sufficiently rigorous examination of how mass immigration without rigorous vetting for cultural compatibility has imported antisemitic ideologies, radicalised networks, and eroded social trust. Nor do they compel a frank assessment of whether government-funded “social cohesion” and de-radicalisation programs have sometimes entrenched division rather than overcome it. An inquiry worthy of the name must confront these realities. We therefore urge the Commission to expand its analysis in the final report to include:
- The role of immigration selection and integration policies in allowing incompatible ideologies to take root.
- The impact of institutional capture in universities, media, and public bodies that has tolerated or excused certain forms of extremism.
- Whether the emphasis on group identity over a unifying national culture has made antisemitism and other hatreds more, not less, likely.
A single Australian culture is not assimilationist dogma; it is the proven foundation of our success as a free and prosperous nation. Without it, social cohesion becomes a slogan rather than a reality.
Response to the Interim Report and Its Fourteen Recommendations
The Interim Report provides a detailed examination of the threat environment, security arrangements for the Chanukah event, emergency response, community security groups, counter-terrorism architecture, information flows, legislative frameworks, and agency resourcing. We note the important caveats around current criminal proceedings and the confidential chapters. Our comments focus on the public material while acknowledging the broader context.
Recommendation 1 (extending NSW Police High Holy Days procedures to other high-risk Jewish events) and related findings in Chapters 2 and 4 are understandable in the short term. Community Security Groups have played a valuable liaison role and should continue to do so. However, permanently institutionalising dedicated police resources for specific community events risks turning law enforcement into an identity-based service rather than a universal public good. The better path is to empower communities and individuals to take primary responsibility for their own security through private arrangements, training, and lawful self-defence options, with police providing targeted support only where intelligence justifies it. The $102 million Enhancing Security for Jewish Communities program and the expansion of Operation SHELTER illustrate the same pattern: understandable immediately after an atrocity, but unsustainable and divisive as long-term policy. Taxpayer funds should serve the entire public, not create precedents for group-specific subsidies.
Recommendations 2–7 (full-time Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, ANZCTC role clarification, Handbook updates, National Cabinet briefings, JCTT review, and ministerial exercises) reflect a desire to improve coordination. Yet they collectively amount to further bureaucratisation of an already complex national security apparatus (Chapters 6, 9 and 10). New full-time positions, mandatory briefings, triennial reviews, and post-election exercises consume resources and create additional layers that can slow decision-making rather than sharpen it. The report itself records that no agency identified legislative gaps or authorising-environment failures that prevented action on 14 December 2025. In that light, the priority should be frontline intelligence, rapid operational response, and decisive prosecution, not perpetual machinery reviews. Australia does not need more coordinators and committees; it needs sharper focus on actual threats.
Recommendations 8–12 (confidential, concerning information flows, systems, and sharing arrangements in Chapter 7) warrant the same caution, and in our view even greater concern precisely because they remain confidential. Timely sharing of genuine threat intelligence is essential. But any expansion of access to personal data must be narrowly tailored, proportionate, and subject to rigorous independent oversight. The decision to keep these particular recommendations hidden from the public denies Australians the opportunity for informed debate on measures that could significantly expand state surveillance powers. History demonstrates that broadened information-sharing regimes inevitably sweep up information on law-abiding citizens, and when such changes occur behind closed doors the risk of mission creep, abuse, and unintended erosion of privacy rises sharply. Civil liberties are not optional extras to be sacrificed after every tragedy, nor should major alterations to the balance between security and freedom be implemented without transparency and public accountability. Actions taken without public knowledge or parliamentary debate undermine trust in institutions at the very moment when that trust is most needed.
Recommendations 13 and 14 (updated National Firearms Agreement and National Gun Buyback Scheme) are, in our view, the most misguided elements of the report. Chapter 8 correctly notes that the attackers used illegally obtained firearms. Further restricting possession, licensing, and lawful ownership for millions of responsible Australians will not disarm terrorists or criminals. It will, however, infringe the fundamental right of individuals to defend themselves and their families when the state is unable to do so in time. National buyback schemes have repeatedly proven expensive, ineffective at reducing violent crime, and irrelevant to terrorism. They confiscate private property from compliant citizens while the black market and illegal importation continue unchecked. We oppose both recommendations in the strongest terms. The correct response is ruthless enforcement against illegal firearms trafficking, border control, and harsh penalties for criminal possession, not another round of punishing law-abiding owners.
Additional Matters from the Terms of Reference
The threat environment chapter (Chapter 1) and the discussion of rising antisemitic incidents since October 2023 correctly identify ideologically and religiously motivated extremism as a driver. Yet the report stops short of examining how certain imported ideologies and failures of integration have sustained that extremism. Free speech remains the most powerful tool against hateful ideas: sunlight disinfects. Attempts to regulate “online extremism” or expand de-radicalisation programs too often slide into viewpoint discrimination and the suppression of legitimate debate. We reject that path.
The emergency response chapter (Chapter 3) highlights the vital contribution of civilian first responders, volunteer surf lifesavers, and community medical units such as Hatzolah. This is a powerful reminder that voluntary action and personal initiative often fill gaps faster than official machinery. Policy should remove regulatory obstacles to such efforts rather than centralise everything under state control.
On resourcing and priorities (Chapters 9 and 10), the increase in counter-terrorism funding post-October 2023 is understandable. However, sustained group-specific programs and bureaucratic expansion must not become permanent fixtures. The most effective use of public resources is impartial, intelligence-driven law enforcement that protects every Australian equally.
What Should Be Addressed Differently
In its final report the Commission should:
- Explicitly reject further firearms restrictions and buybacks.
- Limit bureaucratic expansion and redirect resources to frontline capability.
- Recommend immigration and integration policies that require genuine commitment to Australian values and a single national culture.
- Affirm that social cohesion is best served by equal application of the rule of law and voluntary association, not government-orchestrated group preferences.
- Champion free expression as the primary means of countering extremism.
- Ensure any information-sharing or surveillance enhancements contain iron-clad protections for the privacy and rights of innocent citizens.
Australia faces real threats. Meeting them requires honesty about root causes, fidelity to individual rights, and confidence in the unifying culture that has allowed diverse people to thrive here. Expanding the state while eroding those foundations will not make us safer, it will make us less free.
The Libertarian Party of Western Australia stands ready to provide further evidence, appear at hearings, or assist in any other way the Commission considers appropriate. We thank the Commissioner and her team for the important work they are undertaking.
Submitted by the Libertarian Party of Western Australia
Jordan Woodhams
President
Libertarian Party Western Australia