Thank you Andrew. Over the years (c1987-2005) I wrote for the Murdoch press and Fairfax and for several years (c.2005-2016) for The Monthly. None of them would presently publish me although for different reasons. One day I might write a substack about this.
Between 2017/8 and 2023/4 I principally was working on my long Political Memoir. I was also recovering from a laryngectomy—the removal of my larynx due to cancer. By now I had become an enemy of The Australian having written a Quarterly Essay on it called Bad News. My thoughts were now too radical for 9 News with Peter Costello as Chair etc., etc. I have fallen out with Schwartz Media because of Israel, having published with them for 25 years. Morry Schwartz was relieved when I made this decision despite our friendship. One day I might write about all this.
I remember your illness and had assumed that was why you had receded from the national conversation. Very happy to see you back, both here and in any other publication not controlled by Nine Entertainment or News Corp.
TSP's (Schwartz) shocking failure to report on Gaza still depresses me.
A Royal Commission is politically impossible for the very reason open criticism of the Israeli government by any major political party in Australia is impossible: to talk truthfully about the scale and criminality of the Israeli government and its genocide is impossible. Why? Because Murdoch media, and because US alliance.
Any credible RC would need to examine the role that Israel's genocide has played in fomenting antisemitism in Australia. Those calling for the RC won't want that included in any ToR. And those resisting the RC know that to be credible, it would need to. But they also don't want an open canvassing of that fact in Australian public discourse.
And so, we can be sure of one thing: if Albanese does cave to the pressure and announces a RC, it will be a deeply flawed one with exceedingly limited ToR that avoid the glaring elephant in the room.
Those urging for a royal commission into anti-semitism in Australia ought to be careful what they wish for. A proper inquiry would have to dwell on the fact that much of the reported anti-semitism wasn't organic or native but manufactured by Iran which knew well that the Israeli lobby would try to exploit it. That sorry fact would have to come out along with the complacent security state's incompetence and cynicism.
You could add that royal commissions rarely make a difference despite the scandals they expose--Aboriginal deaths in custody, pink batts, financial services, aged care, abuse and exploitation of the disabled, Robodebt, all fizzers. Then there's the royal commission wielded as a political cosh. Tony Abbott's cynical, yet fittingly incompetent 2014 royal commission into trade unions is but the most rancid example.
There ought to be a royal commission into how the reputation of royal commissions has been trashed.
Of course such a Royal Commission would be a waste of time and space . It would be carefully designed to protect and preserve the activities of the Usual suspects , just as the excellent RC into the Robodebt scandal saw NOONE responsible
being prosecuted. One of Albanese’s clearly seen skills is appeasement, which has been further emphasised by his invitation
to the Israeli President , as an “honoured guest “ this year . As a means of stirring social division this would win a gold medal , along with kowtowing to every order of his “antisemitism envoy”. Has it slipped his mind that we are a
multicultural society , not merely a puppet of the US and the Zionist Israeli government ?
As someone who worked on the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides, I can attest that a Royal Commission would no more work in this case as it did in that one. We suffered from years of pushback and delays, often to very simple requests, and in the meantime the situation changed and morphed, usually in response to our requests. A fast-moving inquiry, like the Jenkins Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces (which I also worked on), would be more effective, even without the ability to compel evidence. I think we rather overstate the powers of an RC (especially given only a third of recommendations, even when accepted, ever get implemented), which is why we have done far more (almost one a year, on average, since Federation), to no greater effect, than, say, Canada, which has done far fewer.
Cheers Matthew, Thank you for sharing your first hand working knowledge and assessment of the impact and benefit of the RC system, and it is to the point and useful insight and another nail in the coffin for this country’s political class (both brands) who take every opportunity available to them to score political points. Australians understand we are living on not only borrowed land but on borrowed time also. Our citizens are alert to the structural flaws here at home, and see all the actors, good, bad, and indifferent, and Australians connect with the global project too, everyday and in every way, because it is relevant and important to our lives. We are not in Sandy Stones’ living room any longer Toto, this nation needs a complete reboot and a new foundation, no job has ever been more urgent. Maybe a newer more productive system of enquiry could kick Australia 2.0 off, so get started on the terms of reference please, it would be just tragic if that work was left to…say Mark Dreyfus or Michaela Cash, FARK! 🤚
Robert, while I appreciate your arguments here for the most part, it's a little hard to swallow your characterisation of this as the second worst act of political violence committed by an Australian, especially now that Lyndall Ryan's frontier massacre database is so readily accessible online.
Thank you for this article. My deep condolences to you and your family at this terrible time of loss and fear. Thank you for your post.
May I suggest that one reason for not holding an RC is that we know the answer to the question which is proposed by those who seek an RC, namely why the sudden increase in antisemitism since 7 October 2023? The answer is in your post. The answer is Netanyahu (and tribe). He has to be one of the most self-centred, uncaring, murderous people on the planet at the moment, and there is a fair amount of competition for that.
Those who have decided the murders on 14 December are all our PM's fault will not accept the answer from an RC or indeed from anyone, that Netanyahu's personality and actions have given licence and incentive to others murderously inclined, such as the 2 ISIS-inspired assassins. Therefore the whole RC would be a massive waste of time and energy, as well as very, very painful and divisive. Nothing will appease the grief stricken and their exploiters.
An indication of the ruthlessness or naivety of the RC protagonists is the low support amongst the families directly affected. Of the 54 families of direct victims (death, injury) of the 2 ISIS-inspired Bondi assassins, only 11 seek an RC. So 43 families of victims do not. The source of that understanding of the low support for an RC amongst those most affected is the Murdoch's Daily Telegraph, on Instagram.
The other people who are seeking an RC are exploiting grief and suffering and looking for political opportunity; or they are incredibly naïve or possibly vain (lawyers amongst those).
Noting that the PM and cabinet are facing an unprecedented post-tragedy campaign of anti-democratic destruction which has caught them off-guard and scrambling, I am also fearful, like you, of the naivety of our leadership in relation to the Israel of today and Israel's current leaders' vehement acolytes and representatives in Australia. It seems to me that the Netanyahu gang do not care if they hurt other Jews at all, so long as they stay in power. They certainly do not care how much they hurt Australia or Australians, Jewish (roughly 190,000 in Australia) or otherwise (the rest of us). They clearly do not give a damn. Netanyahu’s arrogance is, as Turnbull said, ‘not helpful’ – unless, of course, it is. To Netanyahu.
2. Hamas did not kill 1,200 people on October 7. Israel has admitted killing many under the Hannibal Directive. Israeli newspapers reported this. This occurred both at the Nova festival with helicopter gunships burning out cars and with tank fire at kibbutzes. Israel spread many lies about this day - false claims of mass rape being one. Israel knew the attack was coming and let it happen. Israel also killed the majority ots its hostages in Gaza by their saturation bombings. Hamas offered to return all hostages on Oct 9 if Israel stayed out of Gaza. Hostage families were not told this.
The gormless State of Isreal has never had an official enquiry into the events of October 7, 2023, so for all we know, and what the world knows now, two and bit years down the track, about how this very ordinary and out of touch and out of control military ethno-nationalist apartheid regime conducts its affairs of state is simply immoral and repugnant. Open the borders and let some experts examine the dark day for a start, and then let’s turn to the subject of international law and justice, shall we? One day soon we shall. Great point Belinda, cheers. 👍
4. Israel knows it cannot reputationally recover from genocide but it is funding an expessive worldwide campaign to foster Islamophobia to deflect attention away from their ongoing genocide. We see that working here pist-Bondi. Bad actors smear all Muslims for the violent actions of two men.
Hamas is not committed to destroying Israel. It does not want Israel to continue *in its present form* as a violent apartheid state that denies Palestinians basic human rights, steals their land and homes, detains them in prisons without trial where they are raped and tortured, and has denied them the very basics of life in Gaza - food, medicine and shelter.
Dr Manne's essay is fair but yet it is not entirely free of what are frequently called, in this context, "tropes".
I have read a lot of essays by Dr Manne. They have a moral character. So I do not really believe he means it that the rights and wrongs of the past are endlessly debatable, as if there is no truth and as if the idea of justice has no meaning. Normally we would hear that as a way to avoid the truth and to avoid thinking about justice.
The term 'anti-semitism' does mean something though it is always a misnomer sine semite is not a synonym for jew. It refers to social tensions between emigre European jews communities and their host populations. We all know the extremes of hostility that it reached in the last century. Possibly the trajectory of anti-semitism could be understood from a sociological point of view but no clear picture has reached the general public. It is often thought of being transmitted like a dangerous virus but it is not that. The causes must be economic and social and could be known, but the story is grave and there is an understandable reluctance not to dwell on it.
Here is a case of course where no one would say that the rights and wrongs of the past are endlessly debatable. I understand that shoah and nakba mean the same thing in their respective languages. I say that both are knowable. We can know about injustice in the past and we can calculate justice in the present. This is what courts of law do.
Anti-semitism then is something like race prejudice that we know from other cases. It seems to resemble the experience of blacks in the south of the USA. Thus we do not repeat the terms that the majority population used to denote the minority because, though they are just words, they became loaded with unacceptable disdain or hostility. So there are words for jews and there are words for blacks that when we hear them we sense the hostility.
European jews most unfortunately have been embroiled in a second grievous conflict as well. In the second one the jews were the aggressors. Arabs were the victims.
When we hear the same quite loaded word 'anti-semitism' used to describe arab reaction, resistance, retaliation or revenge it is most usually an attempt to equate arab victims with Nazi oppressors so as to justify all kinds of oppression of arabic people. In the case of Dr Manne I certainly do not suppose such a thing is in his mind. I simply do not understand why he uses the terminology in that way.
"Israel had no choice but to go to war". This is true in the sense that it is committed to a certain path by choices already made. But is also true that there is always the option to repent. The story of Israel is not so much about its fatefule choices but what Britain and the USA did and did not do. It was a fault of the international system. The steps that Dr Manne recounts in the unfortunate history were as much the fault of those international powers as of the European infiltrators.
A comment on about a Royal Commission. One reason that a government might not wish to hold one is that it has something to hide. A better reason is that no-one has anything to hide. The police and intelligence services can be trusted to review their procedures and check if they missed something and the government should review gun laws. No need for inquisitorial powers in the absence of any indication of wrongdoing. It is not as though we expect that lone-wolf crimes can be regularly intercepted before they happen.
Thank you for your article. This rational, sane statement should be published in MSM. The Murdoch press and the like do not publish rational views. Therefore, unfortunately, your article will never be published by them.
Do you have a source for this? I'm aware of Timber Sycamore operation and US supplied arms designed to topple Assad ultimately flowing to ISIS, but not the claim that it was a deliberate concoction designed to smear Muslims...
My son ask me the other day ”If it is morally correct to criticise the Israeli genocide in Gaza and also, as defenders of Israel claim, anti-Semitic to do so, does this imply that anti-Semitism is morally correct?”
An error in your essay - Daesh targeted particular types of Sunni Muslims also. The religiously literate and knowledgeable (recruits from the West who spoke Arabic or had a passing knowledge of the religion were usually sent to the frontline immediately in order to eliminate them), as well as Sunnis with even a modicum of religious authority that might threaten their universalist claim, and of course, anyone who smacked of liminalism, coexistence and living in the gray zone.
Thank you Andrew. Over the years (c1987-2005) I wrote for the Murdoch press and Fairfax and for several years (c.2005-2016) for The Monthly. None of them would presently publish me although for different reasons. One day I might write a substack about this.
Would love to know why this is the case! Have often wondered over the last decade why we never see your pieces anymore.
Between 2017/8 and 2023/4 I principally was working on my long Political Memoir. I was also recovering from a laryngectomy—the removal of my larynx due to cancer. By now I had become an enemy of The Australian having written a Quarterly Essay on it called Bad News. My thoughts were now too radical for 9 News with Peter Costello as Chair etc., etc. I have fallen out with Schwartz Media because of Israel, having published with them for 25 years. Morry Schwartz was relieved when I made this decision despite our friendship. One day I might write about all this.
Thank you, Robert.
I remember your illness and had assumed that was why you had receded from the national conversation. Very happy to see you back, both here and in any other publication not controlled by Nine Entertainment or News Corp.
TSP's (Schwartz) shocking failure to report on Gaza still depresses me.
A Royal Commission is politically impossible for the very reason open criticism of the Israeli government by any major political party in Australia is impossible: to talk truthfully about the scale and criminality of the Israeli government and its genocide is impossible. Why? Because Murdoch media, and because US alliance.
Any credible RC would need to examine the role that Israel's genocide has played in fomenting antisemitism in Australia. Those calling for the RC won't want that included in any ToR. And those resisting the RC know that to be credible, it would need to. But they also don't want an open canvassing of that fact in Australian public discourse.
And so, we can be sure of one thing: if Albanese does cave to the pressure and announces a RC, it will be a deeply flawed one with exceedingly limited ToR that avoid the glaring elephant in the room.
Those urging for a royal commission into anti-semitism in Australia ought to be careful what they wish for. A proper inquiry would have to dwell on the fact that much of the reported anti-semitism wasn't organic or native but manufactured by Iran which knew well that the Israeli lobby would try to exploit it. That sorry fact would have to come out along with the complacent security state's incompetence and cynicism.
You could add that royal commissions rarely make a difference despite the scandals they expose--Aboriginal deaths in custody, pink batts, financial services, aged care, abuse and exploitation of the disabled, Robodebt, all fizzers. Then there's the royal commission wielded as a political cosh. Tony Abbott's cynical, yet fittingly incompetent 2014 royal commission into trade unions is but the most rancid example.
There ought to be a royal commission into how the reputation of royal commissions has been trashed.
Well said 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 and correct 💯
Of course such a Royal Commission would be a waste of time and space . It would be carefully designed to protect and preserve the activities of the Usual suspects , just as the excellent RC into the Robodebt scandal saw NOONE responsible
being prosecuted. One of Albanese’s clearly seen skills is appeasement, which has been further emphasised by his invitation
to the Israeli President , as an “honoured guest “ this year . As a means of stirring social division this would win a gold medal , along with kowtowing to every order of his “antisemitism envoy”. Has it slipped his mind that we are a
multicultural society , not merely a puppet of the US and the Zionist Israeli government ?
As someone who worked on the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides, I can attest that a Royal Commission would no more work in this case as it did in that one. We suffered from years of pushback and delays, often to very simple requests, and in the meantime the situation changed and morphed, usually in response to our requests. A fast-moving inquiry, like the Jenkins Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces (which I also worked on), would be more effective, even without the ability to compel evidence. I think we rather overstate the powers of an RC (especially given only a third of recommendations, even when accepted, ever get implemented), which is why we have done far more (almost one a year, on average, since Federation), to no greater effect, than, say, Canada, which has done far fewer.
https://www.corrs.com.au/insights/key-trends-and-lessons-from-australian-royal-commissions-and-inquiries
Thank you. Very interesting, if not surprising.
A valuable resource also, thank you for the link Samantha. 👍
Cheers Matthew, Thank you for sharing your first hand working knowledge and assessment of the impact and benefit of the RC system, and it is to the point and useful insight and another nail in the coffin for this country’s political class (both brands) who take every opportunity available to them to score political points. Australians understand we are living on not only borrowed land but on borrowed time also. Our citizens are alert to the structural flaws here at home, and see all the actors, good, bad, and indifferent, and Australians connect with the global project too, everyday and in every way, because it is relevant and important to our lives. We are not in Sandy Stones’ living room any longer Toto, this nation needs a complete reboot and a new foundation, no job has ever been more urgent. Maybe a newer more productive system of enquiry could kick Australia 2.0 off, so get started on the terms of reference please, it would be just tragic if that work was left to…say Mark Dreyfus or Michaela Cash, FARK! 🤚
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Robert, while I appreciate your arguments here for the most part, it's a little hard to swallow your characterisation of this as the second worst act of political violence committed by an Australian, especially now that Lyndall Ryan's frontier massacre database is so readily accessible online.
https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/groups.php
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-25/moree-community-marks-massacre-on-australia-day/11897188
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C174087#:~:text=The%20Slaughterhouse%20Creek%20massacre%20of,with%20Gomeroi%20(Kamilaroi)%20warriors.
Thank you for this article. My deep condolences to you and your family at this terrible time of loss and fear. Thank you for your post.
May I suggest that one reason for not holding an RC is that we know the answer to the question which is proposed by those who seek an RC, namely why the sudden increase in antisemitism since 7 October 2023? The answer is in your post. The answer is Netanyahu (and tribe). He has to be one of the most self-centred, uncaring, murderous people on the planet at the moment, and there is a fair amount of competition for that.
Those who have decided the murders on 14 December are all our PM's fault will not accept the answer from an RC or indeed from anyone, that Netanyahu's personality and actions have given licence and incentive to others murderously inclined, such as the 2 ISIS-inspired assassins. Therefore the whole RC would be a massive waste of time and energy, as well as very, very painful and divisive. Nothing will appease the grief stricken and their exploiters.
An indication of the ruthlessness or naivety of the RC protagonists is the low support amongst the families directly affected. Of the 54 families of direct victims (death, injury) of the 2 ISIS-inspired Bondi assassins, only 11 seek an RC. So 43 families of victims do not. The source of that understanding of the low support for an RC amongst those most affected is the Murdoch's Daily Telegraph, on Instagram.
The other people who are seeking an RC are exploiting grief and suffering and looking for political opportunity; or they are incredibly naïve or possibly vain (lawyers amongst those).
Noting that the PM and cabinet are facing an unprecedented post-tragedy campaign of anti-democratic destruction which has caught them off-guard and scrambling, I am also fearful, like you, of the naivety of our leadership in relation to the Israel of today and Israel's current leaders' vehement acolytes and representatives in Australia. It seems to me that the Netanyahu gang do not care if they hurt other Jews at all, so long as they stay in power. They certainly do not care how much they hurt Australia or Australians, Jewish (roughly 190,000 in Australia) or otherwise (the rest of us). They clearly do not give a damn. Netanyahu’s arrogance is, as Turnbull said, ‘not helpful’ – unless, of course, it is. To Netanyahu.
Well said , and correct in every detail 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
2. Hamas did not kill 1,200 people on October 7. Israel has admitted killing many under the Hannibal Directive. Israeli newspapers reported this. This occurred both at the Nova festival with helicopter gunships burning out cars and with tank fire at kibbutzes. Israel spread many lies about this day - false claims of mass rape being one. Israel knew the attack was coming and let it happen. Israel also killed the majority ots its hostages in Gaza by their saturation bombings. Hamas offered to return all hostages on Oct 9 if Israel stayed out of Gaza. Hostage families were not told this.
The gormless State of Isreal has never had an official enquiry into the events of October 7, 2023, so for all we know, and what the world knows now, two and bit years down the track, about how this very ordinary and out of touch and out of control military ethno-nationalist apartheid regime conducts its affairs of state is simply immoral and repugnant. Open the borders and let some experts examine the dark day for a start, and then let’s turn to the subject of international law and justice, shall we? One day soon we shall. Great point Belinda, cheers. 👍
4. Israel knows it cannot reputationally recover from genocide but it is funding an expessive worldwide campaign to foster Islamophobia to deflect attention away from their ongoing genocide. We see that working here pist-Bondi. Bad actors smear all Muslims for the violent actions of two men.
There are errors of fact here.
1.
Hamas is not committed to destroying Israel. It does not want Israel to continue *in its present form* as a violent apartheid state that denies Palestinians basic human rights, steals their land and homes, detains them in prisons without trial where they are raped and tortured, and has denied them the very basics of life in Gaza - food, medicine and shelter.
Indeed. Hamas's Charter was changed some 7 years ago but many seem to have skipped over that.
Dr Manne's essay is fair but yet it is not entirely free of what are frequently called, in this context, "tropes".
I have read a lot of essays by Dr Manne. They have a moral character. So I do not really believe he means it that the rights and wrongs of the past are endlessly debatable, as if there is no truth and as if the idea of justice has no meaning. Normally we would hear that as a way to avoid the truth and to avoid thinking about justice.
The term 'anti-semitism' does mean something though it is always a misnomer sine semite is not a synonym for jew. It refers to social tensions between emigre European jews communities and their host populations. We all know the extremes of hostility that it reached in the last century. Possibly the trajectory of anti-semitism could be understood from a sociological point of view but no clear picture has reached the general public. It is often thought of being transmitted like a dangerous virus but it is not that. The causes must be economic and social and could be known, but the story is grave and there is an understandable reluctance not to dwell on it.
Here is a case of course where no one would say that the rights and wrongs of the past are endlessly debatable. I understand that shoah and nakba mean the same thing in their respective languages. I say that both are knowable. We can know about injustice in the past and we can calculate justice in the present. This is what courts of law do.
Anti-semitism then is something like race prejudice that we know from other cases. It seems to resemble the experience of blacks in the south of the USA. Thus we do not repeat the terms that the majority population used to denote the minority because, though they are just words, they became loaded with unacceptable disdain or hostility. So there are words for jews and there are words for blacks that when we hear them we sense the hostility.
European jews most unfortunately have been embroiled in a second grievous conflict as well. In the second one the jews were the aggressors. Arabs were the victims.
When we hear the same quite loaded word 'anti-semitism' used to describe arab reaction, resistance, retaliation or revenge it is most usually an attempt to equate arab victims with Nazi oppressors so as to justify all kinds of oppression of arabic people. In the case of Dr Manne I certainly do not suppose such a thing is in his mind. I simply do not understand why he uses the terminology in that way.
"Israel had no choice but to go to war". This is true in the sense that it is committed to a certain path by choices already made. But is also true that there is always the option to repent. The story of Israel is not so much about its fatefule choices but what Britain and the USA did and did not do. It was a fault of the international system. The steps that Dr Manne recounts in the unfortunate history were as much the fault of those international powers as of the European infiltrators.
A comment on about a Royal Commission. One reason that a government might not wish to hold one is that it has something to hide. A better reason is that no-one has anything to hide. The police and intelligence services can be trusted to review their procedures and check if they missed something and the government should review gun laws. No need for inquisitorial powers in the absence of any indication of wrongdoing. It is not as though we expect that lone-wolf crimes can be regularly intercepted before they happen.
Excellent piece. Thanks. Like you, I am disgusted by the politicisation of the Bondi murders. https://blotreport.com/2025/12/18/little-sir-echo/
Thank you for your article. This rational, sane statement should be published in MSM. The Murdoch press and the like do not publish rational views. Therefore, unfortunately, your article will never be published by them.
3. ISIS cannot be called Islamic. It is a rogue CIA/MI6 concoction set up to smear Muslims. .
Do you have a source for this? I'm aware of Timber Sycamore operation and US supplied arms designed to topple Assad ultimately flowing to ISIS, but not the claim that it was a deliberate concoction designed to smear Muslims...
Robert Manne; There is a typo in the substack. The title of Randa Abdel-Fattah's novel is Discipline.
Thank you Robert for your brave words.
My son ask me the other day ”If it is morally correct to criticise the Israeli genocide in Gaza and also, as defenders of Israel claim, anti-Semitic to do so, does this imply that anti-Semitism is morally correct?”
This just a word game. "Anti-semitism" refers to hostility to jews just because they are jews or something approximating that. So it is never right.
An error in your essay - Daesh targeted particular types of Sunni Muslims also. The religiously literate and knowledgeable (recruits from the West who spoke Arabic or had a passing knowledge of the religion were usually sent to the frontline immediately in order to eliminate them), as well as Sunnis with even a modicum of religious authority that might threaten their universalist claim, and of course, anyone who smacked of liminalism, coexistence and living in the gray zone.