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After 15 innocent people were gunned down at Bondi Beach on a Sunday afternoon, a Hebrew word came to Peter Wertheim\u2019s mind: teshuvah. Often translated into English as repentance, the concept more accurately describes a return, a turning back to something you\u2019ve strayed or looked away from.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Jewish tradition, changing one\u2019s attitude and behaviour is a process. It\u2019s not an instantaneous decision,\u201d says Wertheim, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. \u201cIt takes an absorption into a person\u2019s heart and soul that they have been wrong and a commitment to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/bd229a2da1e39b92597cf1e72e5ca598c78da4b2.jpeg\")
Illustration by Simon Letch <\/p>\n
Since the October 7 attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, Wertheim and other Jewish leaders had warned about surging levels of antisemitism and their fears that vandalism and harassment would morph into deadly violence. \u201cPeople were telling us we were imagining or exaggerating things,\u201d says Wertheim, whose 98-year-old mother survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and fled to safety in Australia. \u201cMuch of it was orchestrated ill will but it was aided by breathtaking ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then came the December 14 massacre. Among those shot was the Executive Council of Australian Jewry communications director Evan Zlatkis, who was lucky to survive. The terror attack, Wertheim says, shook Australians out of their sense of complacency, sparking profound questions about how the nation had reached this point.<\/p>\n
Of all the nation\u2019s Jewish leaders, Wertheim is closest to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The pair formed a bond two decades ago when Albanese opposed the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel that was gaining traction in Sydney\u2019s inner west. They then united against the Abbott government\u2019s attempts to water down the Racial Discrimination Act.<\/p>\n
One prominent Jewish Australian describes Wertheim as the \u201cgood cop\u201d working with the government while his fellow co-chief executive, Alex Ryvchin, criticises Labor\u2019s policies on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Behind the scenes, Wertheim has played an important role guiding Albanese towards his unnecessarily protracted and painful decision to hold a royal commission into antisemitism and the Bondi attack.<\/p>\n
The first public commentator to call for a royal commission \u2013 on the day after the attack \u2013 was Chris Taylor, a former national security official who now works at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. To Taylor, the case for such an inquiry seemed so obvious as to be almost redundant. \u201cSurely the federal government would act quickly along those lines? After all, how could there not be a royal commission following the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil?\u201d Taylor wrote this week<\/a>. Relying solely on a review by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson into potential intelligence failures, he said, \u201cis like responding to a city-wide arson spree with an inquiry into whether fire hoses are too short\u201d.<\/p>\n The idea of a federal royal commission quickly gained pace, garnering the support of former foreign spy boss Nick Warner and former High Court chief justice Robert French. On December 29, 17 families connected to the victims of the attack wrote to Albanese calling for a royal commission. Polling for this masthead conducted in the week after the attack found 48 per cent of Australians supported a royal commission and just 17 per cent opposed it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe basic sense of fairness of the Australian people was offended,\u201d Wertheim says. \u201cPeople want to get to the bottom of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Albanese, however, was not convinced. The NSW government had already announced a state-level royal commission, and he feared a drawn-out, polarising national probe would do more harm than good. The evidence gathered by police suggests that Naveed and Sajid Akram had operated in isolation, inspired by Islamic State ideology. No link has been established connecting them to the pro-Palestine protest movement that had flourished during the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n Related Article It did not help that former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg \u2013 who demanded Albanese accept \u201cresponsibility for the death of 15 innocent people\u201d in a fiery speech at Bondi Beach \u2013 was among the leading advocates for a royal commission. \u201cThere was a lot of politicisation and weaponisation,\u201d a senior government source says, explaining the government\u2019s reluctance to move.<\/p>\n Journalistic profiles of Albanese\u2019s career routinely note his stubbornness, which can verge on obstinacy. He took a lot of persuading to amend the government\u2019s stage-three tax cuts and he ploughed ahead with the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum despite a lack of bipartisan support. During the election campaign, he strangely resisted acknowledging he had fallen off a stage at a campaign event. This character trait came to the fore after Bondi.<\/p>\n Last week, Albanese said the government\u2019s resistance to a royal commission was borne \u201cnot out of convenience, it is out of conviction that this is the right direction to go in. And the actual experts, who are the current experts, have all recommended this course of action.\u201d<\/p>\n It was also noted at senior levels of government that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had done everything in his power to avoid a comprehensive probe into the worst intelligence failure in his nation\u2019s history. His proposed inquiry, not announced until two years after the October 7 attacks, departs from existing Israeli law and has been criticised for lacking independence.<\/p>\n Yet none of these factors made the case for a federal royal commission into the Bondi massacre any less compelling. Matching Netanyahu in obfuscation and evading accountability is not the standard an Australian prime minister should aim for.<\/p>\n As recently as Tuesday, Industry Minister Tim Ayres was on radio describing a royal commission as \u201cnot necessary\u201d, saying it would cause \u201cdivision and delay\u201d and that it would take up to 2\u00bd years to complete.<\/p>\n Yet, by this point, Albanese\u2019s inner circle was preparing to make a U-turn. As legal experts, business leaders, sport stars, former Labor politicians and national security experts joined calls for a royal commission, Albanese\u2019s stubbornness began to erode, like a rock being worn down by a relentless tide. His private meetings with survivors of the attack were also influential, helping convince him that a properly structured royal commission could contribute to healing for a grieving community. Labor MP Josh Burns privately lobbied Albanese to change course, as did right-faction heavyweight Don Farrell.<\/p>\n Political calculations were at play too, of course. \u201cThis issue would have kept nibbling away at the government for weeks and months, making it hard for them to talk about the issues they want to talk about: childcare, the economy,\u201d a prominent member of the Jewish community says. \u201cIt would have been a distraction, so they decided to cut their losses.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article On Wednesday afternoon, Albanese met Wertheim and antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices in Sydney\u2019s CBD to discuss the structure of a royal commission. As Albanese said in media interviews on Friday, the meeting lasted for four hours as they went through the details \u201cline by line\u201d. (Wertheim declined to comment on confidential discussions with the government).<\/p>\n When announcing the royal commission a day later, Albanese masterfully demolished his government\u2019s own arguments against holding a royal commission. That it could take years to complete? He imposed a December 14 deadline. That it would delay the Richardson review? The existing probe will be wrapped into the royal commission and delivered as an interim report. Concerns it would platform antisemitism and division? The terms of reference make clear the royal commission should promote, not undermine, social cohesion.<\/p>\n Albanese may have been for turning, but not for apologising. While the Jewish concept of teshuvah usually involves the verbal expression of one\u2019s sins, the prime minister is not inclined to concede mistakes either publicly or in private. He did not say sorry for taking weeks, rather than days, to support a royal commission or the fact that traumatised survivors had to juggle their recovery with lobbying the government. Indeed, he has skirted around the fact his government changed its mind on holding a royal commission.<\/p>\n Such sensitivity is probably unnecessary, if understandable. While political U-turns, like Albanese\u2019s shift on a royal commission, are often portrayed as humiliating backdowns, veteran British journalist Peter Riddell has said they can be good for governments<\/a>. They can remove sources of complaint and show that politicians are listening to the public. Academic research shows voters are more likely to forgive U-turns if politicians are shifting towards a position they favour and if they are driven by principle rather than political calculation.<\/p>\n![\"Albanese](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ca721e4b2d60474f038a46ab9125971d1cc8a1f8cbd8ac12e9835ec3fa8e27b3.jpeg\")
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