Family of Lindt Cafe victim call for royal commission, ‘appalled’ by PM invoking siege

2 days ago 5

The family of a Lindt Cafe siege victim has called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to launch a federal royal commission into the Bondi massacre, saying they were appalled he had invoked the cafe attack to avoid holding a national inquiry.

The family of Katrina Dawson, who was killed in the siege in 2014, said “painful personal experience” showed them that a state-based royal commission would not have the power to uncover what went wrong leading up to the Bondi attack, in which 15 innocent people were killed.

The parents of Katrina Dawson at the Lindt Cafe siege inquiry in 2017.

“We are appalled that the prime minister, seeking to avoid a much-needed royal commission into antisemitism and Islamic extremism, would say that we don’t need a royal commission because there wasn’t one into the Lindt siege,” Dawson’s parents, Sandy and Jane and her brother Angus, said in a statement.

Calls for a Commonwealth royal commission have persisted despite the prime minister insisting a state-based royal commission, the antisemitism envoy’s report, and a federal inquiry into law enforcement processes would deliver the fastest results.

Forced to defend his position, Albanese said on Tuesday that a federal royal commission had not been called for after other shootings.

“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,” Albanese 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.”

The prime minister has said the federal government and intelligence agencies will fully co-operate with the NSW royal commission, but Dawson’s family cast doubt over Albanese’s claim.

The family accused federal agencies of avoiding accountability during the state-based Lindt siege inquest, and said they feared the NSW royal commission into the Bondi attack would also lack the power to compel law enforcement to cooperate.

“During the [Lindt Cafe] inquest, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO repeatedly relied on extensive legal representation, claims of secrecy and privilege, and procedural resistance that a state coroner simply had no power to penetrate,” the Dawson family said.

“That lawyering up did not advance the search for truth. It blocked answers to legitimate questions, prolonged proceedings, and inflicted additional and unnecessary pain on families who were already grieving and seeking accountability from those charged with keeping Australians safe.”

Dawson and Tori Johnson were killed during the Lindt Cafe siege in December 2014, after gunman Man Haron Monis held 17 people hostage for hours in the venue in the Sydney CBD. Monis was shot dead by police after the gunman had shot Johnson, with Dawson hit by shrapnel from a police bullet.

Monis had asked for an Islamic State flag as part of his demands during the siege. But his exact motivations were questioned as at the time of the attack, Monis was before the courts for a string of sexual assault offences and for being an accessory to the murder of his former wife.

A NSW coronial inquest after the siege investigated the police response and Monis’s bail history.

The family said the Bondi massacre could not be equated with the Lindt siege, which was “one devastating incident” rather than a series.

“The Bondi massacre is just the latest of so many attacks on Jewish Australians that have taken place over the last two years and two months. And there are now more anti-Jewish demonstrations taking place. Our country has become divided and we must do everything possible to heal that division,” they said.

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