Anthony Albanese is a skilled and experienced politician, if never an inspirational one. It must be assumed by now that he has a strategy in mind in resisting calls for a federal royal commission into the Bondi massacre, and this embraces some plan to attack the opportunism of the opposition, and other media and religious critics, who have tried to allege his personal responsibility for the tragedy. It is possible by now that this includes a plan to deal with the interventions of both Josh Frydenberg and John Howard, both of whom seem to have imported partisan considerations to their other reactions to the massacre.

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Be that as it may, I remain unconvinced that he is right to resist a royal commission. Royal commissions serve several purposes at once. Albanese is, at most, dealing with only one of them, and even then in such a limited (one might also suggest a guilty manner) and, if anything, heightening suspicions that he has something disgraceful to cover up.

The first purpose of a royal commission is to find out and explain what happened. This has several different purposes. The first, and most important audience is the public, around whose needs for information the commission should be oriented. Second are obviously interested groups such as Jews and Islamic people as subjects of anti-Semitic prejudice and people injured by the massacre. There are also security agencies - the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and state counter-terror bodies. Then there are governments, in this case particularly the Commonwealth and state governments, and possibly individual ministers in them. They are the ones, after all, accused by senior public figures of personal culpability, and a failure to heed clear warning signs of what happened. Dennis Richardson is there to judge what security agencies did and whether it was enough. He is not there to judge the politics, the context or the wider facts of the massacre.

That need won't be, cannot be, satisfied by a private and secret inquiry conducted by a security insider however conscientiously he goes about his remit. He might satisfy Albanese's limited desire for information, but he will not - cannot - make findings of fact about what happened at Bondi, the actions of various police agencies and civilians, the quality of the information exchange between Commonwealth and state agencies, or the efficacy and circumstances of actions by ministers, at both state and federal level, to combat anti-Semitic feeling. Some of the "facts" will be contested, and his authority to make findings will be limited if those with strong views and feelings cannot cross-examine witnesses, to contest evidence presented, or to put alternative interpretations of what occurred. Richardson is, in this sense, neither a judicially trained person, however expert he is in Australia's intelligence community and its functions, nor a person who will feel comfortable in making rulings about strongly contested issues, such as the definition of anti-Semitism.

In modern days, royal commissions into disasters and failures of the state serve another purpose - giving public witness to what occurred. It is usually a separate but necessary part of any inquiry. It does usually involve close cross-examination but is also an opportunity for unfiltered speech. Victims, witnesses, experts on different aspects of the circumstances describe what happened before their eyes and talk about the wider impact of the tragedy. Usually, they cannot shed much light on the "higher" circumstances of what was happening with intelligence collection or assessment, or even about government campaigns to reduce racial hatred. But they are experts who have a need to be heard, to have their testimony recorded, and to give witness to a very important history. We need to hear them too. They also have a right to interpret that history according to its impact on them including attributing blame, and not necessarily by the rules of a bill of indictment.

One might suggest that the NSW royal commission could serve such a purpose, but that commission will not have the power to ask questions........

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