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

The family accused federal agencies of avoiding accountability during the 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 co-operate.

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“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.”

The Dawson 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.

Opposition education spokesman Julian Leeser, who knew Katrina Dawson from practising law in Sydney, said her family’s intervention was extraordinary.

“The Dawson family are very private people. The fact that they have taken an unprecedented step of entering the public discussion about having a royal commission speaks volumes,” Leeser said.

“If the prime minister is not going to listen to the opposition in terms of their calls for a royal commission, if he’s not going to listen to … over 170 of Australia’s top lawyers, his own backbenchers Mike Freelander and Ed Husic, maybe, just maybe, he will listen to the family of Katrina Dawson, whose life, like the lives of 15 people at Bondi, was cut short by the gunman’s bullet in a terrorist attack on our shores.”

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

Monis 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.

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

Meanwhile, former judges and senior barristers have continued to add their names to an open letter calling for a Commonwealth royal commission, arguing that antisemitic ideology is being normalised on social media and in universities.

The list, which had grown to 174 former senior members of the Australian Bar by Wednesday, includes former Federal Court Chief Justice James Allsop, former NSW Chief Justice James Spigelman and former Federal Court Judge Ronald Sackville, who was chair of the royal commission into disability.

“A federal royal commission … would be a constructive exercise in national self-examination, strengthening Australia’s legal and democratic resilience,” the open letter said.

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