There have been 140 Royal Commissions of Inquiry since Federation.

Most of these Commissions, 79, were held prior to 1939. Since 2001, only 15 were convened, with the last one the Inquiry into Defence and Veteran Suicide (2021-2024).

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, initially reluctant to add to this list, announced on January 8, 2026, the establishment of a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion with the Honourable Virginia Bell AC, a former High Court Justice, as the Commissioner.

The Prime Minister’s conversion is surely due to the relentless pressures from all sections of the community, even from his own party, to establish a Commission to investigate the circumstances leading to the horrific slaughter of 15 people on December 14, 2025, at Bondi Beach.

The establishment of this Royal Commission has since been hailed by most conservative commentators as the right decision. I am critical of the Royal Commission, not because of a principled opposition to the establishment of Commissions of Inquiry, but because the government’s concern about ‘social cohesion’ harbours the seeds of disunity and conflict. Why?

When reading the terms of reference, it is difficult to overlook the fact that there is a distinctive focus on ‘social cohesion’.

Not only is there a reference to ‘social cohesion’ in the Royal Commission’s title, but the Royal Commission is also directed to ensure that the inquiry is ‘conducted in a manner that does not … undermine social cohesion’.

It goes on to say that the Royal Commission is entrusted with the task of making any recommendations, arising out of the Inquiry, that ‘would contribute to strengthening social cohesion in Australia and [my italicisation] countering the spread of ideologically and religiously motivated extremism in Australia’.

My argument is that the use of the conjunctive word ‘and’ rather than ‘by’ or ‘through’ is relevant because it implicitly severs the causative link between religiously motivated extremism and erosion of social cohesion.

The use of the word ‘and’ discloses two separate goals the government wants to advance: first, achieving social cohesion and second, countering ideologically and religiously motivated extremism. Obviously, in order not to compromise the achievement of ‘social cohesion’, any recommendations pertaining to the second goal cannot be phrased in a way that threatens social cohesion.

This means that although the Royal Commission can discuss ‘religiously motivated extremism’, it will be reluctant to identify radical Islam as a cause of Australia’s deteriorating ‘social cohesion’.

This assessment of the terms of reference is supported by another directive according to which the Royal Commission need not investigate any matter which is already sufficiently covered by existing structures ‘to the extent’ that the Royal Commission is satisfied ‘that the matter has been, is being, or will be, sufficiently and appropriately dealt with by another inquiry or investigation’. This directive provides the Inquiry with yet another tool to avoid the thorny issue of the causative link between radical Islam and erosion of ‘social cohesion’.

However, as the Royal Commission would need to allocate blame for the horrendous failures that facilitated the massacre at Bondi, it will be hard to avoid a discussion of this causative link altogether. Hence, it will need to skilfully navigate the intractable issues that have contributed to, or caused, social disunity.

In any event, in identifying ‘social cohesion’ and ‘ideologically and religiously motivated extremism’ as separate goals, the attribution of blame to the government for fostering a climate in which antisemitism could flourish, will inevitably become more problematic. If I am right about this, the deceptive use of the concept of ‘social cohesion’ in the terms of reference may well affect the integrity of the Inquiry.

But what exactly is ‘social cohesion’?

The concept was used in a political context by Gough Whitlam. In his It’s Time! speech to launch Labor’s election campaign in 1972, he said:

‘We can double and treble social benefits, but we can never make up through cash payments for what we take away in mental and physical well-being and social cohesion through the breakdown of community life and community.’

Xavier Fonseca, Stephen Lukosch, and Frances Brazier, commenting on the views of 19th Century sociologist Émil Durkheim, expressed in his book Suicide (1897) state that Durkheim ‘defines social cohesion as a characteristic of society that shows the interdependence in between individuals of that society’ and requires ‘(1) the absence of latent social conflict (any conflict based on for e.g. wealth, ethnicity, race, and gender) and (2) the presence of strong social bonds (e.g. civic society, responsive democracy, and impartial law enforcement)’.

Thus, ‘social cohesion’ requires the absence of social conflict, and the existence of common values.

In Australia, both requirements are undermined because there is, undeniably, social conflict – division rather than social cohesion – because of governmental policies which divide people based on race and gender.

Social cohesion has been compromised when the government endeavoured to racially divide the country in its Voice referendum – now surreptitiously introduced by states together with truth-telling commissions and treaties. As to gender, social division is fomented by the unwillingness of politicians to define a ‘woman’ in biological terms. And uncontrolled immigration and unsatisfactory vetting of new arrivals is loosening Australian values – once held in common by the Australian polity. I predict that these issues might not be seriously considered by a Royal Commission charged with making any recommendations that will contribute to ‘social cohesion’.

Of greater worry is that the Inquiry which, in severing the link between social cohesion and ideologically and religiously motivated extremism, might fail to address the role of radical Islam.

Instead, the Royal Commission may well recommend the introduction of ever stronger hate crimes laws, a legislative trend stretching back at least several decades.

For many years now, I have criticised this trend because it fails to appreciate the power of untrammelled free speech for the purpose of combating religious extremism. These laws, although well-intentioned, have the capacity of further eroding free speech which is the most effective protection against antisemitism because of the social opprobrium that inevitably would follow instances of radical Islamic extremism.

My argument relies on the fact that censorship is the instrument par excellence of every authoritarian regime. In this context, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born conservative thinker, has opined that Islam is a totalitarian religion. Furthermore, after all these years of suppression of truthful information, especially during the worst years of the so-called Covid pandemic, I wonder about the government’s credibility in protecting Australians from misinformation and disinformation.

Hence, I am afraid that the Australian response, relying on the Royal Commission’s recommendations, to the Bondi Beach massacre will be yet another emasculation of free speech. Such an outcome would be deeply regrettable, since free speech is a powerful tool to stop atrocities fuelled by the urge to vilify law-abiding, peaceful citizens. Society’s voice of condemnation would inevitably sound stronger and louder than any ill-conceived laws or administrative action that limit or control free speech.

To sum up, while it is easy to be excited about the establishment of this Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, it is precisely its focus on ‘social cohesion’ that needs to be reviewed carefully and in an objective and thorough way, even if that process might seem slow or dull. If not, the Royal Commission might well become an instrument that contributes to disunity rather than ‘social cohesion’.