Revelations about overseas training, intelligence failures and police responses raise urgent questions that cannot be left to internal reviews.

In a sharp piece of investigative journalism, the ABC’s Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop this week reported that the alleged Bondi terrorists, Sajid and Naveed Akram, travelled to the Philippines for ‘military style training’. This occurred in November, just weeks before they opened fire on the Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.The story emerged after earlier reports that the alleged younger gunman, Naveed Akram, had longstanding links to members of the pro-Islamic State (IS) terrorist network. It is noted that the ABC journalist’s source is a ‘senior counter-terrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity’. Thank goodness for the public-minded discloser!

ASIO boss Mike Burgess, best known for his wolf-warrior approach to China, has been extremely careful to date in his handling of the Bondi massacre aftermath. He replied to a question last Sunday about prior ASIO knowledge of the Akram family with the revealing observation that “its too early to give any more details”. There was no denial that he had more details. Just an assertion to journalist Phil Coorey that its not time to make them public. Burgess then confirmed that “one of these individuals was known to us, but not in an immediate threat perspective”. He then moved to end the questioning of him by stating the glaringly obvious: “We need to look into what happened here”.

That “look into” should not be an internal ASIO review or some kind of Director-General’s inquiry. It should be a focused Royal Commission seeking to lay bare all the apparent failures and shortcomings in security and intelligence leading up to the Bondi massacre. That includes any relevant failures of the NSW Police – as well as a missing link in international counter-terrorism liaison.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has been more candid than Burgess. Reacting to the human tragedy on the ABC’s 7.30 on Monday he lamented that “if we had our time again we would have responded differently, as would police”. He was referring to questions raised about the adequacy of the police security arrangements for Hanukkah and their response to the armed assault. He went on to concede that as Premier he “doesn’t know the answer” to a question about a claimed breakdown in communication between ASIO and the NSW Police gun licensing division.

Minns says he now wants urgent gun law reform to be put before the NSW parliament to tackle issues such as licences in perpetuity, age limits and criminal intelligence criteria, instead of evidence of a criminal record, for gun licence approvals. Meanwhile, he says he wants a “significant investigation into the NSW police response to the Bondi massacre that our counter-terrorism command will lead”.

Thanks, but no thanks, Premier Minns. The stakes in human lives are too high after this appalling assault. We need a national Royal Commission to examine all the domestic policing, security, and intelligence aspects of the matter. History tells us that internal inquiries by security and police agencies are too often limited in scope and held in secret.

Royal Commissions, on the other hand, can compel witnesses to attend, seek documents from relevant agencies and make a wide range of recommendations. And there are plenty of ex High, Federal and state Supreme Court judges for the Albanese government to choose from. Here are some questions that might form a terms of reference.

Given the revelation that the alleged terrorists trained recently in the Philippines, a close security and military ally of Australia, what, if any, was the role of that nation’s National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NACA) in surveilling foreign nationals travelling to known terrorist training hotspots? The NICA is ASIOs sister agency. It is responsible for national security information gathering and carries out overt, covert and clandestine intelligence activities, presumably including counter-terrorism operations. It is mandated to prepare intelligence estimates on local and foreign national security matters. Although not advertised as such, ASIO and NICA would have a professional working relationship focused on protecting their respective national interests, particularly concerning terrorism and regional security. They would operate within established international intelligence cooperation protocols.

In fact, last year both countries celebrated 30 years of law enforcement cooperation with Australia’s Ambassador to Manila Bill Tweedell saying that “Australia and the Philippines will continue to value the law enforcement links between our two nations, which reflect the importance of regional and bilateral partnerships in addressing security challenges and disrupting criminal activity.”

Given the investigation of Naveed Akram by ASIO in 2019 over his associations with a Sydney-based IS terrorist cell, it is relevant to ask why his travel to the Philippines – possibly to the terrorist training camps in southern Mindanao – raised no red flags in either jurisdiction.

Australians need to be reassured that their police and intelligence services are fit for purpose in an age of international terrorism.

For all these reasons, and more, we need a Royal Commission into how Bondi was allowed to happen.