There are moments in politics when the choice is obvious. If Anthony Albanese won’t call a Royal Commission into antisemitism, his parliamentary Labor colleagues need to replace him with a Prime Minister who will.

After the Bondi Beach atrocity on December 14 - an antisemitic terrorist attack that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration - grieving families and Jewish community leaders have pleaded for the most serious instrument the Commonwealth has at its investigative disposal: a royal commission into the rapid rise of antisemitism and the failures that allowed it to metastasise into mass murder.

Instead, the PM’s response has been to narrow the lens and lower the volume: a closed door Richardson Review focused on whether agencies such as the AFP and ASIO performed ‘to maximum effectiveness’, with a report due by April.

That is not leadership. It is a lawyerly sidestep dressed up as urgency. A controlled review that isn’t broad enough.

Albanese’s rhetorical shield is insultingly familiar: we need ‘unity and urgency rather than division and delay’. 

It sounds noble until it is translated into plain English: don’t ask too many questions, don’t force anything into the open, don’t run a process the government can’t control.

When a Prime Minister reaches for social cohesion as a reason to avoid scrutiny, it’s rarely because cohesion is at risk. It’s because he’s afraid of accountability.

The government’s central argument is that a royal commission would take years and that, in the meantime, Australia needs rapid recommendations to tighten national security settings. Fine. 

If Anthony Albanese won’t call a Royal Commission into antisemitism, his parliamentary Labor colleagues need to replace him with a Prime Minister who will, writes Peter van Onselen

Speed matters when there are credible threats and when communities feel hunted in public spaces.

But this isn’t a binary choice. Both a rapid response review and an all encompassing royal commission can happen. Albo is deliberately and deceitfully constructing a false binary choice when there isn’t one. Why? 

The only conclusion is that it is to protect himself.

A royal commission’s terms of reference can be narrowed, sequenced, and time-bound. Hearings can be partly closed when genuine security sensitivities require it. 

If Albo can summon urgency for a bank, or aged care, then he can summon it when Jews are being targeted for slaughter, a point the families themselves have made, with barely concealed disbelief.

More to the point, the government’s so-called 'fast solution' doesn’t even attempt to answer the question that is tearing at the country.