Royal commissions are often used to buy time, not create change
The hardest part of any inquiry is not uncovering the truth; it is acting on it, as experience has shown.
Opinion
Updated January 5, 2026 — 10.58am
Updated January 5, 2026 — 10.58am
As public pressure mounts on the Albanese government to establish a royal commission into the killings at Bondi Beach, a familiar assumption has resurfaced in Australian political debate: that only a royal commission can deliver truth, accountability and justice when matters of public concern are grave enough.
This assumption is widespread – and understandable – but the academic evidence suggests it is only partially correct.
Royal commissions are not inherently better at uncovering truth or delivering reform than other forms of inquiry. Rather, they are a specialised political instrument, effective in particular circumstances and distinctly inefficient in others.
Pat Rafter, Jess Fox, Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett are among prominent Australian sportspeople to sign an open letter calling for a royal commission into antisemitism.Credit: Composite image
Royal commissions derive their prestige from perceived independence. Typically chaired by senior judges and armed with coercive powers, they can compel testimony, override institutional secrecy and create a public record that is difficult to dismiss. This makes them especially valuable where government agencies themselves are implicated or where public trust has collapsed.
As Australian public administration scholar Scott Prasser has observed (in “Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries”), royal commissions “are most effective when the central problem is a deficit of legitimacy rather than a deficit of information.” In other words, they are best deployed when the public no longer believes the state can investigate itself.
This explains why royal commissions have been so powerful in areas such as police corruption, institutional child abuse, and financial misconduct – cases marked by entrenched power imbalances and systemic denial.
However, decades of research also demonstrate what royal commissions do not reliably deliver: implementation.
Comparative studies of Australian, British and Canadian inquiries consistently find that royal commissions do not achieve higher rates of policy uptake than departmental reviews, parliamentary committees or statutory inquiries. Governments regularly delay, dilute or selectively adopt recommendations, regardless of how exhaustive the inquiry has been.