Mr. Albanese’s Shrewd Avoidance: The Australian Inquiry That Cannot Name Its Subject

The Letters Patent are a formal legal document issued in the name of King Charles III to establish a Commission that will make inquiry, gather evidence, and deliver a report with findings and recommendations on the subject at hand. On 9 January 2026, Letters Patent were presented to the head of the Commission, Commissioner the Honourable Virginia Bell AC, to examine “religious and ideologically motivated extremism and radicalisation,” while (a) requiring that the Inquiry not undermine social cohesion and b) that it not prejudice ongoing criminal proceedings. The Letters Patent omit the names Islam or Mohammed. The effect is that the political doctrine and ideology that animated the Bondi shootings is placed outside the necessary scope of a full, and one might argue even a partial, Inquiry.

Under Islamic law (Sharia), calling into question the Koran or the person and conduct of Mohammed is blasphemous or slanderous. In the legal tradition this offence is treated as more serious than homicide and the prescribed consequence for blasphemy or slander includes capital punishment. Historical examples (such as the 1989 fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, against Sir Salman Rushdie and subsequent attacks on his translators and publishers) demonstrate that the risk and the doctrine are not merely theoretical; they remain alive and well.

A Commissioner who produced a report that examined Mohammed’s recorded statements and his example on the subjugation of and violence towards Jews, atheists and Christians, the jizya verse (Koran 9:29) among many others, or the status of non-Muslims under the doctrine would, on those terms, have committed an act more egregious than killing, and that invites a fatwa.

When Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr. Anthony Albanese, sought a Commissioner, three practical positions were conceivable to any candidate who understood or did not understand the terms and their consequences.

1. Ignorance. A person unaware that a public finding which questioned Islam, Mohammed, and the Islamic doctrine would attract a fatwa under the law of Allah might unwittingly accept the role. Once the all-encompassing risk became clear through their investigation as part of the Inquiry, that person would either stop short or compromise the investigation. It would be difficult to imagine they would continue in search of the truth at their own personal peril.
2. Knowledge and refusal. A person who understood the implied risk that a report which named the Islamic doctrine and Mohammed would place the Commissioner under the threat of religiously sanctioned violence would decline. The professional and personal cost of examining the primary driver of the violence would be judged too high, save for the very brave of heart.

3. Knowledge and conditional acceptance. A person who understood the risk would accept only if the Letters Patent were drawn in such a way that Islam and Mohammed were scoped out—that Islam and Mohammed could not be discussed, questioned, examined or addressed, and that those elements of the Koran (some 64 per cent) that deal with Jews and all other non-Muslims could not form part of the Commission’s investigation nor its final report. In that case the Commissioner could proceed, avoid confronting the Islamic doctrine or Mohammed, and remain free of the risk, knowing that no finding could possibly trigger the ramifications that Islam’s slander and blasphemy laws carry.

The third position is the one that matches the legal instrument as issued. The Letters Patent authorise examination of “religious and ideologically motivated extremism and radicalisation” while directing that social cohesion not be undermined and that ongoing proceedings not be prejudiced. They thereby remove the necessity of naming the political or religious ideology as its source. The Commissioner who accepted the role under those terms is protected from the very Inquiry that the Bondi deaths and the Commonwealth Inquiry would otherwise seek to expose.

Strategic design

The effect of the Letters Patent is to leave the question of Islam and Mohammed open in form while closed in substance. By authorising examination of “religious and ideologically motivated extremism and radicalisation” and simultaneously directing that social cohesion must not be undermined, the instrument removes any necessity of naming the political and religious doctrine whose classical sources address the subjugation of and violence toward Jews and other non-Muslims. Islamic doctrine and Mohammed’s recorded example are thereby omitted or placed outside the scope that a full Inquiry into the Bondi shootings and the drivers of antisemitism would otherwise require.

This was a shrewd positioning by Mr Albanese. A Commissioner who accepts the role under these terms can proceed without ever confronting the doctrine or the person of Mohammed. No finding can then trigger the blasphemy and slander consequences that classical Islamic law attaches to such an examination. The ideological hole is not an oversight; it is the mechanism that allows the Inquiry to run while protecting both the Commissioner and the Government from the subject that the deaths at Bondi Beach and the wider pattern of religiously motivated Jew-hatred make unavoidable.

Strategic positioning of the Letters Patent

Political Islam, the 51% of Islamic doctrine that deals with how to treat non-Muslims, prescribes the subjugation and killing of Jews, atheists, Christians, and other non-Muslims, and produced the deaths of fifteen people at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025. It has been associated with more than 50,000 violent jihad attacks and more than 320,000 jihad killings worldwide over the past twenty-five years (ref: https://www.cspii.org/trop).

A Royal Commission constituted in the name of the King exists to establish the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of the matters of concern. An instrument whose effect is to protect the doctrine by scoping it out, or by omitting it from examination, as in this case, does not serve that purpose. Islamic political doctrine, which consistently calls for violence against Jews and others (31% of Islamic doctrinal texts are about jihad, while 9% are specifically anti-Jew), does not deserve the protection of King Charles III.

The choice was made before the first witness was called. The terms on which the truth may be sought have already been set, leaving unanswered the obvious question that the Letters Patent themselves raise: whether an Inquiry that cannot name the doctrine that animated the Bondi attackers can establish the truth the Commission was constituted to find.