Government loses bid to keep terror funding documents secret

Antisemitism royal commission rejects federal government's bid to keep cabinet documents confidential Mon 1 Jun 2026 at 10:13am In short: The Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion has rejected the federal government's public immunity claim over cabinet documents. The documents pertain to the counterterrorism enforcement budget, and if it declined between 2020 and 2025. What's next? Spy boss Mark Burgess has denied the government ever asked ASIO to shift resources away from counterterrorism. The Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion has rejected the federal government's bid to keep cabinet documents about counterterrorism funding secret. The federal government had made a public interest immunity claim over the documents, which Attorney General Michelle Rowland defended as standard procedure for matters related to cabinet. But royal commissioner Virginia Bell found it was in the public interest for the inquiry to access the documents, so it could make a full assessment of whether intelligence and law enforcement agencies did their job in the lead-up to the Bondi terror attack. The prime minister's department secretary, Steven Kennedy, had argued the cabinet documents should be protected because ministers relied on the assumption their meetings would be confidential, and said releasing them could result in a lack of "candour" going forward. But while Ms Bell acknowledged Mr Kennedy's concerns, she said there were "no issue of disclosure to the public or to another party" because only she and those who read her confidential report would ever read the contents. In her finding, Ms Bell said she had weighed the public interest in disclosure of the documents against the public interest in maintaining confidentiality. The ruling found the documents were critical to allow the commission to conduct a "thorough examination of the issues raised" in relation to counterterrorism funding. Ms Bell also said access to the documents would provide a comparison of the resourcing given to counterterrorism before and after August 2024, when the terror treat level was raised to "probable". "In the context of the anti-Semitic Bondi terrorist attack on 14 December 2025, the question of whether intelligence and law enforcement agencies performed to maximum effectiveness requires consideration of the priority given to, and the resourcing of, counter-terrorism by each agency," she wrote. What is in the documents? The royal commission had sought access to nine documents that included files from the Finance Department and Australian Federal Police as well as seven cabinet memoranda. At the heart of these documents is a question of whether the counterterrorism budget declined between 2020 and 2025. The government had repeatedly insisted that Australia's national security agencies, including ASIO, have had funding increases since Labor came to office in 2022. In a written submission to the royal commission, spy boss Mike Burgess made clear that ASIO was not asked by the government to shift resources away from counterterrorism. "ASIO was not directed by any minister between January 1, 2023 and November 2025 to reduce [counterterror] efforts to service other priorities," he said. "I am not aware of any such decision or direction by any minister to any [intelligence] agency."