NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson criticised other law-enforcement or security agencies for failing to share sensitive information that could be used to investigate terrorist threats.

Mr Hudson told the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that the NSW Police would share information with other agencies “if there is risk or threat”.

“But other agencies, on occasion, (will) not be so forthcoming,” he said. “Getting information to the areas where it needs to be, in my opinion, should be the priority to be appropriately addressed, rather than relying on PSPF as a justification for not sharing information.”

PSPF refers to the Protective Security Policy Framework, a federal policy designed to protect information held by security agencies.

Mr Hudson did not name any other organisations, but the main federal bodies responsible for preventing terrorism are the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

The comments were the first sign of tension in the royal commission between the NSW Police Force, which had three officers injured in the Bondi Beach attack last December, and the federal security agencies.

Considering the Chanukah by the Sea celebration to be a low-risk event, the police assigned three junior officers and a supervisor to the event.

Eleven people were shot within 29 seconds, 10 of them fatally, in Australia’s worst terrorist attack.

No intel analysts

On Monday ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess told the inquiry that at the end of the 2025, “we had no credible information to reflect current attacks preparation in Australia during this period.”

On Wednesday, the police officer overseeing the NSW Police’ firearms registry, which grants gun licences, said she had to personally intervene to convince an intelligence agency she did not name to share information with intelligence analysts checking gun licence applicants.

The job of senior intelligence analyst was abolished in the registry from 2022 to 2023, and not filled until February, 2025, Assistant Commissioner Kirsty Heyward told the inquiry.

In early 2023 the registry’s manager of licensing services complained of “numerous intelligence capability gaps” in the unit. Two months later a manager said the lack of intelligence analysts, who can access databases of suspected terrorists, poses “risks to public safety”.

The manager volunteered to do some of the work of an analyst because he was a trained intelligence officer, Ms Heyward said.

Training on guns

A question being considered by investigators is how one of the perpetrators of the massacre, Sajid Akram, was issued with a gun licence in 2023, allowing him to buy shotguns and rifles that were used at Bondi on December 14. His son, Navid, has been charged with 15 counts of murder. Sajid Akram was shot dead by police.

Both men had come to the attention of ASIO in the years before the attack for links to Islamic groups, and may have tried to enter Afghanistan in late 2022 or early 2023.

Today the NSW firearms registry has three intelligence officers and the law has been changed to deny shooting licences to anyone who have been investigated for terrorism, or associations with people investigated for terrorism, Ms Heyward said.

Three police officers, armed with 9mm Glock pistols, were shot during the assault, prompting the NSW Police Association to raise concerns that its members need greater protection from terrorists.

The force has created an Armed Response Command, which will be staffed with 250 people, of whom 110 will be police officers trained using weapons in violent situations. The unit will not reach full strength until 2028 because only 50 can be trained at once, Mr Hudson said.

A Jewish security force known as the Community Security Group has lobbied the state government to be able to be armed with pistols at Jewish events such as Chanukah by the Sea.

Mr Hudson said he had “considerable reservations” about granting special privileges to one group because it might upset other communities.

“Isolating a particular group for additional powers within our community is problematic,” he told the inquiry. “It creates a disconnect between groups. It can cause friction between groups if one particular element of society is afforded privileges that others aren’t.”

The Royal Commission will now switch to private hearings for the intelligence and security services.