In Brief
- Former ASIO chief Dennis Richardson was appointed special adviser to the royal commission earlier this year.
- His sudden departure was announced on Wednesday.
Former ASIO chief Dennis Richardson has resigned from his position as special adviser to the antisemitism royal commission, saying he felt he was "surplus" to the needs of the inquiry.
Commissioner Virginia Bell announced Richardson's sudden departure on Wednesday night, as her inquiry prepares for its initial report by the end of April.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the royal commission following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, in which 15 people were killed on 14 December when two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration.
"As I noted at the commission's initial hearing, Mr Richardson was uniquely well placed to advise on the material to be sought from our intelligence and security agencies in order to assess the effectiveness of their preparedness for, and response to, a terrorist attack," Bell said in a statement.
"Thanks to Mr Richardson and the senior members of his team, Tony Sheehan, the former Commonwealth counter-terrorism co-ordinator and deputy director-general of ASIO, and Peter Baxter, a former deputy secretary at the Department of Defence and director-general of AusAID, work on the interim report is well advanced."
Bell thanked Richardson "for the valuable contribution he has made to the commission".
Her statement did not provide reasons for Richardson's resignation.
On Thursday morning, Richardson said his resignation came as he felt he was "surplus" to the needs of the commission.
"I think probably there wasn’t enough discussion right at the beginning about the precise way things would work, and ultimately I came to the [decision] that I was surplus to requirements," Richardson told ABC radio.
"The interim report that will now be done by the royal commission will be a very different document to the one that I would have done when I was doing the review, prior to the royal commission being announced."
Richardson also said he had come to the view that what he was being paid "wasn't consistent with the work I was doing".
He later called in to the program to clarify that he was "being way overpaid for what I was doing".
The Australian Financial Review reported in March that Richardson would be paid $5,500 a day for his position.
Albanese's government initially refused to call a royal commission into the Bondi massacre, instead tapping Richardson to head a review of the adequacy of intelligence and law enforcement agencies before the attack.
Following weeks of political pressure, Albanese relented and announced a broader inquiry to be headed by Bell, a former High Court judge, to investigate antisemitism and any failures in the nation's intelligence services.
Richardson's review was folded into the new royal commission.
The inquiry is due to deliver its interim report to the government by 30 April.
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