Afternoon Update: Jewish Australians give evidence at royal commission; Chalmers downplays hope for tax relief; and a living library

Want to get this in your inbox every weekday? Sign up for the Afternoon Update here, and start your day with our Morning Mail newsletter Good afternoon. Several members of Australia’s Jewish community have given evidence on the first day of public hearings of the royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion before former high court justice Virginia Bell in Sydney. Sheina Gutnick (pictured), the commission’s first witness, told the hearing Bondi beach “holds many complicated and conflicting feelings for me” as the place where her parents first met but also where her father, 62-year-old Reuven Morrison, was shot and killed on 14 December, allegedly by two Islamic State-inspired gunmen. Alex Ryvchin, co-chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, gave impassioned evidence, saying Jewish Australians feared the country was no longer safe for them, while the progressive Jewish Council of Australia said in a statement that treating Jewish Australians as “a politically homogenous bloc, who all support Israel … obscures the real diversity of our community”. Jim Chalmers rules out fuel excise extension and downplays hopes for tax relief in ‘most responsible’ budget yet ‘Wak