The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns has promised a massive security presence on the streets of Sydney on New Year’s Eve including police armed with machine guns and a possible army deployment.
Speaking at the site of the massacre of 15 people at Bondi beach on 14 December, Minns said some people will find the extra security confronting, but “we won’t be mucking around.”
“I know that [the Bondi attack] means fundamental changes,” he said on Monday.
“[Security measures] have changed in Rome and changed in Paris, and they are going to have to change here.”
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Monday left open the possibility of deploying troops to guard Jewish sites in NSW.
“I’ve had a discussion with premier Minns and we are having discussions over coming days about the best way, the best form that commonwealth assistance can be provided for security,” he said.
“NSW, of course, have primary responsibility for law and order and for the conduct of police, but we will have further discussions over coming days. We want to make sure that the best form of commonwealth support is provided to NSW.”
Minns said he was speaking with the commonwealth about deploying the army, particularly in relation to Operation Shelter, the NSW police operation targeting antisemitic behaviour and other hate crimes.
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The premier did not elaborate on the role he thought the army might play but he said he was conscious of the security needs of the Jewish community.
“The real test for us will be one year from now, five years from now, 15 years from now, when the Jewish community feels safe in their community,” he said.
“I have spoken to so many members of the Jewish community in the last week who don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe celebrating their religion, they don’t feel safe getting together as a community and we cannot have a situation where the solution to this horrible terrorism event is to have the Jewish community so we can only exist and celebrate our faith behind big walls.”
Minns said he hoped that people would not be deterred from going out on New Year’s Eve.
“I think there’s a good opportunity for parents and members of the community to show that they’re not going to be cowered or intimidated by terrorists, and that they will celebrate with their family and friends,” he said.
“Now that means that we have to have a massive police presence on the scene during New Year’s Eve celebrations, and yes, in many cases, it’ll be confronting for members of the community to see police with big firearms and machine guns, which aren’t normally the case on Sydney streets.
“But I don’t make any apology for that.”
Minns said he and the NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, would reveal more details of security precautions in the next two days.
The NSW government is also looking at arming the private security group employed by the Jewish community, the Community Security Group (CSG), for future events like Hanukah by the Sea.
The premier has not made a final decision about whether the CSG would be granted wider powers to carry guns in public settings, and was discussing the issue with the Jewish Board of Deputies.
“If, in the end, the safest way … of having an elderly Holocaust survivor or someone who’s got a young family from the Jewish community deciding that they can go back to Hanukah by the Sea is having armed guards, then I think that’s a small price to pay,” he said.
He noted that in locations such as synagogues and schools, in many cases, the CSG was already armed.
With additional reporting by Dan Jervis-Bardy
