NSW police will patrol high-profile public buildings, places of worship and protests with long-arm firearms after a unit created following the Bondi beach terror attack became permanent.
But the state Greens have criticised the Minns government for the move, saying it would not prevent the public from protesting and may place them at greater risk of harm or violence. Violence at a protest in Sydney against Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s controversial visit earlier this month promoted an independent probe into police conduct.
About 250 NSW police officers will transform Operation Shelter, established in 2023 with an aim to crackdown on antisemitism and Islamophobia, into a dedicated hate crime unit, the state government announced on Wednesday.
The centre will support the heavily armed rapid response unit with real-time coordination and surge management, including training, logistics and intelligence. They will also be equipped with a fleet of specially modified rapid-response vehicles.
The decision comes two months after 15 people were killed by two gunmen on 14 December in the worst terror attack in Australia’s modern history.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said installing a permanent structure for Operation Shelter, instead of rotating officers from various commands, was necessary to ensure police were able to respond quickly.
“People want to see police where it matters, at major events, near places of worship and in busy public spaces,” he said on Wednesday.
“This ensures that presence is consistent, because our security challenges have changed and our policing model needs to change with them.”
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The premier has taken aim particularly at weekly pro-Palestine protests, saying they had stretched police resources.
He ratcheted up his comments after the Bondi massacre saying “words lead to actions”.
Minns passed a suite of controversial protest restrictions that were lifted earlier in February after Herzog’s visit.
The Greens spokesperson for justice, Sue Higginson, criticised Wednesday’s announcement, saying it “explicitly and deliberately misconstrued the political expression through protest as dangerous and extremist, akin to vile mass murders and terrorist events”.
“Creating dedicated police forces who will be rapidly deployed in the community with high calibre and rapid fire weapons will not prevent people from engaging in protest; all it will do is put everyone at far greater risk of violence, harm and death.”
Higginson said she had marched alongside “Jewish people, Muslim people, First Nations people, queer people and tens of thousands of caring and compassionate people in the community” at a Sydney protest against Herzog’s visit to Australia, describing the crowds as “socially cohesive, non-threatening, and determined to express their political views”.
Referring to allegations the police attacked and assaulted protesters – including grabbing praying Muslims at the rally – Higginson said Minns had “now announced that he wants this to be a permanent fixture of our democracy”.
A senior police delegation travelled in January to Germany and the United Kingdom to study best practice which found the state’s “temporary surge operations” needed to be formalised.
The NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon said the unit with long-arm capability was essential in moving from a reactive to a proactive policing model.
“Our priority is not only ensuring the community is safe, but that people also feel safe, while providing a deterrence to anyone who wants to do harm, and [supporting] our frontline operational police,” he said.
The latest figures from Operation Shelter recorded 815 incidents considered antisemitic or Islamophobic in nature as well as other incidents that fall into neither category, with more than 230 people arrested.
But doubts have been cast about the accuracy and veracity of numbers after it was revealed nearly 370 antisemitic incidents were incorrectly categorised dozens of times.
Recently retired deputy police commissioner Peter Thurtell told a parliamentary inquiry in April 2025 that the figures recorded were a “loose capture” of all incidents referred to law enforcement and was “not an exact science”.
