The New South Wales police minister has conceded she “may have had the figure wrong” on the number of antisemitic attacks in the state, as police data cast doubt on numbers used to justify controversial hate speech bills rushed through the state parliament this year.
Speaking at a budget estimates hearing on Wednesday, Yasmin Catley revealed the number of offences reported under NSW police’s Operation Shelter was 663, of which 254 have resulted in criminal charges.
At the same hearing the NSW police commissioner, Peter Thurtell, confirmed about 40% of the alleged offences had been classified as antisemitic, while a significant proportion had been classified as “other”.
Separate from the hearing, the minister’s office shared a further breakdown of all incidents reported under Operation Shelter, which began on 11 October 2023, two days after the Opera House protest.
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In that breakdown police advised that as of 26 March 2025, 815 incidents had been reported: 367 were reported as antisemitic, 38 classified as Islamophobic and 410 as “other”.
Under Operation Shelter’s definition, “incident” also encompasses events that do not amount to an offence, or fall outside the operation’s scope.
Thurtell admitted at the hearing the definition of “other” was imprecise and subject to an individual officer’s discretion.
“It could have been a Nazi symbol scrawled on a toilet wall, and someone might put down ‘other’ as opposed to antisemitic.”
Operation Shelter was set up after the Opera House protest with the stated goal to “ensure community safety in response to any future protest activity”.
In February this year, after a spate of antisemitic attacks over the summer, the Minns government passed a suite of reforms aimed at curbing antisemitism.
They include laws which criminalise people making racist remarks in public and give police broad powers to restrict protests near places of worship. Both offences carry a maximum penalty of two years in jail.
It has since emerged that a protest outside a synagogue, described as a “catalyst” for the anti-protest laws, was targeting an event where a member of the Israel Defense Forces was speaking.
A NSW upper house inquiry also will look into the relationship between parliamentary debates on new legislation and another incident, where a caravan was found laden with explosives in Dural in western Sydney.
Police have since alleged it was not a terror event but a “con job” by organised crime. The NSW premier, Chris Minns, and Catley have both come under scrutiny over when they became aware of the police’s beliefs about the nature of the incident.
Asked at a budget estimates hearing in March if she had misled the public about the threat, Catley pointed out that the state’s Jewish community had faced increased rates of antisemitism.
“There have been more than 700 antisemitic events and incidents and arrests in this city,” she said at the time.
On Wednesday, Catley said she “may have had the figure wrong”.
“If I did, I apologise to the committee, but quite frankly, there would be so many more incidents than have been reported, and that I know for a fact.”
Catley said incidents reported to the Community Security Group, an organisation that provides security and intelligence services to the Jewish community, were not recorded.
Catley was also asked about Asio’s claim that there was “credible evidence” that Iran directed at least two of the antisemitic attacks on Australian soil, including one in Sydney’s east.
She said the allegations did not diminish the impact of the attacks on the community.
“I think any antisemitic attacks are serious. I don’t think one is more serious than the other,” she said.
Minns declined to comment.
