A neo-Nazi rally overtly targeting Jewish people was allowed to go ahead in Sydney on Saturday morning, sparking the New South Wales premier to say he would consider giving police more powers to shut down racist and hateful demonstrations.
“It’s likely the case that we need to give police more legislated powers to stop this kind of naked racism and hatred on Sydney streets,” Chris Minns said after the rally.
The NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, said that while police had allowed the protest, neither he nor the premier knew it was taking place.
“The government had not been briefed on this process. I take it very personally, there was a communication error in the police force for which I did not personally know that today’s protest was taking place,” Lanyon said.
The demonstration – which lasted less than 20 minutes in total – was observed by police. The protest was authorised: the group had filled out a “form 1”, a notice of intention to hold a public assembly, which had not been opposed by police.
The rally was allowed despite new laws, which came into effect on 15 August, making it a crime to intentionally incite hatred against people because of their race, nationality or ethno-religious background.
On Saturday afternoon, Minns said the process that allowed the rally to go ahead would be reviewed.
“We don’t believe we should tolerate a kind of city where that white power hatred, naked antisemitism, and racism is on Sydney’s streets,” the premier said.
More than 60 members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN) stood in formation on Macquarie Street outside NSW parliament on Saturday morning, bearing a large banner that read “Abolish the Jewish Lobby”.
Demonstrators wore black uniforms, some with NSN insignia stitched on to their jackets. Some obscured their faces with hats and sunglasses, but many appeared unworried about being filmed and identified.
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Speakers on loudhailers repeated a number of antisemitic tropes and made false claims about attacks that have occurred against Jewish sites in Australia.
The speakers condemned multiculturalism, the mainstream media and governments they accused of duplicity, corruption and being manipulated by “ethnic lobbies”.
The speakers said they would fight for a “white and free Australia … not a multicultural police state”.
One speaker said hate speech laws had “destroyed free speech in this country”.
Those in attendance chanted “blood and honour” – a Hitler Youth slogan – repeatedly during the short rally.
The NSN, which the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) has said is rebranding as White Australia, is also forming a political party to stand in elections.
Minns said he was concerned that neo-Nazis could gather in significant numbers outside parliament house, carrying a racist sign and yelling Hitler Youth chants, and not be in breach of any laws.
“It is concerning to me, of course.”
Minns said the “last thing” neo-Nazi groups should have in Australia was more attention.
“You don’t want to give these piss-ants more oxygen … they’re awful people and they thrive on the notoriety.”
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said neo-Nazis were adept at identifying grievances and prejudices within a society and manipulating those “for their evil purposes”.
“To defeat this, our law enforcement and security agencies need the right legislative tools to monitor and disrupt violent extremists, and to prevent them from menacing or physically harming peaceful Australians,” he said.
“But the single most important thing we must do is to restore decency, civility and basic rationalism to our country, which would instantly remove any appeal of movements founded in pathetic ideas of overthrowing democracy and creating racial hierarchies.”
At a speech in Sydney this week, the Asio director general, Mike Burgess, said he feared the NSN could inspire political violence, even if it did not engage in terrorism itself.
“At its core, the National Socialist Network is anti-immigrant, anti-Indigenous, anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-Islam and anti-anything that does not fit its white anglo-centric worldview. Its version of social cohesion is monochrome and monocultural,” he said.
“Even if the organisation does not engage in terrorism, I remain deeply concerned by its hateful, divisive rhetoric and increasingly violent propaganda, and the growing likelihood these things will prompt spontaneous violence, particularly in response to perceived provocation.”
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