A Sydney father has been jailed for one year for calling Jews the “greatest enemy to this nation” in a 40-second Australia Day speech.
Brandan Koschel, 31, pleaded guilty last week to publicly inciting hatred on the grounds of race, and appeared in Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday by videolink from custody.
Deputy Chief Magistrate Sharon Freund said if not for his early guilty plea she would have sentenced Koschel to 16 months’ imprisonment for the statements, saying a custodial sentence was necessary to deter similar offending and “protect social cohesion”.
She said Koschel had not apologised or shown remorse or contrition, and set a non-parole period of nine months, backdated to Koschel’s arrest on January 26, making him eligible for release on October 25.
Koschel’s arrest after the speech:
A man was arrested over an alleged open mic speech he made at the March for Australia rally in Sydney today, as bystanders booed and yelled “traitors” at police.
He has been charged with “publicly threatening or inciting violence” towards a group. pic.twitter.com/t4RhupjG0S
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) January 26, 2026
The court heard Koschel got on stage during the open-mic section of Sydney’s March for Australia rally in Moore Park where he spoke out about new federal “hate speech” laws that were passed days earlier.
Koschel was not charged under those laws, but under NSW legislation brought in early last year which the magistrate emphasised was passed in response to an “uptick in anti-Semitism” in order to protect the Jewish community.
“All these politicians that came up here, spoke about bravery, all that bullshit, because they don’t know what it means, they came up here, gave you a bunch of words, but none of them called out the fact that the hate speech laws were pushed by the Australian, uh, the Jewish lobby groups in Australia,” Mr Koschel said in his speech, which was read to the court by Ms Freund in sentencing.
“They were behind it all. The Jews are the greatest enemy to this nation, they always have been, they are an enemy to Western civilisation and for thousands of years Christians and Anglos, the White man, has known that the Jew is our greatest enemy. Free Joel Davis, hail White Australia and hail Thomas Sewell.”
The magistrate noted that the charges only applied to the phrases calling Jewish people “the enemy”, but said Koschel’s final three statements added to the seriousness of the offence, and said they referred to “high profile neo-Nazis”.
“The offender’s use of the term ‘hail’ is a deliberate invocation of language associated with Nazi ideology, and a tool of racial propaganda with harmful and powerful resonance, its use in present context was offensive and serious,” she told the court.
“Public denunciation of anti-Semitic expression is essential to the court’s commitment to equality before the law and protection of vulnerable groups.
“General deterrence is paramount to protect social cohesion.”
The court heard Koschel had only been able to contact his family twice during his 23 days on custody so far, which had been spent in “onerous” conditions due to being housed in reception until February 9 because of jail overcrowding, and classified as high security by the government.
Koschel’s lawyer Daniel Grippi told the court on Tuesday his client’s family had been followed and harassed by media and the coverage of Koschel’s offending had impacted his young daughter, and argued those circumstances would help to prevent reoffending.
But in sentencing Ms Freund said she disagreed with the lawyer’s assessment, and said Koschel’s concerns for his family highlighted his lack of remorse.
“There is no evidence he shows any remorse or contrition except for the impact on family, his lack of insight is relevant to the sentence, increasing the need for the sentence to reflect denunciation and deterrence,” she said.
“The offending included deliberate anti-Semitic hate speech of an overt nature, it occurred on Australia Day when people come together for unity and social cohesion.
“Without evidence of remorse I can’t reassess the prospect of rehabilitation, only a sentence of full-time imprisonment is suitable.”
On Tuesday Mr Grippi asked the court to impose a non-custodial sentence, citing the subjective nature of the term “hatred” in the legislation, and saying “one man’s hatred is another man’s love”.
Ms Freund said she “dwelled on this statement overnight” but came to the conclusion Koschel’s statements were not a matter of “taste” and were the type of language the “hate speech” laws were devised to punish.
“The laws were made in response to anti-Semitic acts, the legislative response and the introduction of [the racial hatred offence] was to target this conduct on the basis that violence starts with language,” she said.
“In context, Mr Koschel used the phrase ‘hail White Australia’ and ‘hail Thomas Sewell’, the words were divisive and designed to provoke the type of hatred the offence was designed to prevent.
“Mr Koschel’s speech was clearly anti-Semitic and directed towards the Jewish community, which is particularly vulnerable and that the legislation was designed to protect, and after the Bondi massacre.
“The indication or normalisation of hatred directed at the Jewish people … will not be tolerated and [the sentence] must be used to deter others.”
She found the speech therefore clearly targeted the Jewish community to cause them to fear harassment, intimidation or violence, and that Mr Koschel “used a mic to amplify his words on an iconic day that should have been about unification” with the “intention to incite”, and was “motivated by hate and prejudice”.
Last week Ms Freund sentenced paedophile soccer coach Tullio ‘Tony’ Giacomo Cigana to one year’s jail with a seven-month non-parole period for possessing child abuse material.
She noted every video and photo he was caught with depicted real child victims aged between seven and 12, ABC News reported.
Header image: Left, Brandan Koschel (Instagram). Right, the speech (9News).
