New South Wales has passed new laws giving police and courts the power to arrest and prosecute people for “indicating support for Nazi ideology”.
Premier Chris Minns, who has passed multiple pieces of legislation that have been struck down by the courts for violating political freedom, introduced the laws in response to a protest outside NSW Parliament on November 8 last year against the influence of the Jewish lobby in Australian politics.
The rally, which was peaceful and approved in advance by NSW Police, involved about 70 members of the now-disbanded National Socialist Network who stood with a banner staying “abolish the Jewish lobby” while then-leader Jack Eltis and prominent activist Joel Davis made speeches.
The Crimes and Summary Offences Amendment Bill 2025 passed the Legislative Council on Thursday night after months of delays, making conduct that invokes imagery or characteristics associated with Nazism, such as Nazi chants or slogans, illegal and punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment.
The harshest penalties are reserved for offences that occur on or near a synagogue, a Jewish school or the Sydney Jewish Museum, and the laws also elevate the seriousness of Nazi conduct and Nazi symbols offences.
They also give police the power to order people to take down suspected Nazi symbols, and force suspects to reveal their identities, and clarify that people can be charged over conduct that takes place during an authorised public assembly, such as the NSN protest.
“These reforms give our law enforcement and courts greater powers to crack down on extremists who promote abhorrent Nazi chants and slogans,” Attorney-General Michael Daley said.
“These views are unacceptable and have no place in NSW and we are holding those who espouse them to account.”
While introducing the new laws last year amid intense pressure from Jewish groups, Mr Minns defended the move to limit political expression by stressing that Australians do not have freedom of speech, echoing previous comments where he has stated that free speech and multiculturalism are incompatible.
Mr Minns also brought in new “hate speech” laws in response to a series of attacks on the Jewish community that later turned out to have been perpetrated by organised crime, including the notorious Dural caravan hoax, resulting in a parliamentary inquiry into whether he knew the fake bomb plot was not a threat.
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told parliament on March 26 a review had found the November protest did not breach the state’s racial vilification laws, but last month Mr Davis was charged with “publicly inciting hatred on the grounds of race to cause fear” in relation to his speech.
His arrest came a day after Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which has regularly lobbied for stronger “hate speech” laws, told an anti-Semitism inquiry the rally should never have been approved by police.
“A person of colour could have passed by, a person wearing Jewish religious clothing or Muslim religious clothing,” Mr Wertheim told the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion.
“The risk to public safety that that would have constituted seemed to me to be a gross error of judgment.”
The November rally also resulted in the deportation of South African civil engineer Matthew Gruter, who had his visa cancelled by immigration minister Tony Burke after he was identified by far-left extremists working with Nine Newspapers and ABC News.
Header image: Left, Chris Minns meeting members of the Jewish community (NSW Government). Right, the protest outside parliament (supplied).
