NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner David Hudson rejects idea of armed Jewish security group

A Deputy Commissioner of the NSW Police Force says allowing Jewish community groups to provide their own armed security at events would invite accusations of favourism and fracture an already-divided society.

David Hudson has rejected a call from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies to allow their volunteer Community Security Group to be armed to avoid a repeat of last year’s Bondi massacre - an idea which the Labor State Government was last year considering.

“Sir, it’s our opinion that allowing certain areas of society, no matter what those areas are, to have special privileges in relation to their security would further fracture fairly situations which are fairly tenuous and relationships that are fairly tenuous between different groups,” he told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Monday.

“And certainly, would be looked upon by others as the police or governments or anyone else showing favourism to that particular group.”

In response to questions from counsel assisting Richard Lancaster, Mr Hudson said existing police local area commands and the State’s new Sydney-based armed response command, with 225 officers plus 28 largely unsworn intelligence analysts, were better placed to protect Jewish people from attack, despite only two junior officers being dispatched to the scene of carnage in December.

“Sir, if our risk assessment or threat assessment indicates that we’ll require an armed response, we will have an armed response,” he said.

But he admitted the police could have a different interpretation of threats to what CSG or Jewish community intelligence suggested during particularly holiday events, based on Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee protocols.

“We obviously operate under certain models of risk assessment and threat. I would be surprised if CSG followed the same threshold and template as we follow,” he said.

That new 24-hour armed response command would eventually be integrated with the counter terrorism unit and replace the work of Operation Shelter, which was formed in October 2023 following Islamist street demonstrations at the Sydney Opera House and Lakemba falling the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel.

This group would have an officer to liaise with CSG.

“Especially during major events, for the Jewish community, CSG will be invited to participate in the command centre so that what their intelligence there, gathering at ground level, can be fed into the operational blueprint of how we police that particular event,” Mr Hudson said.

“Bearing in mind that a large proportion of the armed response command’s responsibilities will be the protection of Jewish interests.”

Training of the armed response command’s officers started last week, the inquiry was told, with new armoured vehicles acquired.

“I’m very hopeful that by October, November they will be deployed,” Mr Hudson said.

“We’ll have officers from the armed response command being deployed with their long arms, replacing some of those Operation Shelter police.”

Asked by royal commissioner Virgina Bell about the vehicle patrols, Mr Hudson said a 24-hour command would be able to map all the armed response vehicles on duty, with three officers equipped with long-arm rifles assigned to each of the 20 vehicles.

“They’ll be given certain areas to patrol. We can identify where they are at specific locations, very similar to the armed response capability that we witness in London, how they were deployed over there with the same software that maps those vehicles,” he said.

“During large-scale events or where there’s an assessment made of their requirement, they may perform static responsibilities at that event with their long arms.”

He argued non-armed security should only complement police, not replace them at Jewish events given the Police Act required officers to protect all members of the community.

“That’s our primary responsibility, protection of life and property,” he said.

“We swear an oath to do that when we join the police and we see that as our responsibility, even though it can be supplemented by support from other areas of the security industry at different stages.”

Two general duties officers from the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command, Probationary Constable Jack Hibbert and Constable Scott Dyson, were critically injured during the December 14, 2025 terrorist attack at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah event at a park.

NSW Premier Chris Minns, a fortnight after that massacre, said his Government would “actively” considering allowing the likes of the Jewish Community Security Group to be armed.

He also announced police with long-armed rifles would be deployed at public events, which started with Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks.

The sixth block of hearings resumes on July 28.