NSW Premier Chris Minns says Australia will change forever as a result of Bondi terror attack

Australia will change forever as a result of the Bondi massacre with Chris Minns conceding police will be carrying machine guns on the streets of Sydney long after New Year’s Eve.

The NSW Premier made the admission a day after a 24-year-old man from Fairfield West was charged with plotting a public shooting in Sydney.

“I’m just making a self-evident point that police will have different operations and that includes long arms tomorrow night and you can expect that into the future,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

This would see Sydney resemble Paris, where police have been carrying machine guns in public following a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks in the French capital a decade ago.

A heavier NSW Police presence was being talked about after a 24-year-old man was arrested on Monday night at a house in Isis Street, Fairfield West, and charged over an alleged conspiracy to commit a public place shooting in Sydney’s south-west, along with a series of drug and firearm offences.

“We believe it was to be a targeted attack,” NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

The arrested man is the same age as accused Bondi terrorist gunman Naveed Akram, who has been charged with 15 counts of murder and 40 of attempted murder following the death of his father Sajid Akram, 50.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is rebuffing a call from Mr Minns for the Army to be deployed to protect the Jewish community at places like synagogues and religious events, with Canberra to instead send Australian Federal Police officers to provide security and surveillance.

“The AFP are being deployed. We’re looking at further consideration of that,” Mr Albanese said.

“And there is particularly, some particular logistical skills that the Commonwealth has, some of which we’ll go into, some of which we won’t, with regard to surveillance that, some of which were made available, more of which, upon request, we will as well.

“Defence, historically, have not been put on the streets for domestic security purposes. They don’t go through that. They perform a very different role.”

While the Albanese Government is resisting calls for a Commonwealth royal commission into the Bondi atrocity, Mr Minns said a NSW royal commission into the massacre would be an opportunity to examine the rise in anti-Semitism over the past two years.

“I do believe it’s an important opportunity to be looking at the circumstances and sequence that led up to this horrifying attack at Bondi on the 14th of December and that includes anti-Semitism in our community,” he said.

“You can’t have an investigation without an examination of the creeping rise of anti-Semitism. It begins with a chant then migrates on to online then malicious damage, then arson, then horrible acts of violence.”

The deaths of 15 innocent people at a Bondi Beach Jewish Hanukkah festival a fortnight ago, in Australia’s worst-ever terrorist attack, are expected to see NSW Police have a military presence on the streets of Sydney to protect those of a minority religious faith.

“Things need to change after the 14th of December; we can’t do anything about yesterday but learn from it,” Mr Minns said.

While incidents of anti-Semitism have been soaring since the Israel terror attacks of October 2023, the NSW Premier cited an Australian National Imams Council survey showing Muslims are fearful of a Christchurch-style massacre targeting them in the wake of the Bondi massacre. Anti-Muslim incidents had increased by 200 per cent during the past two weeks.

“That is a horrifying rise in racist sentiment and attacks on members of the Islamic community in New South Wales,” Mr Minns said.

He likened blaming a girl wearing a hijab for the Bondi terror attacks with blaming Syrian-born Muslim hero Ahmed al Ahmed for the atrocity.

“That is a shameful act - from anyone is our community - that would target for example a young, Islamic girl who might be wearing a veil in the streets of Sydney,” Mr Minns said.

“Police will throw the book at any examples of Islamophobia in our community and can I just say, from a moral perspective, it is disgusting to think that anyone could blame a young person, a young member of our community, a young Islamic girl, for the actions of two people in Bondi a couple of weeks ago.

“That is appalling. It would be like blaming Ahmed al Ahmed for the actions of those terrible terrorists on the 14th of December when we know he’s an absolute hero.”