‘Reeks of complacency’: Police shelved antisemitism taskforce, officer admits

NSW Police quietly dismantled a taskforce set up to combat antisemitism, share intelligence and patrol high-risk Jewish events in the lead-up to the Bondi Beach terror attack, but won’t say who made the decision or why.

The revelation at the royal commission into antisemitism on Tuesday stunned Jewish community leaders, who said they were never told Operation Shelter had been wound back in 2025 to focus on protests only.

The royal commission also heard how the superintendent in charge of several eastern suburbs police stations, including Bondi, was sent two ASIO threat assessments before the deadly December 14 assault last year, but the spy agency’s warnings about a heightened risk to the Jewish community did not prompt her or anyone in her team to consider stronger security presence at the Chanukah by the Sea event.

The commander of Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command, who was given a pseudonym, later fought back tears while explaining a “poorly worded email” in which she seemingly told officers patrolling the festival there was “no need to stay the entire duration”.

Fifteen people were killed when father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram opened fire from a footbridge on December 14. Most victims were Jewish.

The commission has heard from Jewish security group CSG that police had declined entreaties to permanently station officers at the gathering after their warning of a probable risk of terror attack. Local police categorised the Jewish festival as a low-risk community event and instead sent officers on “mobile taskings” to check in periodically.

The royal commission heard for the first time on Tuesday that Operation Shelter, the high-profile taskforce set up following the ugly Sydney Opera House protest two days after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, provided officers to help police the Chanukah by the Sea event in 2023 but not in 2025.

Questioned why the taskforce was not present last year, the superintendent replied: “It didn’t exist at that time.”

“There was no Operation Shelter in December 2025,” she said. Counsel assisting the commission, Richard Lancaster, SC, then said to the senior officer: “You understood that in December 2025 there were no Operation Shelter resources to call upon for Chanukah By The Sea?”

She replied: “That’s right.”

There appears to have been no public announcement by NSW Police or the Minns government that Operation Shelter had been wound back.

This masthead on Tuesday asked NSW Police: who decided to cut back Operation Shelter and why. Police declined to comment while the royal commission was under way.

The day after the Bondi attack, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon appeared to suggest the taskforce had not run continuously since its 2023 formation. “This morning, we commenced Operation Shelter,” he told reporters. “It is an operation that we have previously run.”

Lancaster, the counsel assisting the royal commission, said senior police had described Operation Shelter as “an operation to handle high-risk events through co-ordinating intelligence gathering, increasing high visibility patrols, and close monitoring of potential threats, particularly around crowded public places”.

“Wouldn’t that operation have been appropriate and helpful for Bondi?” he asked the eastern suburbs’ commander. She replied: “Today, absolutely Operation Shelter would be of assistance to those type of events.”

Three senior Jewish community leaders, who asked not to be named given the royal commission’s ongoing work, said they had not known Operation Shelter was wound back before the Bondi rampage.

“This all reeks of complacency,” one said.

It is unclear whether Operation Shelter officers would have helped prevent or mitigate an attack even if they were available, given local area police had mistakenly decided the event was not worthy of enhanced protection and therefore never asked the taskforce for help.

The commission heard on Monday there were four police on the ground – three general duties and one supervisor – when the alleged terrorists began firing into the crowd. Eleven people were shot within 29 seconds, 10 of those fatally.

NSW Premier Chris Minns on Tuesday morning conceded there had been a “giant failure” before the attack.

“I’m determined to make sure we learn from this, and that means radical transparency,” he said.

“It means getting all this information out and having it debated so that there are no secrets, everybody understands what went wrong, and people are held accountable – like me – so that never happens again.”

Acting Deputy Commissioner Peter McKenna told the royal commission on Tuesday that while acts of antisemitism occurred leading up to December 2025, violence such as a spate of firebombings experienced in Sydney over the prior summer had dissipated after a series of arrests.

McKenna also defended the decision by local police to consider the festival a low-risk community event given they had no information it would be the subject of an attack.

“The threat, realistically, was more about antisocial behaviour. It was more about people coming along and perhaps disrupting the events. That is the intelligence and evidence we had at that time,” he said.

He suggested a question at the heart of the royal commission was not so much the response of law enforcement, but rather how two alleged terrorists formed a plan to attack a Jewish festival without anyone knowing.

“The issue as I sit here is not about that response, it’s about how did these two men happen to be there that day and do what they did, and us not know about it?” he said.

McKenna said if there was credible warning a religious gathering was a target, it would have been shut down. Without such intelligence, all that’s left is a “general awareness” for police.

“Pitt Street Mall could have been the location of an attack, the midnight Mass could have been the location of a specific attack, we just don’t know, we can’t guess,” McKenna said.

The Minns government announced in February it would transform Operation Shelter into a permanent “rapid response” unit with long arms and modified vehicles.

Commissioner Virginia Bell opened day two of this week’s hearings by revealing Jewish witnesses had been intimidated by “online hate” after giving evidence. At least one has been referred to the Australian Federal Police.

“Quite what this undiluted level of hatred and bigotry directed towards members of the Jewish community is thought to benefit by those who post these remarks is lost on me,” Bell said.

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