What we just witnessed was state-sanctioned Nazism

3 months ago 19

Opinion

November 10, 2025 — 7.30pm

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

All four of my grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust. Two in camps. Two shot in the street where they lived.

The National Socialist Network holding a rally outside parliament in Sydney on Saturday.

You learn to live with the everlasting trauma, until something sets you off. Lose sight of your kids for a minute? Panic. Men in uniforms? Raging lack of trust.

This time? A bunch of Nazis on the steps of NSW parliament with signs that said: “Abolish the Jewish Lobby”.

Weird, right. When groups including Palestinians want to demonstrate against Zionism, there’s a thorough risk assessment. When white people want to promote Nazism and salute to “blood and honour”, a slogan of Hitler Youth, that’s apparently OK. I cannot tell you how mystified I am. How devastated I am.

This event on Saturday was nothing less than state-sanctioned Nazism. How so?

Every single organiser who wants to stage a rally has to lodge a Form 1 if they want immunity from the kinds of offences that commonly occur during protests. I mean, who hasn’t protested and obstructed a road? Any sizeable protest will inevitably obstruct someone.

That Form 1 is meant to go straight to the police commissioner, in this case, Mal Lanyon – but it goes via the Operational Legal Advice Unit in the NSW Police Force. Guess the commissioner can’t keep all the laws he is meant to enforce in his head.

Want more detail? Under Part 4 of the Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW), the Form 1 process requires protest organisers to provide written notice to the police commissioner of their intention to hold a public assembly. And the police commissioner is meant to ensure that the protest won’t break the law.

You’ll remember the Minns government furiously rushed through laws to stop hate speech. Bit of a dog’s breakfast. Even me, a self-identified nowist, wanting everything to happen this minute, knows good laws take time. But what we have is this: a law that seems to be confusing to everyone in government and everyone in the police department.

NSW Premier Chris Minns and Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon speak to the media about the rally on Saturday.

So let me give it straight to you from the NSW government’s own Communities and Justice Department, just so we are all on the same webpage: “In NSW, it is now a crime to intentionally incite hatred against people because of their race. Race includes things like colour, nationality, ethnicity, descent, or ethno-religious background.”

For rallies like this to be banned, the police need to be convinced it would incite racial hatred. There has to be a belief that the public act would cause a reasonable person who was the target of the incitement of hatred, or a reasonable person who was a member of a group of persons that was the target of the incitement of hatred, to fear harassment, intimidation or violence, or fear for the reasonable person’s safety.

Look, I can’t do a huge survey of Jews on a Monday morning, but I called a couple of wonderful human beings who have diametrically opposed political views. Vic Alhadeff, former chair of Multicultural NSW and a former leader of the Jewish community, was appalled: “Nazism marked the ultimate in where race hatred can lead. Yet just as one dared to hope that the unprecedented epidemic of antisemitism might dissipate, neo-Nazis are free to parade their vitriol in the heart of the city. Is this our new normal?”

Sarah Schwartz, executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, says her response to the sign was fury. “They are clearly trying to intimidate, but I refuse to be intimidated by these pathetic young men who have joined a cult. But I am terrified by the normalisation of this hate.”

What on earth did the Operational Legal Advice Unit in NSW Police think a rally organised by the National Socialist Network would be about? Apologies to the murdered generations?

Lanyon said on Saturday: “There was a communication error within the police force for which I did not personally know that today’s protest was taking place.”

Which words, I swear, if they had come out of the mouth of the former commissioner Karen Webb, would have had the hounds baying and Ben Fordham calling for her resignation.

But wait, we have more state-sanctioned Nazism coming. In two weeks, Put Australia First is holding a rally in Sydney with Britain’s most well-known Nazi, Tommy Robinson, speaking via video link. And guess who was meant to be on the bill alongside him? Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. She pulled out when questions got asked.

As Lanyon was sworn in this year, Police Minister Yasmin Catley recalled the “bad bastards” that Commissioner Lanyon had chased down in the past. He wasn’t even aware these bastards were on the move.

Now he knows. And he must act.

Jenna Price is a regular columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.