Chris Minns’ stormtroopers. Guns for graffiti, silence for the dead

The NSW government is creating a heavily resourced police unit of about 250 officers that prioritizes hate crimes over other violent incidents. Andrew Brown He asks why.

Every four minutes in New South Wales, police respond to a domestic violence incident; it’s a relentless cycle of harm that rarely makes front-page news.

Two women are murdered every week in Australia and hundreds more are attacked, often behind closed doors, without the care and urgency associated with other types of crime.

There is no 250-officer task force for this, no permanent, centralized unit ready to respond.

But there is now one for other hate crimes too, with the NSW government confirming the establishment of a permanent and heavily resourced policing unit of around 250 officers. “Rapid Response Unit”. A specialized, centralized force that will remain on duty, equipped with long-armed rifles and deployed as needed.

This is a sustained response to what has been described as a rise in hate-related incidents, a continuation of expanded operations in recent months, with visible, armed and permanently deployed officers at places of worship, large events and public spaces.

The language surrounding its creation is unmistakable; It is built on the framework of urgency, threat and emergency.

What exactly is an emergency?

The incidents that led to this intervention, while serious and at times extremely aggressive, were largely non-fatal, consisting largely of graffiti, vandalism, threats and acts of intimidation, although police operations carried out thousands of tasks and brought a relatively limited number of charges.

They are offensive and in many cases criminal, but they do not reflect the widespread pattern of lethal violence that would normally justify such an extraordinary response. At its core, policing is supposed to be about harm, preventing harm, responding to it, and allocating resources where it is most severe.

Before the bat drops. How did power and framing normalize violence?

But here, the scale of the response appears to be well beyond the scale of the intended threat. There is also a claim underlying all of this; the idea of ​​a surge, a wave, a crisis that requires immediate and visible action.

The Executive Council of Australian Jews reported more than 1,250 incidents of antisemitism; This issue dominated headlines and shaped public perception.

But that figure is a self-reported one, condensing a wide range of behavior into a single, powerful statistic, covering everything from online harassment to verbal confrontation to criminal damage.

However, when these reports are filtered through the crime system, the picture changes dramatically.

Ripple, what fluctuation?

A parliamentary inquiry led by Stephen Lawrence MLC heard just 14 matters had been referred to the police. Fourteen of the more than a thousand reported incidents are a loophole that requires investigation rather than assumption.

This does not ignore antisemitism, which clearly exists and should be investigated and prosecuted wherever it crosses the legal threshold. It also in no way ignores the tragedy of the Bondi massacre, but there is a Royal Commission to determine what could or should have prevented it.

Anti-Semitism resets in opening of Bondi attack

But it raises a fundamental question:

Are we responding to confirmed crime or to perception shaped by mass reporting?

Because policy built on perception rather than proven crimes is in danger of losing its foundation and, with it, public trust. And then there’s the matter of money, which often reveals priorities more clearly than words can describe.

In 2024, governments have pledged more than $150 million to fund the security of Jewish organizations, security guards, surveillance systems and physical protection measures designed to reassure a community that feels threatened.

Every community, without exception, deserves to feel safe, and governments have a responsibility to respond when people fear for their safety.

But spending inevitably reflects priorities, and priorities reveal choices.

If governments can mobilize this level of funding and establish a permanent armed force to respond to largely non-lethal incidents, then where might there be an equivalent response elsewhere?

Are other violences ignored?

Where is the domestic violence that goes on non-stop, measured not in incidents but in lives lost and permanently changed?

Where is the organized crime that continues to exert its influence in Western Sydney in ways that are far from symbolic?

In these suburbs, violence did not become abstract or rhetorical; This situation became real, urgent and dangerous, with homes being shot at, businesses being bombed, and cars being set on fire on residential streets.

This isn’t just intimidation; this is violence, it is direct and it is life threatening, so where are the 250 police units for this?

And back home again, to the silent emergency repeated every four minutes, to the two women murdered every week. Where is the immediate response to this?

Because policing isn’t just about action; It’s about allocation, decisions made behind closed doors that determine where resources go and where they don’t.

Each officer represents a decision, each unit reflects a priority, and each assignment sends a signal about what is most important.

Bondi’s reaction?

This is where Bondi comes in, not as a justification but as a test of logic.

The attack took place within minutes, was sudden and chaotic, and ended before any special units could realistically be deployed. So, in practical terms, what would this new task force do?

The honest answer is very little, because some acts of violence cannot be preempted, cannot be deterred by visibility, and cannot be stopped by units on call.

They happen too quickly and too unpredictably for this kind of response to matter. So if this unit wasn’t designed to stop such events, what exactly was it designed to do?

Is it there to reassure, deter, or send a signal that something is being done?

Because this is more and more like giving a signal; A government under pressure responds to the loudest concerns by building something visible, something that can be pointed out, something that can be seen.

This is politics, not necessarily policing.

Government accountability

And another, quieter but equally important change is taking place.

After Bondi, the questions were immediate and open; It focused on what was known, what was overlooked, and what could have been done differently. These are questions of responsibility, and they are rarely comfortable for those in power.

Instead, the focus has moved subtly but decisively from what is to what could be, from scrutiny to action, from accountability to visibility.

A new unit changes the conversation, diverting attention without having to respond.

It does not resolve the questions asked; it just replaces them.

I saw what it looked like on the ground. At Sydney City Hall, a peaceful crowd was contained and pushed, and the environment quickly changed from facilitation to control, from presence to oppression.

This felt like a show of force, an assertion rather than a response to policing. My 83-year-old mother tried to leave early, was caught in the movement of the increasingly dense crowd, and was pushed forward uncontrollably and without warning. He fell, his ankle was broken, a disc prolapsed in his back, and the injuries will remain long after that moment has passed.

This is what happens when policing follows oppression instead of principles.

Prime Minister Chris Minns says it’s about security, it’s about cohesion, it’s about preventing division before it happens. But unity is not established through force and cannot be maintained by visible displays of force; it is built through trust, and trust cannot be commanded; It must be won.

This wasn’t created at the point of a rifle, so the question remains: How does the deployment of armed officers to community spaces in response to largely non-lethal incidents bring people together rather than pushing them apart?

Or is it actually doing the opposite, deepening the divisions it claims to prevent?

Because there is a line and it is usually not visible until it is crossed. A line between reassurance and intimidation, between protection and overreach, between security and control.

And once that line moves, it rarely moves backwards. This is not just a police decision and cannot be considered as a single decision. It is a statement of priority, a signal of intent, and ultimately a choice.

A choice about what is important and what is not.

When visibility begins to outweigh harm, when perception takes precedence over reality, politics has already won.

I mourn Bondi’s passing. Australia’s grief hierarchy