Chris Minns vows to strengthen NSW hate speech laws in wake of antisemitic incidents | New South Wales politics

The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has vowed to strengthen the state’s hate speech laws in response to a spate of antisemitic incidents, including the vandalism of a prominent Jewish leader’s former home on Friday.

The series of attacks in Sydney, which include vandalism of homes and setting vehicles alight, has prompted concern from community leaders over an escalation of violence in reaction to the conflict in Gaza.

On Friday, NSW police said it was also investigating Islamophobic graffiti found on a corner store in western Sydney.

Minns said a “difficult decision” would be made when NSW parliament returns to crack down further on anyone “preaching hatred in the community”.

“Our government’s going to make a decision soon, a difficult decision, but the right one, I believe, to strengthen hate speech laws in NSW so that if someone’s preaching hatred in the community, it doesn’t manifest itself two months or three months later in a firebombing or an attack or something worse,” he said on Sunday.

“No stone will be left unturned, and we will, of course, meet all kinds of violent activity in NSW with a massive, massive police response.”

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who was in western Sydney to announce $1bn in road funding alongside Minns, said his government was “determined to stamp this out”.

A special federal police taskforce is investigating antisemitism across Australia after the terrorist attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne. The taskforce arrested a Sydney man on Thursday for allegedly making death threats towards members of a Jewish organisation.

“There is no place in Australia for antisemitism, there is no place for the sort of outrageous acts that we have seen,” Albanese said.

The world remains hopeful a ceasefire in the Middle East will hold, the prime minister said, despite lingering tensions.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will come into effect on Sunday afternoon Australian time following a 15-month war.

The three-phased agreement will come into effect after Israel agreed to the deal, which will see hostages also released, but the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the ceasefire was only temporary.

“We’re certainly hopeful, as I think the world is, that this ceasefire holds. It’s what the world has wanted to see and it is good that it has occurred and that it will come into place,” Albanese told reporters.

“We want to see hostages released, we want to see proper aid be able to get to the people of Gaza, and we want Israelis and Palestinians to be able to live in peace and security.”

Addressing the standoff between NSW public psychiatrists and the state government, Minns said he was concerned but said the pay demands were not something the state could afford.

More than 200 of the state’s public psychiatrists could quit this week after negotiations between the union and the government reached an impasse.

The doctors’ union, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation, has warned the health system would “go off a cliff” if the mass resignations go ahead.

The state’s psychiatrists are proposing a special levy to increase their pay by 25%, similar to that which emergency doctors received in 2015, which would help bring NSW salaries to parity with other states and territories.

Minns said the salary increase could equate to as much as an additional $100,000 per year for psychiatrists.

The premier said accepting the pay demands could infuriate other essential workers on lower wages, and encourage them to threaten crippling government services in order to secure pay demands.

“We would be in a situation where we were saying no to nurses, no to police officers, no to teachers, but yes to psychiatrists specifically, because they threatened to cripple the public health system if we didn’t,” Minns said.

“I think that would be an open invitation to other groups who’ve got asks of the NSW government to do the same thing.”