Under questioning from Sarah Mitchell, a Nationals Legislative Councillor, the New South Wales (NSW) Premier, Chris Minns, admitted to an NSW Legislative Council Budget Estimates hearing on Wednesday the 25th of October that he made an “error” in not providing the Sydney Opera House Southern Forecourt as a place for the Jewish community to commemorate & mourn the loss resulting from the attack on Israel by Hamas on the 7th of October, after the NSW Government decided on the 8th of October to illuminate the World Heritage site in the colours of the Israeli flag on the 9th of October.
It should have been the case that once the decision was made to light up the Opera House, that there was a decision by the Government to give the Jewish community, in particular, an opportunity to commemorate & mourn the death of so many innocent civilians. We should have enabled the Jewish community to come together & mourn for the lost loved ones and for the sense of loss that that community had felt. The truth of the matter is not only did we not do that but the area was taken over by a violent protest
where antisemitic & race-hate language was used. I don’t have an excuse for that. The only thing I can do is apologise and say, in particular to the Jewish community, I wish that that hadn’t happened. I have to take responsibility for it because if the ultimate end of your questioning is ‘Was I informed?’ & ‘Did I know the police procedures for a protest from Town Hall to the Opera House?’, I was informed. I don’t have an excuse here, other than it went wrong & I do owe the Jewish community, in particular, an apology for it.I made this point in the context of a lot of criticism of my public pronouncements about the 2nd rally that took place in Hyde Park. My point was I’m not making these comments out of the clear blue sky.
Chris Minns, NSW Premier
The Honourable Damien Tudehope, Liberal Member & Opposition Leader Of The NSW Legislative Council said to the NSW Premier during the hearing that he was not after an admission of a mistake.
The NSW Premier also told the hearing that the Jewish Board Of Deputies made “I guess, entreaties or requests” to the Minister Of Multiculturalism, who he later consulted before “immediately” making the decision to light up the Sydney Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag “because we’ve got a large Jewish population in New South Wales”.
According to the Australian Bureau Of Statistics, NSW’s Jewish population is about 0.5% of the NSW population.
He decided to light up the Sydney Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag on Sunday the 9th of October after “reading initial reports out of the Middle East” the day prior, NSW Legislative Council Budget Estimates hearings heard.
I thought it was important to show solidarity with that (NSW Jewish) community, given the context of really unprecedented barbarism by a terrorist organisation on Israeli civilians.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
After the decision was made, the NSW Premier said he then saw other global cities & municipalities lighting up their landmarks in the colours of the Israeli flag.
The NSW Premier told the hearing that even after footage of a pro-Palestian protest in Lakemba the day prior, no risk assessment of the Opera House illumination in the colours of the Isreali flag was done nor was instructed to be done by him.
However, sometime after the illumination occurred, his staff told him that NSW Police did do a risk assessment and even if he was made aware of it before the Opera House was illuminated in the colours of the Israeli flag, “it wouldn’t have changed my decision”, he said.
I made a decision that this was important in terms of showing solidarity with the Jewish community of New South Wales & also recognising that this was an atrocious and appalling act of terrorism.
I think we made the right decision & given the circumstances, I would have made the same decision again.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
His questioner, The Honourable Damien Tudehope, Liberal Member & Opposition Leader Of The NSW Legislative Council, accepted the above quote.
There are some things that you just have to stand up for and show solidarity towards & this was one of them.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
When asked by the same questioner when NSW Police were notified of the decision and by whom, the NSW Premier said he “might have to take that on notice”.
It may well be the case that in a fast-moving situation the police were notified via media reports. Those may have been the circumstances. It may well have been through my chief of staff but in any event, it was a fast-moving situation & a decision needed to be made. It would be unconscionable for the government of the day to say, “We’ll take 2 or 3 days to make a decision.” This was really a threshold call for the New South Wales Government.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
His questioner then pointed out that such a delay had apparently been done before in 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Sydney Spectaculars understands no illumination of the Sydney Opera House was done after that shooting.
Yes, well there may well have been but from my perspective & from the
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
perspective of the Government, ultimately, this was an important but relatively easy decision to make.
The NSW Premier also disagreed “that the assertion by the Police Minister that this was purely a police operational decision was inaccurate”.
He also told the hearing that he only found that NSW Police had concerns about the decision to light up the Sydney Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag from media reports on the 24th of October, just over 2 weeks after the illumination.
They’ve got responsibilities for public safety & public order. The truth of the matter is my responsibilities are broader than that. There is one in relation to showing solidarity for a big community that we have in New South Wales. Secondly, it was a decision made by me that in these circumstances, given these events & the indiscriminate killing of civilians of a longstanding partner of Australia, this was a decision that we needed to make.
Put this in perspective: I don’t want to live in a society where, because you’ve lit up the Opera House in the colours of another nation’s flag, an ally of Australia, a country that we’ve had a warm relationship with for a long time, the threat that community members may be triggered by that event prompts the government to not make that decision. We can’t have that.
I don’t think anyone fairly would say—notwithstanding that some people use that opportunity to act in antisemitic, vile & in many cases, violent ways—that we can live in a society where you don’t make a decision to show solidarity with the Israeli & the Jewish community because of fear of that kind of protest.
I just make this point: Municipalities & cities around the world would have been faced with exactly the same set of circumstances. I think it’s important for the (Portfolio) Committee (No. 1 – Premier & Finance) to note that most jurisdictions made exactly the same call — the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Empire State Building in New York, the Brandenburg Gate in Germany & every other significant landmark in every other capital city in every other part of Australia.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
Sydney Spectaculars understands Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, did not make “the same call”.
Am I right to say, though, that your concern to light up the Opera House trumped your concern in respect of security issues that may arise?
The Honourable Damien Tudehope, Liberal Member & Opposition Leader Of The NSW Legislative Council
I don’t think it’s helpful to the Committee’s deliberation, or for people examining the Government’s decision, to see it in those terms. My responsibilities are broader than the immediate concern of New South Wales Police. The reason for that is I would have assumed that if your primary responsibility is public safety and public order, then the immediate answer is that you wouldn’t want it lit up, but my obligations are broader than that & they are towards a whole range of other conditions and principles that I think are important for a big city like Sydney. I don’t want to give them & I don’t think you should give them too much credit either. We can’t be in a situation where we’re excusing the behaviour of bad-faith actors on the proviso that they may be triggered because the Opera House or a cultural institution is lit up in another nation’s colours. That’s not
Chris Minns, NSW Premier
an excuse for violent & antisemitic behaviour.
Premier, you and I are on the same page.
The Honourable Damien Tudehope, Liberal Member & Opposition Leader Of The NSW Legislative Council
The NSW Premier said it was clear that the protest at the Sydney Opera House had “got out of control” & the NSW Premier said he was briefed about that protest that day including, before the protest, the “circumstances relating to police procedures”.
There is no excuse for it. I was briefed about it through the Monday. I’m certainly not coming to this (Portfolio) Committee (No.1 – Premier & Finance) and saying I wasn’t aware of what was happening. I was aware and I have to take responsibility for it.
It’s important not to conflate police concerns generally about the lighting of the Opera House & the triggering of bad behaviour or bad-faith actors & the security concerns about a protest from Town Hall to the Opera House. I think that they are different issues. The end result is the same: We didn’t provide a place for, in particular, Sydney’s Jewish community to come together and commemorate the loss & I deeply regret that, and I have to take responsibility for it.
Retrospect—I’d love to have retrospect in relation to this decision; genuinely I would. I would have loved to have this (Portfolio) Committee (No. 1 – Premier & Finance) meeting warning me of the dangers in relation to that protest prior to it happening but that’s not the way decision-making works. We made a mistake. I made a mistake here.
I think it’s important that the Government acknowledges this failure, not in & of itself, but so that it doesn’t become practice & norm to allow violent demonstrations or public pronouncements of antisemitism or hate speech on New South Wales streets. I’ve seen that in other capitals & jurisdictions around the world. That cannot be part and parcel or part of the character of our multicultural community.
I did seek leave for that Monday. It was the 1st day back at school for the school term & I had some family business to attend to but the truth of the matter is, it ended up being one of the busier days of my premiership & I worked the entire afternoon. To put it in perspective, just so that you know, checking my phone logs on the day, I had 11 conversations with my chief of staff on that afternoon, including I think 3 conference calls where he was on speaker phone with senior staff in my office & I had 7 conversations with the Minister For Multiculturalism, Steve Kamper, about this issue. It was a rolling, evolving event.
I had 3 conversations, perhaps 2 but I think 3, with the Jewish Board of Deputies directly, including a long conversation with their President. I spoke to the Police Minister & I spoke to the Leader Of The Government in the upper house, Penny Sharpe so I was in contact & exercising my responsibilities as Premier.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
The NSW Premier said he didn’t talk to the Deputy Premier on the day of the illumination & the reason why he didn’t was because while he was making the above decisions, phone calls and “a lot of the moving parts of the demonstration and the advice to government occurred” concurrently with a “long Cabinet meeting” that she was chairing.
He also said the Police Minister during her phone call did not raise concerns about what senior police were telling her.
In fairness to her, I’d made the decision without asking for security advice from her so that decision had been made.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
The NSW Premier said during those above phone calls he did “not explicitly” discuss “‘This would be really a bad idea if these protesters were marching to the Opera House'” and at the time, it did not cross his mind that that might be a problem.
It should have. In retrospect, a protest from Town Hall to the Opera House, we shouldn’t have allowed it to happen & we should’ve made the Opera House Forecourt and the immediate precinct an opportunity for the Jewish community to come together & if there were other protests in other parts of the city then that should’ve been allowed to happen but well away from the community that wanted to come together & grieve. I’m admitting that & the
only thing I can say is we apologise for it & we want to learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.I thought it was important, much like the German Government, the UK Government, the Government of South Australia, the Commonwealth Government of Australia, the Victorian Government, the Queensland Government, the city municipalities in New York, Chicago & Los Angeles, that, yes, there may well be security concerns & public safety issues, but I was not going to let some of the worst elements of our society hijack what was an important public commemoration.
I wish I was aware. I wish I did have the foresight that this could’ve happened. Mistakes were made — mistakes made by me.
If I had my time over again, I would never have let it happen. In terms of leave, I was exercising my responsibilities as Premier of New South Wales & that’s important context.
NSW Premier, Chris Minns
Sydney Spectaculars understands while the Empire State Building & Willis Tower in New York & Chicago respectively were illuminated in the colours of the Israeli flag, this was not at the initiative of the Cities Of New York & Chicago respectively.
Sydney Spectaculars 