Hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents that police tout as proof of fraying social cohesion have been called into question amid a parliamentary probe.
An upper house committee has pushed NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Thurtell to explain how police arrived at the figure of 700 anti-Semitic reports that have rocked the state since October 2023
The figure has repeatedly been quoted by NSW Premier Chris Minns as culminating in a "summer of racism" where synagogues, childcare centres, cars, businesses and homes have been targeted.
But Mr Thurtell said about 40 per cent of the incidents are considered to be anti-Semitic in the central database under Operation Shelter, where information is collated on religiously labelled cases.
He also noted around 10-15 per cent were Islamophobic in nature and the rest have been categorised as other, particularly demonstrations.
"(Operation) Shelter was set up ... to keep an overarching watch on what started as the protest activity and all that sort of stuff, and our engagement with groups in the community," Mr Thurtell told the committee.
"The others could be any number of things, such as a particular protest was held somewhere so there's tick, there's one. Another particular protest held somewhere else tick, there's two."
Mr Thurtell said it is a "loose capture" of all incidents referred to law enforcement since Israeli began its bombing campaign on Gaza in late 2023 after a cross-border Hamas attack.
"It's not an exact science on everything has to be either anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic or protest activity. It's something that was referred to them (police) and has been captured in the database."
Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said anti-Semitic incidents had escalated four-fold in about 18 months and continued to rise, with the statistics presented to a premier-appointed panel dealing with hate crimes.
Pressed on the figure earlier in March, Mr Minns referred to the police as his source but doubled down, saying there could be thousands of anti-Semitic incidents that are not tracked.
"It wouldn't be hundreds, it would be thousands of examples of anti-Semitism and racism in our community. The sad reality is many of them are not caught or punished by NSW Police," he said.
