{"id":655258,"date":"2026-05-07T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655258\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:00:09","slug":"neo-nazi-joel-davis-charged-with-inciting-hatred-over-abolish-the-jewish-lobby-rally-at-nsw-parliament-new-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655258\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo-Nazi Joel Davis charged with inciting hatred over \u2018Abolish the Jewish lobby\u2019 rally at NSW parliament | New South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prominent neo-Nazi Joel Davis has been charged with alleged hate speech after a protest by the National Socialist Network outside New South Wales<\/a> parliament.<\/p>\n

About 60 members of the now-disbanded group stood in formation on Macquarie Street on 8 November last year, allegedly holding a large banner that read: \u201cAbolish the Jewish lobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement on Wednesday night, NSW police said that after an investigation into the protest and two speeches made by participants, a 32-year-old man had been arrested at a South Penrith house earlier that day.<\/p>\n

Davis was taken to Penrith police station where he was charged with publicly inciting hatred on the grounds of race and causing fear. He was granted conditional bail to appear at Downing Centre local court on 3 June.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn investigation into this matter was undertaken by the security investigation unit, counter terrorist and special tactics command, who sought legal advice in relation to the public assembly and content of the speeches,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n

NSW police were criticised at the time of the rally<\/a> for not opposing a \u201cform 1\u201d application by the organisers, after receiving legal advice that the banner did not meet the threshold for hate speech.<\/p>\n

The premier, Chris Minns, and the police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, said they were unaware of the event<\/a> until after it happened.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Documents released under freedom of information have revealed that senior police officers and members of the Premier\u2019s Department security team were notified about the neo-Nazi event ahead of time.<\/p>\n

In a supplementary answer to NSW budget estimates in March, Lanyon said a subsequent investigation of protesters \u201cidentified no offence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s charge comes after criticism of the police response to alleged antisemitic incidents by members of the Jewish community at the royal commission into antisemitism.<\/p>\n

The co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Peter Wertheim, told the royal commission this week that the \u201cwrong call\u201d was made by police in allowing the November protest to go ahead.<\/p>\n

Wertheim made similar comments to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into legislation expanding hate speech offences to include Nazi slogans, commissioned after the protest outside parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith every other [form 1] application where objections have been taken \u2013 and rightly so in most cases, in our view \u2013 the rationale has been expressed in terms of public safety considerations, not legality considerations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inquiry recommended police develop internal training to guide the enforcement of offences targeting rightwing extremism.<\/p>\n

The controversial offence for publicly inciting hatred on the grounds of race, section 93ZAA of the NSW Crimes Act, came into effect in August 2025.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s Law Reform Commission had opposed the move, arguing the laws would \u201cintroduce imprecision and subjectivity into the criminal law\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since then, NSW police has been criticised for not bringing charges under the offence, including after two Palestinian Australians were assaulted<\/a> and allegedly racially abused on a train after an anti-immigration march in August last year.<\/p>\n

The police minister, Yasmin Catley, told budget estimates in March this year that six people had been charged under 93ZAA.<\/p>\n

After Davis was charged, Catley said: \u201cNSW police have acted, the laws are working, and the matter is now before the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese laws exist for a reason, to protect people from [alleged] hate and fear, and the government will continue to support strong action against hatred and extremism,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n

The government has refused to release an independent review of hate speech laws by retired supreme court judge John Sackar, tabled in November. Sackar had been asked to look into expanding the offence to cover religion, gender identity and sexuality.<\/p>\n

Davis was already on bail after being charged with using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend, for allegedly calling in a Telegram channel for the \u201crhetorical rape\u201d of the independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, who had criticised the 8 November rally. He has yet to enter pleas to the charges.<\/p>\n

The National Socialist Network claims it disbanded in January before legislation to proscribe alleged \u201chate groups\u201d was introduced to federal parliament after the Bondi terror attack.<\/p>\n

NSW police were contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Jordyn Beazley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prominent neo-Nazi Joel Davis has been charged with alleged hate speech after a protest by the National Socialist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-655258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}