Curtailing people's rights is necessary to prevent hate escalating into violence, the NSW premier says, as Australians remember the 15 lives lost one week on from the Bondi terror attack.
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Chris Minns defended criticisms that hate speech laws set to be rushed through the state parliament before Christmas would curtail the freedoms of the majority of people in the community because of the actions of a very few.
The laws will ban slogans such as "globalise the intifada", which Mr Minns said were the seeds of hate that graduated online and into anti-Semitic acts of violence.
"This may have been an evil washing machine of hate with different things tipped into the top," he told ABC TV on Sunday.
"I believe that in many cases, when you see violent imagery and hateful slogans and chants ... it is unleashing forces that the organisers of the protests can't control."
The proposed laws were strongly condemned by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils as "another step in a deeply troubling pattern where moments of grief are used to justify authoritarian overreach".
"What (Mr Minns) is really doing is targeting speech he disagrees with and silencing communities who have already been grieving, traumatised, and marginalised," president Rateb Jneid said.
Mr Minns on Monday will also move to ban hateful symbols, including flags of al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State, from being displayed in the streets or at home.
Home-made Islamic State flags were found in a vehicle belonging to one of the gunmen who opened fire on a crowd of Jewish faithful gathered to celebrate Hanukkah at Bondi Beach.
On Sunday evening, exactly one week to the minute since the gunmen opened fire, mourners will pause to remember the victims on what has been designated a day of national reflection.
They include 10-year-old Matilda, elderly Holocaust survivors Alexander Kleytman and Marika Pogany, and rabbis Yaakov Levitan and Eli Schlanger.
Lights will beam into the sky above Bondi Pavilion, where thousands of flowers and tributes have been laid since the tragedy.
People are being asked to light a candle and place it in their front window, before observing a minute's silence at 6.47pm AEDT.
"(It's) 60 seconds carved out from the noise of daily life, dedicated to the 15 Australians who should be with us today," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
Mr Albanese will visit the pavilion to mark the moment - the first time he has attended the makeshift memorial since Monday - amid backlash from the Jewish community for a perceived lack of action over anti-Semitic incidents before the attack.
Alex Ryvchin, co‑chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the prime minister was doing the right thing by attending the vigil but could expect a mixed response.
"He needs to see how people are hurting and what's been inflicted on them," he told Sky News, adding that many community members ultimately held the government and its leader responsible for the attack.
Mr Minns has announced a NSW royal commission into the massacre, which he said would be the most important in the state's history.
Federal agencies such as ASIO are expected to be called with commonwealth consent, although Mr Albanese has rejected opposition demands for a federal inquiry.
Nationals leader David Littleproud repeated the call for a national royal commission, saying the probe should "go back to whatever it takes" to investigate the killings.
One of the shooters, Naveed Akram came to the attention of intelligence agency ASIO in 2019, when the coalition was in power, over his associations with others.
Australian Associated Press
