New South Wales Moves to Shut Down Illegal Religious Centres Promoting Hate

New South Wales (NSW) Premier Chris Minns has announced his government will introduce new laws giving local councils the power to shut down illegal religious centres, aiming to deny preachers a platform for hate speech. That will be achieved by cutting off utilities to any place of public worship operating without planning approval.

Councils will have the support of police and the state’s Planning Department when required and will also be able to consult the police on community safety considerations before approving any new places of public worship.

The surviving Bondi attacker, Naveed Akram, was closely associated with Wissam Haddad, an extremist Islamist preacher in western Sydney. His centre, Al Madina Dawah, was shut down by the Canterbury-Bankstown Council in December.

“There is no place in NSW for hate, intimidation or extremism masquerading as community activity,” Minns said when he announced the bill.

“This reform is aimed squarely at shutting down ‘factories of hate’—places that operate unlawfully while promoting hatred, intimidation or division within the community.

However, the Free Speech Union of Australia called it a failure to take “responsibility for the failures that led to the Bondi terrorist attack against the Jewish community.

“We already had a rushed censorship bill passed by the NSW Parliament last year, and now we have a one-sided inquiry into hate speech laws due at the end of the month,” said the organisation’s director, Reuben Kirkham.

“Extremists are not going to be deterred by a lack of electricity: one imagines that they will continue under candlelight. It is ordinary people who may find that community centres won’t accept their bookings, just in case they have views that will risk an officious council turning the lights off because someone has complained.”

The move comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recalls Parliament for next week to pass a single large bill that will enact nearly the government’s whole response to the Bondi terror attacks.

The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 will create a new offence of inciting hatred in order to intimidate or harass, the bill will increase existing penalties for hate crimes, ensure extremist motives will be considered in sentencing, and expand and strengthen the existing ban on prohibited Nazi symbols.

It will also make it easier for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to cancel or refuse visas for people deemed intent on spreading hatred.

The same bill will also establish the National Guns Buyback Scheme, which will limit the number of firearms one person can own and make Australian citizenship a condition of holding a gun licence.