A caravan packed with explosives? Sydney’s Jewish community deserves better than 10 days of silence

A hastily convened press conference in which NSW Premier Chris Minns and Deputy NSW Police Commissioner Dave Hudson belatedly revealed details of a potential mass casualty terror attack in Sydney has raised more questions than it answered.

Jewish residents already fear for their lives following an escalating series of antisemitic attacks across the city. Places of worship have been vandalised. A childcare centre near a Maroubra synagogue has been firebombed. Cars outside the former Dover Heights home of Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, were also incinerated in a targeted attack.

The chilling discovery of a caravan containing the address of a Sydney synagogue and laden with enough stolen mining explosives to create a 40-metre blast radius will turn existing fear into outright terror.

This spate of violence has reached horrifying new levels and the public deserves nothing less than the full facts, and in a timely manner. The Jewish community will understandably question why police and the NSW government did not tell the public about the discovery when it was first made 10 days ago.

Events moved rapidly on Wednesday afternoon after details of the caravan’s contents and the existence of a secret joint-counter terror investigation were leaked to the Daily Telegraph. Many facts are unknown and not all information is in the public domain. What we do know is that the caravan was sitting on the side of a road in Dural, in Sydney’s north-west, for several weeks before a concerned local took it onto his property, looked inside and got the shock of his life.

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That was more than a week ago, on January 19. A joint counter-terrorism team, which combines state and Commonwealth agencies including the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, was later formed and more than 100 officers tasked with catching the perpetrators.

Minns was briefed on January 20. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was also briefed, though his office won’t say when. Sensing community unease over the 10-day window between the caravan’s discovery and public revelation, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Wednesday night said it was “incumbent on the federal government to say when they knew about this sickening incident, who is behind it, and what steps they took to protect Australia’s Jewish community”.

What is also clear is that Wednesday’s press conference was not planned. Police and the government clearly had no intention of telling the public – yet – of the discovery of the caravan 10 days ago, or the existence of a massive counter-terror investigation. Their hand was forced by a leak.