Increased security at Ashes test, SA’s event calendar under review
Increased security measures will be in place for this week’s Ashes test at Adelaide Oval, as SA Police assess “every other event” coming up in SA after a mass shooting at Bondi on Sunday.
Additional security protocols will be in place at this Wednesday’s Ashes test at Adelaide Oval following yesterday’s terror attack at Bondi Beach, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced on Monday morning.
“This is done only as a precautionary measure, but it is appropriate that we are increasing our sense of alertness, just at the moment,” Malinauskas said.
There will be additional security checkpoints and a higher police presence at the Adelaide Oval and its surrounding area in North Adelaide including from SA Police’s Security Response Section– officers with higher levels of training who carry rifles.
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said the security was a precaution and there was “no intelligence at this time” indicating any increased threat level or security risk at the cricket or any other South Australian event.
“But notwithstanding that we apply a level of diligence to make sure that people attending can do so with that confidence that they are attending a safe, well-managed event,” Stevens said.
“There’s a balance between the concern about police officers carrying rifles in and about the community, balanced with the need for us to be able to effectively respond to an event, should an event occur, and these police officers are specifically trained for that purpose.”
Stevens said that today, members of the South Australian Jewish community were advised by community leaders not to attend specific Jewish locations.
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“My understanding is the advice to the Jewish community from their leaders is that they should not be attending these Jewish assets within the community for today,” Stevens said.
“But we will be working very closely with the Jewish community to make sure that particular locations or properties that they have concerns about are the subject of ongoing assessment and appropriate police response.”
It comes after numbers of SA Police attended a Hanukkah event at Rymill Park on Sunday night following news of the Bondi shooting.
Mika, who declined to share his surname, told InDaily he was at the Rymill Park event when friends showed their phones with the news alert from Bondi.
“I think a lot of us have seen related things in the news in the Jewish community for the past few years so at first we thought, we didn’t know what to think,” he said.
“It really hit all of us later, how serious it was, and realising on social media we have friends, and friends of friends that were affected so that’s what made being at the same events in Adelaide so surreal.”
Mika said, although it was reassuring to see police present, “we all just have this feeling, I think, as Jews in a very small community in Adelaide, to always have a look around our backs”.
“So that feeling was probably – despite the police presence – more than usual. I think a lot of us didn’t feel 100 per cent safe as we would have liked to be.”
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Stevens declined to provide extra detail about the increased police presence at the Rymill Park event, but said SA Police would “continue to assess every other event that’s occurring in South Australia over the coming days and weeks”.
“We increased the level of police presence there on the basis that the significant event with tragic circumstances that happened at Bondi was at the forefront of everybody’s mind, and our responsibility is to ensure people are safe, that people feel safe, and we achieved that by applying additional police to the Rymill Park event.”
Out of sensitivity to the attacks, some events around SA have been cancelled for today, including a media event with students awarded Governor of South Australia Commendations after year 12 results were released.
Students who received the awards would still be celebrated at the official annual event held at Government House in February, a SACE board spokesperson confirmed.
Premier Malinauskas met with some of South Australia’s Jewish community members at the Holocaust museum on Wakefield Street on Monday morning where he shared condolences and placed flowers in support of the local community.
“The Jewish community in our state is a small community, but it’s a really proud one that punches above its weight,” Malinauskas later told ABC Radio.
He condemned the attack as “an act of antisemitism” “an act of terrorism” with “a degree of premeditation”.
In relation to the local response, Malinauskas said SA Police “acted quickly” on Sunday night to ensure the Rymill Park Hanukkah Festival in Adelaide was “well protected”.
Malinauskas would attend a national cabinet meeting to further discuss a national response on Monday afternoon with other leaders.
State Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn said she spoke to NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane, who was attending the Bondi event and was later interviewed after the shootings, recounting her shock at the events and how she had helped the injured.
Both Hurn and Sloane are from SA’s Barossa Valley region.
“[Bondi] is her local community, so I’ve reached out to her and just said that we send her every strength, that we send her love and that we just hope that she’s doing the best that she can for her local community,” Hurn told ABC Radio.
“She was obviously at the Chanukah by the Sea event when we saw this act of terror unfolding, so naturally her focus is on her community and making sure that they feel supported but I look forward to having a further conversation with her in the days ahead.”
Hurn was expected to lay flowers and share condolences at the Adelaide Holocaust Museum and Andrew Steiner Education Centre today.
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