CSG receives record $6m state security grant

Community Security Group Victoria will receive $6 million in operational funding over four years, in what CSG says is the largest grant it has received from the Victorian government.

Premier Ben Carroll announced the commitment and said the money would flow immediately.

The funding will support frontline security operations, personnel and volunteers through intelligence monitoring, protective services, crisis response planning and security technology.

The grant will strengthen security at Jewish schools, synagogues, community centres and events, and is also intended to help CSG stabilise and plan ahead.

The government said CSG had taken on a significantly increased workload since October 7, 2023, amid a rise in antisemitic violence in Victoria and nationally, and needed the certainty of ongoing funding rather than year-to-year grants.

Speaking to The AJN at CSG Victoria headquarters on Thursday morning, Carroll said the obligation ran both ways.

“The CSG always has the community’s back, and it’s important that the government has organisations like the CSG’s back,” he said.

“As we head towards the New Year celebration, we need to make sure we continue to invest and give organisations like the CSG the resources they need.”

He said the funding would allow CSG to work with Victoria Police and with other community organisations so that people felt safe at Jewish schools.

“Backing organisations like CSG that do a wonderful job every single day and night of the year is so critically important,” he said.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Philip Zajac said the cost should not fall on the community alone.

“We hope the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion will help create a future where our schools and shules no longer need security guards at their doors. But until that time, security remains a necessity for our community.

“I have heard from so many community members that the cost of security should not and cannot be borne by us alone. Every Victorian has the right to live safely, including Jewish Victorians.”

Zajac said the commitment would allow Jewish organisations and families “to focus on strengthening Jewish life, rather than funding the security measures needed to protect it”.

CSG CEO Justin Kagan thanked the Premier and the Victorian government for what he called a landmark investment in the community’s safety and security.

“This grant is recognition, from the leadership of our state government, of the challenges the Jewish community continues to face and a genuine commitment to the ongoing effort required to support Jewish life in Victoria,” he said.

“The Premier’s four-year funding commitment assists us to plan ahead and helps ease the significant and growing cost of meeting our security needs.”

Asked whether seeing the scale of the CSG operation up close was sobering, Carroll said he had visited the headquarters several times.

“It is sobering, but it’s also a reminder of the task we have to try and eliminate hate, eliminate violence, antisemitism,” he said.

He said that in a perfect world, in a state like Victoria, such an organisation would not be necessary.

“We want organisations like the CSG not to have to exist. That we come together as a cohesive, beautiful community that gets along with one another.”

Asked what could be done to remove the need for that kind of operation, Carroll, a former education minister, pointed to education.

“The power of education, the power of knowing that everyone knows the story of the Holocaust, the power of everyone knowing the contribution our Jewish community have made to our state, that Victoria is such a successful, multi-faith, multicultural community,” he said.

“That’s our strength. That’s our secret sauce, and we should never forget it.”