Man shot dead in Sydney community centre carpark

NSW police say a vehicle was seen driving away from the scene in Punchbowl in the city’s south-west

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A man has been shot dead in the car park of a Sydney community centre in the city’s south-west.

Emergency services were called to the community centre on Rossmore Avenue in Punchbowl on Wednesday evening after reports of a shooting.

A vehicle was seen driving away from the location after the fatal shooting, NSW police said in a statement.

Paramedics treated the man but he died at the scene. He is yet to be identified, police said.

The fatal shooting comes two days after the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, announced measures to curb gangland violence in Sydney.

New laws being introduced in the state include new aggravated offences for conspiracy to commit gang-related murder. The maximum penalty will be increased to life imprisonment.

The government has repeatedly denied criminal gangs are “out of control” in the city after the mistaken identity shootings of electrician Joshua Macdonald and Marco Tapia, a 23-year-old biomedical engineering student last week .

Police said neither man had any link to organised crime.

The new laws being introduced in NSW aim to tackle organised crime by giving police more power, including using new interim serious crime prevention orders to restrict people suspected of serious and organised crime. Those would be applied while the state’s supreme court considers the full order.

Children’s indictable offences would include activities linked to organised crime, and public shootings and firebombings would be added to the scheme.

In a statement on Monday, Minns said people who conspire to arrange a gangland murder should face the prospect of “spending the rest of your life behind bars”.

“We want to hit these criminal networks at every point – the people who organise the violence, the people who facilitate it online and the people who ultimately carry it out,” he said.

Police are urging anyone with information about the Punchbowl incident to contact Campsie police station or Crime Stoppers.