Police win Supreme Court bid to stop Sydney refugee rally
NSW Police have won a legal bid to block a mass refugee rights rally in Sydney this weekend but activists have vowed to revolt against coronavirus restrictions regardless, risking arrest and fines.
NSW
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Refugee advocates have vowed to stage a protest in Sydney this weekend despite NSW Police winning a Supreme Court bid to stop them flouting coronavirus restrictions.
Activist organisation Refugee Action Coalition is still planning to hold the demonstration on Saturday afternoon at Town Hall — the same spot as last weekend’s 20,000-strong Black Lives Matter rally.
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller sought an injunction to block the assembly on public health grounds and on Thursday night Justice Michael Walton ruled the protest was illegal, saying despite “powerful competing considerations” the contagion risks were too great.
NSW Police’s barrister Lachlan Gyles SC argued the fundamental right to free speech and public assembly must be eclipsed by the community’s right to protection from COVID-19 risks during a pandemic.
He called on the judge to reject “the idea that those who organise political rallies have some sort of golden ticket to trump matters of public health.”
RAC spokesman Ian Rintoul said the group would not appeal the “disappointing” judgment, but insisted the rally would go ahead regardless of the threat of police charges.
“I’m quite willing to be fined, I’m willing to be arrested. It’s a small price to pay in order to speak up for people in detention,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“We may not be able to hold the event in quite the same way … but a protest will go ahead.”
Mr Gyles accused fellow RAC organiser James Supple of playing “Russian roulette” with the safety of their supporters, asking “you think the interests of refugees are more important?”
The barrister said many citizens have done the right thing by sacrificing visits to elderly relatives in nursing homes or by not attending family funerals, asking Mr Supple whether “the rules don’t apply to you and your organisation?”
“I don’t accept that we don’t take the situation seriously. We’ll be doing everything in our power to ensure the event is organised in a safe way,” Mr Supple told the court.
“You cannot control whether someone who is sick turns up,” Mr Gyles said.
But Mr Supple insisted most people at his small protest would take sensible precautions, noting the government had begun loosening social distancing restrictions as infection rates drop.
“At the moment I think the risk is exceedingly low. I don’t accept that there are gigantic risks,” Mr Supple said.
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It comes after one person who attended Saturday’s BLM protest in Melbourne tested positive to COVID-19, which Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing said was a “classic example of where things can go wrong.”
Mr Willing urged those thinking of attending Saturday’s protest to obey the court’s decision.
He said significant police resources would be needed to prevent the potential spread of the highly contagious and deadly disease among large crowds, and suggested people could express their political views electronically.
“It would take, in my view, three to four police officers to ensure social distancing between groups of 10,” Mr Willing told the court.
“If people choose to break the law and attend this protest, police will not hesitate to take the appropriate action against them.”
Police have vowed to fine and arrest protesters taking part in an “unauthorised” second BLM rally planned for Sydney’s CBD on Friday night.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian want anyone who attends future protests to be charged.
In an affidavit NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant stated that the risk of community transition from a 200-person protest was low but the chance of undiagnosed cases creating new clusters couldn’t be ruled out.
Justice Walton said the turnout estimate for Saturday’s refugee protest “must be treated with some real caution”, flagging issues with contact tracing and social distancing during protests “on subject matter that invokes emotional responses.”
Mr Morrison has publicly described the rallies as a “real blocker” to easing restrictions on interstate travel, funeral numbers and places of worship.
Mr Morrison said a second wave of infection would cause Australia’s GDP to fall by 6.3 per cent – or a $25 billion dollar hit to the national economy.
The Berejiklian government has banned police from issuing any more demonstration permits during the pandemic, but nearly one thousand people have already signed up to attend Friday’s BLM rally and 200 people are expected to show up at Saturday’s refugee protest.
“Whatever action people take that’s outside of the health orders has consequences,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“People have been forewarned.”
The 2pm event, titled ‘Free the refugees: National day of action’ is part of a wider movement supported by ‘Pride in Protest’, a Sydney-based collective of activists campaigning for refugee rights and indigenous justice.
Up to 20,000 people marched peacefully through the city last weekend after frantic legal argument allowed a police ban to be overturned 12 minutes before the rally’s scheduled start.
People defied health warnings to call for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody and incarceration as a show of solidarity with rallies in the US, sparked by the death of African-American man George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Mr Willing defended the use of force by cops at the demonstration, stating “police officers are not punching bags.”
He said the vast majority of protesters weren’t wearing masks or staying 1.5 metres apart, despite assurances given to police by organisers.
But RAC argues that thousands of children already study together at schools, hundreds of people attend parliament, and NSW clubs can host 500 patrons inside.
The organisation rejected the “frightening” proposition that demonstrations should be postponed until after the pandemic, because to refugees who are “imprisoned against their will”, every day matters.
NSW Police not only initially allowed the BLM rally but officers did the paperwork for organisers even as they warned them “it is getting too big” and a larger venue was needed.
But when negotiations began to collapse, and organisers laughed after being asked to reduce the spiralling crowd numbers, police withdrew their support.
NSW has not confirmed a community-derived COVID-19 case in two weeks. No new cases were reported in the state on Thursday and no one is in intensive care.