Sydney is surfing a diverse wave of protest movements as weekly vigils, marches for justice, striking workers and other groups pound pavements and push police patrols of protests to record levels.
NSW Police approved 985 protests in 2023, an increase from 875 the previous year, according to figures provided to a state budget estimates hearing.
The most recent data show police approved 302 protests in the first quarter of 2024.
The introduction of anti-protest laws in 2022 designed to deter actions that block roads or other public infrastructure made the rising tide of rallies more visible because small groups are now more inclined to seek police approval.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has ordered a review of the resources needed to allow weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations. He said policing a major protest could cost as much as $1 million.
But Australian Democracy Network spokeswoman Anastasia Radievska said anti-protest laws had led to over-regulation of protests and patrols of small gatherings. She said the high visibility approach could create escalations, citing a March incident where pro-Palestine demonstrators who got red food colouring on police were charged with assault.
“There are about 100 to 150 police at the weekly Sydney Palestine protests [which attract 1000 to 2000 demonstrators] despite a lack of serious incidents or arrests at these for more than a year,” Radievska said.
“We need to ask if that number is coming out of a police risk assessment and if it’s appropriate.”
Over the past two decades, 49 protest laws have been introduced in federal, state and territory parliaments, a recent Human Rights Law Centre report found. NSW added seven new rules over that period, the most of any jurisdiction. The report found the laws disproportionately targeted climate change and environmental activists.
Half of the 190 charges laid since 2020 under the NSW laws were withdrawn and, of the 81 proven charges, only one resulted in a jail term, data provided by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research shows. The rest received fines or community service.
Protest numbers and causes have been increasing worldwide since 2006, a study of more than 100 countries reveals.
In the 2019-20 NSW Police Force annual report, Sydney’s Central Metropolitan Unit noted “protest activity relating to a range of local and global issues reached unprecedented levels”.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties vice president Lydia Shelly said the protest approval process, known as Form 1, was “undemocratic”.
She expressed concern that a user pays-to-protest system advocated for by the state opposition in light of Minns’ review would result in unintended consequences, such as protesters refusing to notify police about their actions to avoid fees.
“These laws and political statements embolden police to the idea that protest is only talked about in monetary terms like its cost to the state, which is completely at odds with the government’s obligation to citizens,” Shelly said.
“Form 1 applications are routinely knocked back by police and ultimately taken to court where they are defended and granted. It’s grotesque that the public is put in a position where they have to go to a court to exercise their democratic rights.”
An LED warning screen was erected at a Palestine rally on October 13, 2024.Credit: Legal Observers NSW
Shelly said there had also been “frightening” use of police bail against protesters, including conditions such as not being able to enter the Sydney CBD or associate with other protesters, which she said was unconstitutional and was being used not because of the threat to the community but to monitor and disrupt protest groups.
Last week, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb took the Rising Tide climate protest organisers to the Supreme Court to argue against giving them legal protection for their blockade of the Newcastle coal port, the second time police went to court to argue against a protest last month. The case was adjourned until Tuesday.
While NSW Police have no specific power to stop a public assembly, Legal Observers NSW have said the “misrepresentation” of the Form 1 regime and using local council bylaws to restrict the right to protest is a “significant concern”.
NSW Police did not answer questions about protest costs, resources used, risk assessments or abuse of the Form 1 process.
More than half of Australians support peaceful environmental protests, a recent Australian Institute of Criminology survey of 13,000 people found. This support was higher than support for anti-lockdown protests (16 per cent support) and sovereign citizen campaigns (27 per cent agreement).
The survey did not ask about the weekly pro-Palestine rallies, which have cost at least $5 million in NSW Police resources.
It found people with conspiratorial beliefs were more willing to justify violence or unlawful behaviour for a cause they support. The stronger someone’s belief in conspiracy theories was, the weaker their belief in environmental issues.
“Belief in conspiracy theories has been shown to reduce support for policies to address climate change,” the study authors wrote. “Intentions to engage in politics and extreme right-wing beliefs are often associated with denial of climate change, which may explain why an increase in conspiratorial beliefs reduced support for peaceful environmental protests.”
Griffith University ethicist Hugh Breakey said public protest was an important part of democratic life and “deserves our tolerance”.
“Protest is something that needs to be available to all our citizens, and if there are processes built around it, one of our guiding principles has to be that it must be easy and straightforward and relatively cost-free, at least for the most innocuous types of protests that just gather people together.
“Protest plays a critical role in letting people come together to feel solidarity, but also let the rest of us who didn’t understand that issue or know about it, think about it more. A lot of the early protests about climate change were like that; most of the protests about indigenous rights and women’s rights are like that too.”
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.