Pro-Palestine activists win protest law challenge in Supreme Court
Sydney’s most prolific pro-Palestine protesters have forced the state government to roll back controversial protest laws through a constitutional challenge, declaring victory against a ‘whipped up and manipulated’ anti-Semitism crisis.
Sydney’s most prolific pro-Palestine protesters have forced the state government to roll back controversial protest laws through a constitutional challenge, declaring victory against a “whipped up and manipulated” anti-Semitism crisis.
The Palestine Action Group On Thursday successfully tore down amendments to protest laws that restricted assembly near places of worship, which they argued were an “outrageous overreach” and could prevent demonstrations entirely unrelated to the religious institutions affected.
Supreme Court judge Anna Mitchelmore ruled the six-month-old law “impermissibly burdens the implied constitutional freedom of communication on government or political matters and is invalid”, sending NSW Premier Chris Minns back to the drawing board.
“While it is disappointing it is important to note that this does not mean there is free rein outside places of worship,” Mr Minns said.
“Although the Supreme Court has determined that a police power to ‘move on’ persons engaging in obstructing, harassing and other conduct as part of a public assembly outside places of worship is invalid, the decision has no impact on the offence introduced recently in the NSW government’s places of worship laws that make it a crime to impede, harass, intimidate or threaten a person accessing a place of worship.
“These laws were designed to strike the right balance between community protection and the freedom of political expression.”
Justice Mitchelmore in her judgment argued the protest laws were “not necessary” because amendments to the Crimes Act passed at the same time achieved the same purpose without infringing on protesters. Those laws remain in place and were not subject to challenge in the courts.
PAG organiser Josh Lees — who also led the protest group’s successful Supreme Court case for the Sydney Harbour Bridge March for Humanity — has repeatedly insinuated that Mr Minns passed February’s protest laws under a veil of manufactured fear, using the Dural Caravan terror hoax as a false pretence.
“We said from the beginning that what Chris Minns was doing was an outrageous overreach in trying to find some new way to ban protests in NSW … Minns passed these laws on the basis of a pack of lies,” Mr Lees said outside court.
“These laws were about targeting anyone who protested near a place of worship, even if (the protest) had nothing to do with that place of worship or those worshippers.
“Obviously, anti-Semitism does exist, and it is a problem and we’re against it, but the idea that protests are the cause of that is ludicrous.”
When the protest laws first passed in February, news had broken less than a month before of a caravan found in Dural loaded with mining explosives alongside a note listing synagogues to be targeted.
By the time it was revealed to be a criminal “con job” leveraged by organised crime figures to influence other police negotiations, the new laws had already passed.
The PAG cried foul, questioning whether Mr Minns and Police Minister Yasmin Catley were aware the caravan threat and other linked anti-Semitic vandalism attacks were not motivated by racial hatred, and had misled the public in suggesting otherwise.
The laws were also subject to an upper house inquiry that controversially threatened to seek arrest warrants for political staffers.
NSW Police on Friday made a statement to a NSW parliamentary inquiry suggesting it had greatly over-estimated the incidence rate of criminal anti-Semitism. Mr Lees accused Mr Minns of “cooking the books” to justify his law reforms, despite there being no indication the government was aware at any stage of the statistical error by NSW Police’s Operation Shelter.
“He has still tried to justify these laws by cooking the books, putting out fake statistics about a supposed anti-Semitism crisis, which we now know the government has cynically, massively exaggerated in order to try to justify these laws,” he said.
“He clearly was not being very careful with the truth
“A supposed anti-Semitism crisis has been cynically whipped up and manipulated from day one as an effort to attack the anti-genocide pro-Palestine movement. That’s all this has been about.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief Alex Ryvchin told 2GB the PAG’s legal victory indicated the state government needed to conduct a “greater and deeper examination” of NSW protest laws and the protesters challenging them.
“It’s a really disappointing decision, and once again, we’ve seen of the most extreme and obnoxious and dangerous in our society put above the interest and the welfare of the rest of us,” he said.
“It’s not merely this one decision and protesting outside synagogues which is absurd, but there’s the cost issue, there’s the fact they’re able to take over the Harbour Bridge. There’s a much deeper issue with these protests, what they’re doing to our state and how they’re bankrupting us as well, diverting police resources.
“They will always maintain they’re not anti-Semitic, and yet they just went to court to fight for the right to protest outside synagogues, outside non-political Jewish venues.”
The verdict comes after PAG suffered a bruising defeat in the NSW Court of Appeal last week when its planned Opera House protest was stripped of authorisation, forcing activists to reroute through the Sydney CBD.
NSW Upper house Greens MP Sue Higginson said Mr Minns had made “grave mistakes”, urging him to “draw a line in the sand”.
“He made a captain’s call. He was emboldened, and he decided to go too far to provide the police unreasonable powers to be able to control the people on the streets of NSW,” she said. “He created a moral panic, and when governments create moral panics they make grave mistakes and they go too far. We have seen this in history, and we have seen it again today.
“We are not and we will not become a police state.”
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout