No right to protest in NSW

This decision by the NSW Supreme Court sets a very dangerous precedent:

Police have successfully shut down an anti-lockout law protest that was expected to be attended by thousands in central Sydney on Saturday night.

In a New South Wales supreme court decision on Friday, justice Geoff Lindsay ruled in favour of the commissioner of police’s 11th-hour legal action against protest organiser Keep Sydney Open.

and;

The NSW commissioner of police served a court summons on Keep Sydney Open on Thursday night in a bid to stop the rally, which police said could attract a crowd of up to 15,000 in a residential area.

Koh gave evidence in the NSW supreme court on Friday that he expected 5000 to 7000 demonstrators to converge on Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross between 9pm and midnight on Saturday.

“It is not a monster, your honour, it’s just a public rally, that’s all,” Koh’s barrister Mark Robinson SC said.

The right to peacefully assemble and make the voice of the people heard has now been made subject to judges and courts, effectively allowing any protest to be shut down at the whim of a single judge. This is a dangerous step for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and for the ability of the people to keep their government accountable.

It also means that local councils and local police can effectively decide what political protests do and don’t go ahead, because if the council had supported the protests, or the police had provided assistance with crowd control etc, then the ‘concerns’ about crowd control could have been addressed, and the protest could have gone ahead.

Lindsay said everyone accepted that a protest could be made and asked if police could co-operate with Keep Sydney Open organisers to regulate the crowd.

“There is no such co-operation from the police,” Robinson said.

Yet if the police had ‘liked’ the cause, they could have thrown their (taxpayer funded) support behind the protest and it would have gone ahead.

In other words, the only kinds of protests we can hold in NSW from now on are the ones approved by council employees or police department employees. If neither of them are on your side, then you’re all out of luck.

Is this the kind of country we are willing to accept?

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Categories: Free Speech, Lifestyle Regulation, Politics
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One thought on “No right to protest in NSW”

  1. But the courts had been eroding our laws. Constantly reinterpreting the law away from the essence of what they originally were meant to be by precedence.

    But I must say I am perplexed by the prospect – if the police feel that things might get out of hand – guess I stay on the fence on this. Law and order are also important.

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