A legal battle between NSW Police and organisers of an anti-corruption rally appears to have been avoided, after a plan to march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge was dropped.<\/p>\n
Organisers had planned to walk from Bradfield Park at Milsons Point to Hyde Park in the CBD, where speeches would be held, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The event was put together by an umbrella group known as Australia Unites Against Government Corruption.<\/p>\n
But after receiving paperwork from organisers and then holding discussions about the plans, NSW Police launched a case in the Supreme Court seeking a prohibition order over the event.<\/p>\n
‘I feel completely ambushed’<\/p>\n
Ahead of an urgent hearing scheduled on Monday afternoon, Justice Peter Garling listed the matter this morning to clarify whether or not the case would proceed.<\/p>\n
He said his chambers had received what appeared to be “two diametrically opposed” emails from Mary-Jane Liddicoat, the respondent to the police case.<\/p>\n
The judge said on Friday Ms Liddicoat emailed a registrar seeking to confirm the Monday deadline for paperwork and informing the court that Ms Liddicoat and her legal representative were interstate.<\/p>\n
But later that evening his chambers received another email.<\/p>\n
“I’ve not had an opportunity to engage a lawyer or seek legal advice on any of this. I feel completely ambushed,” Ms Liddicoat wrote in the second email.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The matter was listed ahead of initial schedule on Monday. (ABC News: Jak Rowland)<\/p>\n
She told the judge on Monday morning that she had not engaged a lawyer.<\/p>\n
“By what were you ambushed?” Justice Garling asked.<\/p>\n
Ms Liddicoat, appearing via audio-visual link, said she had been working cooperatively with police and was under the impression the plans would be able to continue.<\/p>\n
“They hadn’t specifically said they would take this to court, so it was my naivety,” she said.Bridge plan from media release<\/p>\n
Barrister Guy O’Loghlen Reynolds SC, representing the commissioner, said an agreement had been reached where Ms Liddicoat would not seek for the rally to cross the bridge.<\/p>\n
Mr Reynolds said that under the agreement there would be a march along the same route used by the Palestine Action Group, beginning and ending at Hyde Park.<\/p>\n
The hearing remains listed for Monday afternoon, however the judge may deal with the matter in chambers if a consent position is formally reached before then.<\/p>\n
Ms Liddicoat earlier confirmed plans to cross the bridge had been dropped in a media release.<\/p>\n
“In this case, it became clear there was a real risk the rally itself could be prevented if the legal proceedings continued,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The attempt follows a pro-Palestinian march across Sydney Harbour Bridge in August. (AAP: Flavio Brancaleone)<\/p>\n
In that release, the purpose of the event was described as highlighting cost-of-living pressures, declining health outcomes, rising violence, financial strain and environmental policies “that serve corporations instead of people”.<\/p>\n
The organisers drew parallels to last month’s pro-Palestinian march across the bridge, describing their event as “almost identical”.<\/p>\n
That march went ahead despite a similar legal challenge from police in the Supreme Court, however a judge declined to make a prohibition order as requested by police.<\/p>\n
The effect of a prohibition order is not to ban a rally or make it illegal to attend, but participants would not receive protection against being charged with certain offences for things like blocking roads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A legal battle between NSW Police and organisers of an anti-corruption rally appears to have been avoided, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23156,64,63,88704,88705,82230,88707,44,2733,88706,26293,1049,670],"class_list":["post-126706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anti-corruption","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-unites","tag-australia-unites-against-government-corruption","tag-harbour-bridge","tag-mary-jane-liddicoat","tag-news","tag-nsw","tag-prohibition-order","tag-rally","tag-supreme-court","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}