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<\/p>\nDemonstrators are arguing overseas terror attacks could be used to re-enact protest restrictions in New South Wales, as they urge the state’s top court to rule them unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
Pro-Palestinian and First Nations advocates are challenging the restrictions that passed parliament shortly after the Bondi Beach terror attack which targeted a Jewish gathering, resulting in the deaths of 15 people.<\/p>\n
The laws give police the ability to declare no public assemblies will be authorised in the wake of a terror incident.<\/p>\n
The restrictions do not ban protests altogether but remove legal protections which are particularly relevant when marching or obstructing the path of members of the public.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Protesters clashed with police in Sydney over the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this month. (ABC News: Abubakr Sajid)<\/p>\n
The lawyer for the protest groups, David Hume SC, told the Court of Appeal the laws were broad and unnecessary.<\/p>\n
“They use a sledgehammer to seek to crack a nut,” Mr Hume told the panel of judges.<\/p>\n
“They burden all protest irrespective of the risk it poses and irrespective of its expressive significance, and secondly, they haven’t been shown to be necessary.”<\/p>\n
He told the court the restrictions infringed on the constitutional right to freedom of political communication.<\/p>\n
“Protest causes inconvenience,” Mr Hume said.<\/p>\n
“It is entirely understandable that executive governments often want to avoid that inconvenience, particularly where the protest involves minority views or unpopular views or is anti-government.”<\/p>\n
In the lead up to the hearing, the state government argued the case was no longer relevant given the restrictions expired earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Mr Hume responded to that, saying the legislation gives police the power to enact the restrictions again after any terror incident around the world.<\/p>\n
“Your Honours have seen there can be a terrorism incident anywhere in the world that leads to that, even if it’s not in Australia,” Mr Hume said.<\/p>\n
The government’s barrister, Brendan Lim SC, argued the restrictions had strict time limits, and would only relate to overseas events where a domestic investigation was triggered.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Protesters oppose NSW Police outside Surry Hills police station. (ABC News: Jack Fisher)<\/p>\n
“(There’s a condition) that the special powers in the act will substantially assist in apprehending persons responsible for the terrorist act, so immediately it’s quite a confined set of circumstances in which it would be made,” Mr Lim said.<\/p>\n
Pro-Palestinian protests ‘were justifiably constrained’<\/p>\n
In his written submissions, Mr Lim argued pro-Palestinian protests in Sydney were justifiably constrained, claiming they had an impact on security in the community in the lead up to the Bondi Beach attack.<\/p>\n
“That apprehension was supported objectively by the experience of regular protests in Sydney since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and official security advice over the same time frame, which has documented the observed and likely effects of some protest activity in a degrading security environment,” the submission read.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Protest organisers have previously denied any link between their movement and the attacks at Bondi Beach.<\/p>\n
Premier Chris Minns said he didn’t regret legislating the restrictions but would accept the decision of the courts.<\/p>\n
“We introduced that legislation in good faith because we thought it was in the interests of the people of New South Wales,” Mr Minns said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t regret it for a second. I think it was important to ensure that we had a degree of safety during those summer periods after the worst terrorism event the states ever seen.”<\/p>\n
The judges will hand down their decision at a later date.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demonstrators are arguing overseas terror attacks could be used to re-enact protest restrictions in New South Wales, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,26295,99741,36378,44,27990,234661,85241,36374,17736,253634,120749],"class_list":["post-504812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chris-minns","tag-demonstrations","tag-josh-lees","tag-news","tag-nsw-premier","tag-nsw-protest-restrictions","tag-nsw-supreme-court","tag-palestine-action-group","tag-protests","tag-sydney-protests","tag-terror-attack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504812","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=504812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}